‘Sacred Creatures, Vol. 1: A Mixture of Madness’ (review)

Written and Illustrated by
Pablo Raimondi, Klaus Janson
Published by Image Comics

This book has one of the best openings of a comic book that I have read in recent years. There are a lot of mysterious characters talking about something rather important. Then, we meet a bloody Josh Miller in an elevator. He says something cryptic. He gets to the ground floor. A man falls from a window onto a car. The fallen man gets up. It’s one hell of an exciting beginning.

Janson and Raimondi get the book rocking from that beginning. That’s why it’s such a shame that they can’t maintain the momentum on this, especially during the last two chapters of this book.

After that exciting opening, we see Josh living his life. He’s an unemployed student applying for jobs. He has a pregnant girlfriend who is also SUPER supportive!

Though it’s hard to see why after awhile: Josh is kind of a mope.

He gets his bike stolen and that leads him into meeting a young kid. The young kid tells him he will meet someone who will hand him a weapon. He will use that weapon to end someone’s life.

And that’s when this book gets predictable. It takes awhile and it all leads to that opening scene. We see Josh coming across gods and angels all based on the seven deadly sins. We get a lot of back story that is beautifully drawn by Janson (he draws the flashback sequences), but it adds nothing to the book. Then you find yourself zoning out.

The last two chapters are really hard: Josh all but disappears from his own book. There is a surprising death that stuns but again it isn’t reflected on after it happens so you become numb to it. And then, it just ends. It sets you up for volume 2 in the weakest way possible.

The story isn’t the best. But Janson’s illustrations are. And in the present sequences, which is most of the book, Raimondi stuns with his artwork. It may be the most beautiful work I’ve see in quite awhile. I wish the story wasn’t so bogged down, because of the art. It’s mostly worth it for that. The rest we’ve seen before in much more interesting ways than this.

RATING: B-