It has been weeks now since I heard the news of Star Warsâ„¢: The Old Republicâ„¢, Blood of the Empire was being developed as a collaborative venture between BioWare, LucasArts, and Dark Horse Comics. BioWare long cemented their spot in my heart when they released KoToR, making them the only company I would leave my day job for. This love affair even managed to survive the buyout by EA. Written in conjunction with the BioWare writing team working on Star Wars: The Old Republic and produced by the comic experts at Dark Horse, the comic is supposed to offer readers a dramatic introduction to the Old Republic time period in two weeks intervals.
The first issue recently made it to the site and wasn’t overly impressed. Because it is BioWare I will continue to read the comic but it’s not the best start. we are thrown into the middle of a battle that ends within 4 pages. There’s something that doesn’t come across in a webcomic when using a bond intro. Without the music or at least some kind of forced timing there is no way to get the pacing required to build suspense. So right away I’m losing interest because i can’t figure out if this battle is brought to an end through normal means (extreme carnage) or through the Sith taking down the tower. Leaving a reader in confusion is not the best tactic.
Moving on to the art, I felt like nothing new is being introduced. There is a vague similarity to the game art but when seeing it in comic form it just looks like something from the 90’s. Perhaps I’m being a little over critical but I read webcomics because they introduce me to something I’ve never seen before and/or do it better than anyone else. The art and font are so generic that I completely ignore them and have to say there is nothing remarkable worth mentioning, but I’ll try. Overall everything is fairly realistic and to scale, with no exaggerated features present in other art forms, such as manga. So you could say it follows the current trend in American comics, by softening the lines and killing off most of the detailed that would truly make it pop. Almost as if the things that would make each page salable have been sacrificed in return for mass production.
Despite having so much about it I don’t like I will be coming back. This is solely based on the product and my trust in the writers. My recommendation is to wait 3 months and then start reading it.
