Dungeons & Dragons At The Spine of the World #2

Dungeons & Dragons At The Spine of the World #2

IDW Publishing 2020

Written by Aimee Garcia & AJ Mendez

Illustrated by Martin Coccolo

Coloured by Katrina Mae Hao

Lettered by Neil Uyetake

As Runa, Saarvin, Patience, Amos, and Belvyre trek across the icy tundra in search of a hidden city whose magic could help save their own, they find themselves at the mercy of the blighted landscape… and hunted by unimaginable monsters.

Oh I am certainly enjoying this a lot more than I could have possibly hoped for and with the high standards I have with the Dungeons & Dragons line that is saying something. When a story in this genre feels like it’s an actual table top adventure come to life there is this specific felling a gamer gets when reading this that in indescribable. For those who don’t normally play with their friends, you really should, it has all the feel of a proper superhero team book. One where the cast of characters are all fighting for the same reason and come together because the whole is greater than the individual parts. Regardless of what species the characters are they are exactly what superheroes are and they have this humanity to them that many alien species we see in “traditional” superhero comics are constantly striving to find.

I love the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns infor4mation is presented exceptionally well. The character development is utterly phenomenal to see. With such a diverse cast of characters with such varied beliefs and strong personalities to see them interacting with one another is a pure joy. Through their dialogue and how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter continue to flesh them out is utterly delightful. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story and the twists & turns along the way is so much fun.

How we see this book being structured along with the layers within the story and the new layers that emerge it has this great depth and complexity to the story that may surprise you. Seeing how well everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow is wonderfully done. This really draws you in and captures your imagination as it engages your mind and nearly transports you to this wondrous world.

The interiors here are so stunning. The linework that we see his sensational, it’s strong and with the varying weights being utilised it creates some stellar, absolutely stellar detail work. We also see some really nice variation in the techniques as well and altogether it brings such a powerful view to the story. That we see backgrounds utilised as we do considering we’re in a frozen wasteland and a dark cave makes me such a happy camper. I don’t like blank backgrounds so to see swirling snow at least shows me that there is a high level of care to what we are being presented. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show such a talented eye for storytelling. Also to use undead (Frost) Giants and being able to show us this depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is incredibly well done. The colour work is gorgeous. How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work we see shows a stupendous understanding of how colour works.

​

Inventive, creative and a surefire way to engage the readers’ minds and imaginations the Dungeons & Dragons line is among the best storytelling on stands today.