Isola is a fantasy action/ad venture comic by Image Comics, released in April 2018. The first issue is visual heavy and dialogue spars. I can hear you now, but Alex, aren’t all comics visual heavy? Yes, and no. My last review was about Wasted Space #1, and if you’ve read that you’ll know it doesn’t have the most beautiful artwork you’d see in a comic (which is the point). Isola, on the other hand, has some of the MOST BEAUTIFUL art you will see in a comic.

Art:

I’m already talking about it, so I might as well finish it off. There is a ton of color in this first issue. While the characters and creatures are drawn slightly cartoonish they are still more on the realism side than something like manga.

Each series of panels is illustrated in a different hue or tone, creating an atmospheric experience throughout. For instance, at night all the panels on a page (for the scene) might have a blue tone, while in the morning they might have something more red. These colors are also reflected in the animals that populate the world. One of the main characters, Isola herself, is a black and fluorescent teal tiger.

Story:

It seems as though readers are sorta thrown into this story somewhere in the middle. Olwyn, that tiger I mentioned earlier, is a queen who has been turned into a tiger–though why we do not yet know. The woman traveling with this queen in disguise is some type of guardian. Their immediate aim is to get the queen to safety, but how or what Isola is in danger of, besides hunters, we aren’t sure either. Since there are only two main characters, as of yet, and one of them is a tiger that can’t speak–apparently animals can’t speak in this fantasy world–you can imagine why there isn’t a ton of dialogue. While this may make a different comic suffer, the art is enough to keep a reader (or should I say viewer?) turning pages.

Conclusion:

I’ve already ordered #2. There are only 3 out as of yet, but I’m certainly interested in this world and the characters involved. When I went by my local comic shop, The Danger Room, the fellow there said they’d already started a second printing of Isola #2, which is very rare for something so new. This is good. It means the comic must be doing well.