Ennead: The Rule of Nine, Book 1 – Not Too Far From Home is a comic created and written by J. L. Johnson with art by Luke Horsman. I’m not gonna lie, this first issue was a lot. We get introduced to a bunch of characters and get slight glimpses of their motivations and place in this world. And except for one person I couldn’t rightfully tell you who is in the main cast. This story takes place across many locations and it seems like it’ll be full of political intrigue, clandestine operations, and just straight up fighting. The plot so far is a king doing war stuff and a man on a journey to somewhere. There’s other stuff going on but those seem like the two main plotlines. Also this comic is wordy. Heavily wordy. Like at least 30% of some of these pages are speech bubbles. And it is not just filler throwaway stuff, some taken-for-granted concepts are discussed and broken down, but this is done in the context of this world. Judging from this first issue this series is gonna be one of those that gives you some thoughts with your action.

            I was confused just about the whole time I was reading this. This black-and-white art looks great, but when you have 10+ different people on screen it can be hard to tell who’s who. I had to reread pages multiple times just to understand the flow of a scene. Some conversations I almost gave up on just because I couldn’t tell who was saying what. But after a couple reads I think I got it. All my confusion might also be a product of this being the debut issue, as these tend to be introduction heavy. Due to the lack of color of this comic the backgrounds are almost irrelevant, we might see a tree or two, a couple of buildings, just enough to know where we are. The outfits here are very medieval and nothing stands out as unique to this world specifically. The faces are drawn well, and they are expressive. But what this comic suffers from isn’t face sameness exactly, it’s more like…you know how some siblings look alike but you can still tell them apart? Well here you’ll see two faces of two different people on different pages/panels and you shall to figure out exactly who it is you are looking at. Or maybe it’s just me. The action scenes do look tough and spare nothing when it comes to gruesomeness.

“Is this worth reading?”

Yes.

“Would I like this?”

If you like high fantasy with large casts this’ll be a good read. Especially if you like thought-provoking comics. There is some visual confusion so you’ll have to pay attention.

“What would this comic’s film rating be?”

R. Chop chop.

“Could I get a quote from the comic?”

“That is one luxury you and your brother do not have.”

 

Website Link(Can receive the first issue free!): https://www.enneadcomic.com/

Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/enneadcomic/ennead-the-rule-of-nine-epic-fantasy-re-envisioned/description

***IN-DEPTH COMIC STATS BELOW***

Probably Contains Spoilers

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Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 30

Violent Pages: 7, for 23% of the comic

Sexy Pages: 0, for 0% of the comic

 

**The levels below aren’t necessarily maintained throughout the whole comic, but they were definitely reached**

 

Violence Level – 4

“Wasn’t no tussling at all.”

“Sometimes you gotta hit somebody.”

“I’m getting charged with how many counts of assault?”

“This was a tournament arc.”

“All my life I had to fight.”

 

Gore Level – 4

“The only thing leaking out your face is tears.”

“Looks like somebody spilled some ketchup.”

“Might need to soak that up with a bath towel.”

“That isn’t supposed to be outside the body.”

“This is a slaughterhouse.”

 

Death Level – 4

“And everybody lived happily ever after.”

“We might have gone to a couple funerals.”

“It just LOOKS like a serial killer was here.”

“Yeah this was a tragedy.”

“Think Gettysburg.”

 

Porn Level – 1

“Everybody kept their clothes on.”

“I guess it was too hot for a bra.”

“Sometimes you got to let everything air out.”

“This is like late night Cinemax in the early 2000’s.”

“Oh. This is porn.”