Welcome to the Jungle is a story based in the world of The Dresden Files, a popular paranormal detective series written by Jim Butcher. The story itself revolves around a detective wizard as he investigate cases that defy the norm.

The story starts in a zoo where a night watchmen on rounds is seen to be attacked but some unseen, gruesome creature. Cut to the next morning where police are investigating the watchmens’ murder. All evidence seems to suggest an enraged gorilla killed the guard but not all the details add up, cue the protagonist. Dresden is called onto the murder scene as a consultant to give some sort of explanation for the murder other then “The Gorilla did it!”. As Dresden delves deeper into the man’s death though he finds there is someone behind the scenes working some dark mojo

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Welcome to the Jungle is both hoakey and awesome. Butcher’s writing throughout this hardcover is just a lot of fun. Between the overall pacing of the story, the occasional plot-twist, and depiction of Dresden, one would be hard-pressed to find many flaws within this book. Is this a perfect piece of writing? No. There are some groan-worthy lines I will admit but the hoakey parts never outweigh the awesome parts.

Ardian Syaf’s penciling in this book is a bit all over the place. Some panels are well detailed and illustrated while others are found to be lacking at times. I get the feel that Syaf wanted to draw everything perfectly yet ended up finally focusing on a couple of elements only. Facial expressions are usually detailed quiet well but things such as cars and buildings…yeah not so much.

Part of me thinks these variations in quality are also in part due to whoever was inking what. In total there were four different inkers on this title which I found to be a bit bizarre. I mean maybe I am off but the most I’ve ever seen on a title is like 2 inkers, tops.

Overall this comic is good, and enjoyable. It’s not high literature by any means but, if you’re like me that’s perfectly fine.

Sometimes a person just wants to see a guy decking out an attacking lion.

Bottom Line

-The protagonist is a trench coat wearing detective wizard

-The title was nominated for a Hugo Award for a reason.

-There’s a talking skull in it.

GO READ IT!

Writer(s): Mike Mignola & Christopher Golden

Art: Ben Stenbeck

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Baltimore: The Plague Ships is your usual Mignola type story. The story starts out with a Lord Baltimore hunting down some vampires in search of an old vampire called Haigus. Baltimore slices his way through vampire after vampire running after others, hoping to capture and interrogate one of them for information. As the vampires climb towards a zeppelin moored to a Church roof, a bolt of lightning hits the roof turning the vampires to ash and knocking out Baltimore. There is more but I don’t wanna spoil anymore then I already have

The story is good put simply. If you like Mignola or Golden’s prior works your gonna enjoy this. I think the people who read Baltimore, or The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire will probably get more out of this series then those who didn’t though, as there seems to be nods to the prior book at certain times. I myself still haven’t read Baltimore, or The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire, but it didn’t effect my enjoyment of this first issue at all.

The art as a whole was a joy to look at, as Ben Stenbeck really took advantage of the space he was given and drew some pretty bad ass panels

Not a whole lot more I can say about this title as its just the first issue so things are just starting to ramp up.

Bottom Line
Bottom Line: If you like the idea of a guy with a peg-leg decapitating Nazi Vampires, try this title out