Canto & The City of Giants #1

Canto & The City of Giants #1

IDW Publishing 2021

Created by David M. Boher & Drew Zucker

Written by David M. Boher

Illustrated by Sebastián Piriz

Lettered by Andworld Design

Canto has surprised, delighted, and moved readers with tales of the clockwork hero—fighting for love, his people, and hope! In this special Canto series, our titular hero reunites with the Giant Guardians of Dis, Fra and Ba, as well as other friends and foes, to recruit the kingdom of Giants to his quest to defeat the Shrouded Man.

I love Canto this is the best character find since Robin debuted and there is no disputing that fact. This issue what David does with the writing and during Canto’s meeting with the King and Queen says it all. I honestly believe in that moment he won the Queen over with his response and that is as it should be, or at least he was able to garner her respect to a degree. This little guy is one of today’s greatest lesson sharer’s and even the Misturian Witch, who we need to start calling by a proper name, is swayed by his words, actions and loyalty.

I adore the way that this is being told. How we see the story & plot development through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information couldn’t be done any better. While it reminds me of Land of the Giants to see the pair of them traipsing through the city. I am in admiration of the character development we see and the more of Canto and his friends we see the more we see how noble they truly are. Also the pair seems to wish to emulate him to a degree while maintaining their own identities and I think this is perfectly represented. The pacing is perfect and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story and where they are in the world you just don’t want it to end.

How we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to grow, strengthen and evolve while new ones also emerge is why this complex little story feels so simple. Plus every arc feels like the perfect jumping on point for new readers and that’s an amazing thing to see. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as it also moves the story ever forward is utterly delightful to see.

The interiors here are gorgeous! The linework that we see with its varying weights and techniques that allow the detail work to really shine is astonishingly well rendered. How we see the backgrounds with the same kind of attention is marvellous, that moment with the chainmail on the skeleton is a thing of pure beauty. The composition within the panels bring us some fantastic depth perception, a sense of scale which mighty important and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is rendered extremely well. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented eye for storytelling. The colour work is perfectly rendered as well. How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is beauteous. How colour is utilised to bring depth and dimension to what we see as well shows such an innate understanding of how colour works and a superb eye for its application.

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Everyone is or should be reading this series it’s the best thing on stands time and time again and now matter how many arcs hit stands it maintains its undeniable charm and charisma without fail. That it is three issue arcs means there’s never a time to get bored just time for us to wait impatiently for the next arc to arrive. With impeccable writing and the best characters in comics being wrapped up in these stunningly gorgeous interiors it’s no wonder why Canto is the best series on stands.