Review -- ATHRA

Athra
Written by Nathaniel Sullivan
Pencils by Nathaniel Sullivan
Indie
Athra by Nathaniel Sullivan is one of those titles you can tell is being created by a comic fan. I say that because the creator is tossing a bit of everything into the mix.
The story starts out what appears to be a pretty normal medieval world, but about a dozen pages in the full splash page of a woman in what appears a space suit says there are going to be twists and turns along the way.
The creature that appears part demon and maybe a bit vampire also shows Sullivan is bringing a lot of comic ideas together in Athra.
The story, after only one issue, is intriguing enough that you want to find out more though, and that is a key thing.
It is also obvious Athra is near to Sullivan’s heart the way he talks about how the book evolved as an idea.
“I spend a great deal of time, as much as possible, outside, hiking, working, walking with my dogs and I really began to conceive of the story, of Athra, in terms of images,” he said. “Walking through the woods, crossing fields, hiking beside rivers, I more or less filled the landscape with images, with fragments of stories. I've always done that and I've conceived any number of stories that way. By the time I actually began working on Athra, I had a slew of images in reserve.
“So, for my part, I begin with images. In the case of Athra, images of a rather small, isolated, rural, relatively primitive community, mountains, streams, rivers, and so forth.”
Onto the canvas of the idyllic village, Sullivan said he had to overlay a conflict to create a story.
“Understandably enough, I proceeded to introduce change in the form of a very basic threat and a very basic answer,” he said. “Aristotle observed that a man who can live apart from others is either a god or a beast. Needless to say, such a man is a threat because he’s either far better or far worse than man. I chose the latter, a man who’s a beast, a basic threat to the community, a killer that comes in the night and a basic answer, Athra, a soldier, presumably a deserter, who needs a place to hide and in no position to refuse to try to kill the threat.
“I should add that, for the moment, the story is, in essence, Beowulf. That was the basic inspiration for the storyline. And yes, we'll see the monster's mother, Kaldgrani’s mother.
“That said, I decided very early on in the process that that story should, simultaneously, resonate with a much greater, and for Athra personally, altogether mysterious world. Accordingly, in the first issue, Athra briefly encounters a woman in tears, dressed in some kind of astronaut gear, who knows him and claims to have loved him, before disappearing. In short, there will be science-fiction elements as well and any number of mysteries.
“If I had to sum Athra up very simply, then I'd probably describe it as Conan and Lost. Or the thinking man's Conan.”
Sullivan’s vision is one on a grand scale.
“I should add that Athra is caught between mysterious, warring forces, forces he doesn’t understand, and those forces will intrude on Athra from time to time, sometimes in small ways, sometimes in significant ways.
“I should also add that I won't be cheating. Mysteries will be answered. I have no interest in leading readers down rabbit holes and leaving them there. So, rest assured, the mysteries have answers and answers will be provided.
“Think of Athra walking a long a shore. Sometimes slight ripples from a distant, powerful storm will reach him. And sometimes waves will sweep over him and carry him away.
“The book should be very nearly operatic, tremendous soaring highs, abysmal lows, and great passions surging through the story.
“That was a rather conscious choice. If you read Walter Scott’s novels, then you find that the hero is always a middling man, a man caught between great forces opposing one another. And that will be Athra. Athra is caught between opposing forces, some of which are native to his world and some are greater, much more sophisticated warring forces that are not native to his world.”
Sullivan’s art at times seems a little uninspired. There is for example one two-page spread with 10 panels, with all but one basically a head shot. He does a solid enough job of faces, but at time he needs to mix it up just a bit more.
At other times a page can be quite striking. I particularly like the full page treatment of Athra with a bowstring drawn. The concentration Sullivan captured in the character’s eye was dramatic.
“From the start, Athra has been black and white,” he said. “That was a conscious choice. Given that I’m the writer and artist and that there’s no one else, colour just isn’t an option. With that being the case, I set about trying to construct a book that wanted to be black and white. By that I mean that I decided that Athra wouldn’t look like a book waiting for a colorist. I decided that Athra was going to be a book that worked in black and white that wanted to be black and white.
“And making that work required a lot of experimentation.
“Initially, I composed the pages in pencil and then added ink. Frankly, it was a disaster. The pages were just lifeless. There just wasn’t any energy. One of the things that makes a drawing interesting is line variation. If all the lines of a drawing are the same
weight, executed at the same speed, the same amount of pressure on the paper, then the drawing will just be awful. If you look at master drawings, then you’ll see a great deal of variation in the lines. I just wasn’t able to achieve that doing pencils and adding ink. The drawings just looked labored, dead, lifeless.
“So I started over and changed things radically.
“I began doing a lot of the drawing, and eventually most of it, digitally. I begin with very loose gestural drawings and cover the page with sketches, very light, fast lines. Then I tend to add some weight and some of the dark areas. Then I come back with white ink and cut away at the black. Nearly all of this is done digitally. I continue that process until I have a drawing that really has some spontaneity and as much energy as possible. The process is somewhat akin to etching or scratchboard. In a lot of instances, I’ll add
large areas of black, cut away at them with white ink, and repeat this over and over. The real advantage of this is that it’s not mechanical. Working that way, I can add marks, cut away at them, add more, and keep working on the page, really attacking it, until it’s done. That's not really an option with pencil and ink. Working digitally, I can, and I often do, just eliminate huge areas of art, whole pages sometimes, and come in again and again.”
Sullivan said the effort has been worthwhile, since he is satisfied with Issue #1, although as a self-critic he would change some things.
“On the one hand, I worked very hard, especially on the art and I kept working on the art until I was relatively satisfied,” he said. “To be perfectly honest, however, I’m never satisfied. I spend a great deal of time drawing from life and when the drawings aren’t perfect, and nothing is ever perfect, it’s agony for me. Ingre once broke down in tears because he couldn’t get the eyes just right. I understand that entirely.
“With Athra, I tell myself that there are deadlines, that I have to make progress, and, most importantly, that I’ll improve over time.
“With Athra I set out to make a book that I would really like to read and I don’t read many comic books. I decided Athra was going to have to be something that I would really like, that I would really take an interest in and be passionate about. If you’re planning on doing something like Athra, then you’re going to be spending a lot of time on it. With that being the case, it’s a good idea really to enjoy the endeavour. And I enjoy Athra a great deal. Working on Athra is tremendously rewarding. I don’t find myself approaching the task with anxiety or reservations. To be honest, I really don’t think there’s anything else I’d rather be working on.”
As you might expect with a story conceived on a grand scale, Sullivan has much more to come with Athra.
“As far as what’s next for the title, in the short term, romance. We’re in the midst of the first arc which deals for the most part, with the fight against Kaldgrani -- the monster,” he said. “The third issue is, however, a kind of interlude, a love story, a romance between Athra a rather mysterious, and complicated woman, Saegird, pictured standing over him on the cover of the second issue.
“The fourth issue, the end of the first arc, brings the battle between Athra and Kaldgranit to a decidedly violent and bloody conclusion.
“I should stress that we’ll learn a great deal about Athra’s past and his motivations in the third and fourth issues. And some of those motivations may be disquieting. Athra is motivated by a certain ethic, a certain moral code, but it’s a very harsh and demanding code and will probably lead him to engage in some genuinely horrific and brutal acts in fighting Kaldgrani.
“The first arc will end with Athra returning to the village and to the heroine, Hild.”
There is certainly enough here to want to be around for issue two to see how Sullivan handles the varied plot threads he has laid out in the inaugural issue.
Athra is available at www.athra.net. Sullivan posts a new page every Thursday and the entirety of the first issue and half of the second are available there now.
-- CALVIN DANIELS

-- Appeared on Yorkton This Week WebXtra