By Zack Quaintance — I’m just going to be blunt here: The Many Deaths of Laila Starr #1 — which is due out from publisher BOOM! Studios on April 21 — is a beautiful comic. To be reductive here, it’s primarily beautiful in two simple ways: the top-tier artwork by Filipe Andrade, and the flourishes of prose in the third person narration penned by writer Ram V.

The concept is solid, steeped in theology, mythology, and contemplations of life and death. I especially enjoyed the way all of this was grounded in the goals, reactions, and desires of the book’s characters. It was in this way not entirely unlike one of my favorite comics of all time, Sandman. All that aside, however, it’s the execution and craft that really bring this comic to life…and gorgeously so.

I want to talk first about Andrade’s work in this comic, because I think this book could almost (almost!) function on its own without the text or captions, which is not at all a slight to Ram V., whose contributions we’ll get to in short order. Without the captioning, a good many details would get lost and we likely might miss the finer points of the concept, namely that our main character is a bureaucratic take on the grim reaper who just found out she is destined to be replaced due to innovation, which, relatable.

We still, however, would know that this was an ethereal story about reincarnation, birth and death, and persevering in the face of it all. Moreover, Andrade’s work is so enrapturing and expressive, that it feels wholly capable of entertaining throughout entirely on its own merits. There’s so much creativity and fascinating detail in each panel, all of it seemingly influenced by the story’s setting in Mumbai. The artwork also has a taut flow to it, feeling bouncy as it pulls the reader through the story’s paces at a brisk and jaunty speed.

There’s a lot of unanswerable questions about death as well as a lot of very tired cliched imagery. The Many Deaths of Laila Starr #1 is well-aware of all of that, determined as it is to put forth a new and refreshing version of all those concepts as the visuals dance right through. Yet at the same time, the work in this book (as well as the book itself) never feels disorienting or abstract to the point that readers are liable to lose grounding or interest in the actual narrative, always the risk that experimental storytelling runs in a periodicals.

Simply put, there’s not a comic that looks as good while functioning as well The Many Deaths of Laila Starr #1. It’s rich and precise, and it really seems as if not a single compromise has been made for the monthly direct market. There are no gratuitous bits of action, no scary set of eyes in the background to give us a cliffhanger, and no sudden revelation that the first two acts were actually just an appetizer for some kind of shoehorned genre romp.

But I digress and will now promptly run away from that list of my own personal recurring pet peeves for comics…

Anyway! The other quality of this book — one that feels equally as rich and striking — is the poetic flourishes in the third person narration. Ram V’s prose throughout this book is literary and melodic. It grounds and orients the reader (much like the artwork does on its end), but there’s also a muse at work here, a spirit of capturing the beauty inherent to the cycle of life and death with turns of phrases to match the visuals. I think either of the facets of this book — the writing and the art — are interesting of their own merits, yet they’re both perfectly in synch, which makes for an end product that is greater than the sum of its parts (the dream in comics!).

So often, good writing in comics is framed in terms of big ideas or throwaway one-liners dependent on witticisms. It’s fairly rare that a writer in this medium (especially for monthly fare) charges headlong at prose, emerging with fearless third person narration that could stand on its own as a lengthy poem or the foundation of a short story. In the first draft of this review, I had pulled several of the best narration boxes to serve as examples of what I’m talking about here, but you know what? There’s not really any filler in this book, so when you get your own copy, flip to a random page and put your finger on a text box — because that’s what I’m talking about.

Ultimately, the bottom line here is that The Many Deaths of Laila Starr #1 is Very Good (capitalization intentional). This book is swaggering with its use of craft and poetics and compelling story, adding up to one of my favorite new comics of the year.

Overall: The Many Deaths of Laila Starr #1 is an absolutely gorgeous comic built on a firm bedrock of emotive artwork and melodic prose. Come for a concept steeped in life and death, stay to witness two mighty talents executing their craft on stunning levels. 9.8/10

ADVANCED REVIEW: The Many Deaths of Laila Starr #1

The Many Deaths of Laila Starr #1
Writer: Ram V.
Artist: Felipe Andrade
Letterer: AndWorld Design
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
A powerful new series for fans of The Wicked + The Divine and The Dreaming from Ram V (Justice League Dark) and Filipe Andrade (Captain Marvel) that explores the fine line between living and dying in Mumbai through the lens of magical realism.
With humanity on the verge of discovering immortality, the avatar of Death is fired and relegated to the world below to live out her now-finite days in the body of twenty-something Laila Starr in Mumbai.
Struggling with her new-found mortality, Laila has found a way to be placed in the time and place where the creator of immortality will be born...
But will Laila take her chance to permanently reverse the course of (future) history...or does a more shocking fate await her?
Price: $3.99
Buy It Here: The Many Deaths of Laila Starr #1

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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.