Zorro: New World #2

Zorro: New World #2

American Mythology Productions 2021

Written by Ian Rimmer & Ted Alben

Illustrated by Mario Capaldi

Over three decades ago Marvel Comics created a Zorro comic book based on the popular Family Channel television series featuring Duncan Regehr as the swashbuckling hero. These tales have been out of print since that time and we are proud to deliver an incredible series of western action and adventure to today's audience! Zorro must face a strange and devious magician who has his eyes set on more than just gold coins. This classic tale will transport you into the swashbuckling world of Zorro!

I absolutely love this. To see the story reprinted here and to see the talent, skill and passion for the work that we do rivals anything we see being done today. You can see where inspiration comes from and how while the medium has grown, changed and evolved in a lot of ways the fundamentals stay the same. For me this is something I am passionate about because we see such wonderful storytelling and it’s the kind of work we forget about being so wrapped up in the modern world and forget the past that the work we see today. This is an important part of comics history and with Zorro’s Centennial it’s nice to see that it’s being remembered and honoured.

I am loving 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 information is presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter does wonders in bringing their personalities to life. I think that how we see Diego’s mind work here is done exceptionally well. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages we’re drawn into this exceedingly well.

How we see this being structured and how the layers within the story emerge, grow and evolve is magnificently portrayed. I love seeing how the layers within this story open up different avenues and most of them are explored and add to the main arc and what they all do regardless, is they add this great depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is immaculately achieved.

The interiors here are absolutely lovely. The linework is exquisite and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to draw out this level & quality of work in the attention to detail is bloody brilliant to see. From seeing the gloved hand to the way we see Zorro’s costume the imagery is simply stunning. That we see backgrounds so prolific throughout the book to expand and enhance the moments is beautifully rendered. They also work well within the composition of the panels to bring out this amazing depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a masterful eye for storytelling. The colour work is amazing and how we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilsied to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows such a great understanding of how colour works.

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Very rarely do we see a story where the main character is seen in such a way that we get such a great understanding of who that person is at their core. The actions Don Diego takes before even donning his Zorro persona spotlight who he is. It is hard to tell which is the real person and which is the front is Don Diego a ruse or is Zorro just an extension of who he is and to be this engaged in the book is utterly marvellous. The writing is phenomenal and the characterisation is sharp and witty while the interiors bring this to life with such grace and beauty. This is why Zorro is still popular one hundred years after his creation.