By Zack Quaintance — We are in the midst of a U.S. election cycle where the status quo is a looming figure in all discussions, at least as it applies to the Democratic Primary. Early in the political process, candidates staked out positions on healthcare that essentially became bellwethers for their willingness to topple established systems, and off we went. As is so often the case, our politics were reflecting the fascinations of the electorate, an electorate that like many populations across the globe is largely finding itself on the wrong end of rapidly widening resource and income inequality gaps.

All of these ideas and issues are key ingredients in the new OGN from publisher First Second — The Golden Age (Book One) by writer Roxanne Moreil and artist Cyril Pedrosa, both of whom are from France. As the teaser text for the book notes, this is a story of utopia and revolution, of trading a status quo that serves some to upend and potentially reconstruct everything, with the promise of lessons learned via injustice ushering in a brighter day for all but those with the most power in the previous world. 

It’s powerful and familiar stuff, but, thematically, it’s all cut from very familiar idea cloth, sharing ideological space with what feels like a fairly sound majority of sci-fi and fantasy stories these days, not just in comics but in most mediums. What sets this book apart is how those familiar and timely ideas are delivered to the audience. 

The Golden Age Book 1 uses an ethereal and, to be blunt, gorgeous art style. It’s visually enticing, with a striking quality that will draw in a reader as much to just savor the beauty as to decipher the events said beauty conveys. Everything from perspective to the coloring to the lettering is done in a way that blends together seamlessly while feeling wholly new and novel. It’s medieval to be sure, but the visuals don’t draw from the hundreds of years of similar aesthetics in anything but spirit, forging a Golden Age style of artful graphic sequential storytelling one can only find in this exact book. It’s the goal, perhaps, of everyone who sits down to create comics from their minds eye, and this book achieves it a stunning way without sacrificing any of the orientation readers depend on to tell the story.

This of course ties into the quality of the scripting as well. The writer trusts the readers to tap in and understand what’s being done here just as much as the artist, to appreciate the ideas we talked about earlier in the context of suspenseful fantasy journey. So often, fantasy journeying is a genre that leaves no wiggle room for ambiguity, a genre that bludgeons readers over the head incessantly with what is happening and why. Much to its credit, The Golden Age will afford you no such handholding, instead daring you come along and join up for its stunning work as it sets about upending the status quo. 

Overall, this is an ethereal work about power structures and inequitable societies by a pair of veteran French comics creators, the highest praise I can give the Golden Age Book 1 is that upon completion I immediately Googled the release date for Book 2 — and was bereft to not find it. First Second continues a streak of topical and relevant works powered by whimsical dreamscape art with this book, which I’d recommend to any and all readers.

The Golden Age Book 1
Writer: Roxanne Moreil
Artist: Cyril Pedrosa
Publisher: First Second
Release Date: Feb. 11, 2020

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.