Squarriors, come out to pla-a-ay · 1:49am Aug 25th, 2016
SQUARRIORS, by Ashley Witter and Ash Maczko
I haven't seen this before. huh. huh?
so basically, humans are gone, and the intelligent animals fight each other with swords and politics. very gritty.
I haven't read it beyond a few preview pages. the advertising doesn't convince me it's my kind of thing anyway. they could pick a better name, at least.
“And the art… oh my god, the art. It is hyper-realistic, it is visceral, it is so goddamn beautiful.” - Bloody Disgusting
"visceral" has become one of those fancy art buzzwords. it doesn't mean anything.
alternatively, in a medical context it means "internal organs" ... considering all the violence I saw on the preview pages, this is confusing me into thinking it's a hyper-realistic gore comic. thanks for the mental image, Mr. Bloody Disgusting.
“It would be very easy to call this story “Game of Thrones-meets-Watership Down-meets-Star Wars-meets-Walking Dead-meets-Fellowship of the Ring-meets-Mouse Guard,” etc. Squarriors is all of those things, and none of those things." - Slack Jaw Punks
Meets, meets, meats? I can see the influence of Game of Thrones, and the Walking Dead. I'll have to take their word on the Star Wars and LotR parts. Those share the "hero's journey" monomyth with Watership Down, but maybe he just picked that one because of all the animals dying.
but Mouse Guard? hey, I know that one! I'm surprised it's become the standard, replacing the obvious "Redwall" comparison. or Rats of NIMH, since that one also involved humans.
Okay I'm having fun making fun of these awkward cover quotes (from their Kickstarter page), but I did have to think about Mouse Guard again. in that post I wrote about the RPG book, I had a lot of trouble trying to describe the setting in a few sentences. I kinda skimmed over that to get on to the part about RPG rules. if I had to try it again now, I'd say that Mouse Guard is about.... uh......
I still don't know how to sum it up. on the surface it seems like "animal fantasy" but it's a kind I've never seen before. it's a natural world of huge predators and dangerous terrain, held at bay by this civilization the mice have forged. their cute little cities and castles have such a fantastic aura to them, feeling more swashbuckling and medieval than any human story, yet the outside world - the dragons and giants they must fight - are mundane wild animals like badgers and owls (the weasels are the one exception, as they are also civilized, wearing clothes and weilding swords). it's not like Redwall, where fantasy archetypes seem to be swapped out for various animals. big guys = badgers. tree huggers = squirrels. evil people = rats.
if you know Redwall and Watership Down, it's some kind of hybrid in between those ends of the scale. but somehow, it feels both more objective AND more fantastic than either of those, at the same time. at least it does to me.
the author definitely knows his stuff about both medieval societies and forest ecosystems. and a great artist who can capture the natural world's beauty, while also having a keen eye for expressive style for the mice characters. but most of all, he's a good story teller, and I admire his imagination. Mouse Guard is such a unique story, something I could never conceive on my own, no matter how many years I tried.
Squarriors? Eh, give me an hour. Actually, I think I already came up with this while bored in Jr High School. "oh, what if Redwall were dark and violent?!" The art may be hyper-realistic and the story full of complicated family lineages and politics, but I detect very little imagination at work here.
there's also a Squarriors trading card game in the works, but very little has been revealed so far. I wish I could see the rules! I know more about card game design than writing...
Gives me a Warrior Cats vibe, too
4170324
trying to read a summary of that series makes my head hurt. so complicated, so many names.
4170445
Firestar is Twilight. Bluestar is Celestia
Ha! that sounds like it's mocking the book.
Anyway, judging by the art alone it looks interesting. But yes, it definitely seems to have lots of influences. Not necessarily a bad thing, I guess.
But...it is! Okay, not exactly dark. But definitely violent!
4170324
Oh hey Warrior Cats :D Been a while since I read those. Man. I only made it through the second series, and a few of the standalone novels. I've had the 3rd series just chilling on my shelf for like five years now. I'll probably read it one day. The second series did a lot of things I didn't like. Par for the course, I suppose.
4170445
The number of names is overwhelming, but you get used to it quickly. Just start at the very beginning and you'll be fine.
4183334
okay, "gory" then.
I don't mind influences, but I've seen so many animal fantasy stories that a lot of them don't stand out much.
though that review quote, that's just a bad way to sell something. it's A and B and C and D and.... makes me wonder where the original ideas have room to fit in.
4183346
Yeah, when you see a lot of one thing, it becomes more and more difficult for it to strike your interest when little to nothing new is added.