I am so Impressed with the Luna Brothers.

The basic story is so simple.

Girl finds a magic sword.

Bad Guys want magic sword.

Bad guys create a bad situation for girl.

Girl deals with said situation with magic sword.

Simple, no?

No.

The Luna Brothers know how to let a story unfold. They do such a great job setting up the characters without giving away the story direction. All throughout this book I felt a sustained sense of discovery. I didn’t know where the story would go.

So many questions are raised regarding the origins of the Sword, the powers it bestows, and the motivations of those who wish to obtain it. So often in fantastical fiction, such questions are dealt with in vague mysto-babble. But the Luna explore their mythology in a way that doesn’t feel convoluted. They ground the fantastical in a reality that feals not unreal.

As for the art:  It is deceptively simple. The panels are almost documentary like in their elegant restraint. Their art style feels similar to that you would see in an instruction manual, or those emergency pamphlets on airplanes. This helps underscore the sense of grounded reality, and heightens the sense of horror as we see the violence presented in such a matter-of -fact way. The bloodshed isn’t about stylistic acrobatics. It’s about the realistic ugliness of blade on flesh.

The Luna Brothers feel like a completely unique voice in the medium of comics. And “The Sword” has me completely sold on the them.