Publisher: Legendary
Writer: Judd Winick
Artist: Geoff Shaw
Colourist: Jamie Grant
Release Date: 23rd April, 2015

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Dragon eggs, eh? Can’t live with ‘em, can’t destroy ‘em, so sometimes the best idea is to travel halfway round the world and bury them, hoping they’ll never be unearthed… right? That’s the philosophy adopted by the ancient Vikings, anyway. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? Well, cut to the sleepy mountain town of, yes, Dragon (the clue’s in the title), a present-day community doing its best to cash in on the speculation that the legend above did in fact happen. Dragon-themed gift shops, dragon-themed restaurants… no tacky cash-in is beneath them as they try desperately to keep the town from sliding into poverty. Unfortunately however, a scientific discovery in the mountains above the town brings them face to face with the reality of this ‘legend’, with Dragon’s woefully unprepared inhabitants forced to band together to save themselves from death on scaly wings.

Judd Winick’s story starts off as a fairly straightforward ‘action movie’, with the bodies rapidly starting to pile up following the discovery – and subsequent hatching – of the aforementioned egg. It’s undeniably fun and utterly cinematic, but during the early pages of this series I started to find myself drifting away from the story, longing for something more to get my teeth into. Thankfully, Winick ramps things up considerably in the second half following a ‘Signs’-esque revelation that suggests the town’s inhabitants may not all be there strictly by coincidence. Some of the characters are given some truly compelling arcs too, particularly washed-up football player Cooper and troubled mountaineer Mickey.

Artist Geoff Shaw brings these events to life in a bold, brash, larger-than-life style, with chunky characters and a brilliantly rendered dragon. The facial expressions are all suitably over-exaggerated and the violence is over the top and drenched with blood and bullets. Jamie Grant also helps enhance the mood with some great colour work, giving the whole thing a glossy, cinematic feel. Simply put, this is a terrific looking book, filled with dynamic action sequences and impressive splash pages, and while Shaw’s talents don’t necessarily led themselves to the quieter, character-based moments, he still does a decent enough job of giving these moments the gravitas they need.

As impressive as this book is from a visual standpoint, one of the few niggles I had was the fact that the sound effects and onomatopoeia become more than a little overwhelming at times, especially during instances of gunfire where panels and pages are rapidly filled up with a suffocating rat-a-tat-tatt’ing. I understand that the team is going for a ‘balls-to-the-wall action’ feel in some of their scenes, but this approach unfortunately ended up distracting from Shaw’s impressive artwork, diminishing the intended effect rather than enhancing it.

Overall however, A Town Called Dragon is loud, exciting, and a hell of a lot cleverer than you might initially think. Sure, it’s not exactly reinventing the wheel, but for a slice of pulse-pounding action with a great twist and a cast of characters it’s practically impossible not to find yourself rooting for, this is a collection that’s definitely well worth a look.

Rating: 4/5.

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You can purchase A Town Called Dragon TP from Turnaround Publisher Services (who generously provided the review copy of this title) via their official website.

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The writer of this piece was: Craig Neilson (aka Ceej)
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