Review: Spera, Volume 1

Spera, Volume 1 by Josh Tierney
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I found this Eisner nominee on sale, and, when I flipped through and saw some of the excellent illustration, I had to give it a chance. Bottom line, it has some beautiful moments but it doesn’t entirely come together.

I’d be a little more comfortable with this if it somehow acknowledged it’s geared toward young adult or even “tween” readers. It tells the story of two princesses who have to flee a kingdom overrun by the mother of one of them. One princess is girly and sweet, the other was literally born with a sword in her hand. They have a powerful ally in a shape-shifting fire spirit named Yonder, who usually appears as a flaming wolf. The three outrun the queen’s forces on their way to a distant land, Spera, where they can fend for themselves as treasure-hunting adventurers.

That’s almost the entire story. There are few complications, and few surprises. The girls simply ride Yonder away, find their way through distant caves, and come out the other side. There’s never a conflict that can’t be solved pretty quickly, and there’s little that remains haunting.

On the plus side, I enjoy the clear effort here to reimagine the fairy tale romance through feminized heroes (or heroines). Lono and Pira each have things to recommend her, and each stands as a kind of ideal. There’s something satisfying primal in the story; charismatic and self-reliant kids have to face up to danger.

On the down, there’s just not much beef here. Almost two-thirds of this tells the “Spera” story of their escape. The remainder is a series of short stories about their subsequent adventures, but they read like the old 3-4 page follow-ups in comics books, the ones where, after Batman has defeated the Joker in the main story, he and Alfred have to determine what’s gone wrong with some element of the Batmobile or Bruce Wayne has to fool a prying reporter to maintain his secret identity. So, as an overall story, this is mostly forgettable.

Some of the illustrations, though, are stunning. The cover by Afu Chan is beautiful and compelling, and Kyla Vanderklugt does some amazing work bringing the characters to life in the first chapter. Those are the pictures that sold me on buying this. In chapter two, Hwei is less consistent, but her finest paintings – because they’re more paintings than drawings – are perhaps even stronger.

But then…things get very inconsistent. Each chapter turns out to have not just a different illustrator but also a different aesthetic altogether. Most of the other chapters and stories are more cartoony, less about conjuring a fresh portal to the magic of fairy tale and more about moving the story along. This story simply isn’t strong enough to get by with moving along, though; absent the power of those early illustrators this rapidly deteriorates.

I could forgive it a bit if this were clearer in what it’s trying to do. The blurbs on the back describe it as a kind of anthology; as I understand it, the idea was to give a range of talented young artists the opportunity to get published in book form. If that’s really the goal here, an introduction or preface might have helped.

Instead, what we have presents itself as a coherent story, and that’s how I feel obligated to take it. After a fine first few steps, though, it doesn’t really take off. If you come across the book on the shelves somewhere, it’s absolutely worth a look to see what some of this talent can do. For now, though, I’m more interested in these artists’ next projects than I am in this one.


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