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COMIC BOOK REVIEW: Cold Tooth

 
Cold Tooth cover
Cold Tooth cover
Cold Tooth cover

 
Overview
 

Story by: Julius Villanueva
 
Art by: Julius Villanueva
 
Publisher:
 
FG RATING
 
 
 
 
 
4.5/ 5


User Rating
1 total rating

 


To sum it all up..

IF WE HOLD ON TOGETHER One of the best selections in the PIKO Anthology, in my humble opinion, is the sole entry made by Julius Villanueva entitled Lucky that utilizes dinosaurs in his heartwarming graphic narrative. He further expands his love on the prehistoric beasts in his one-shot issue named, COLD TOOTH. Similar to his previous […]

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Posted November 23, 2015 by

 
FULL REVIEW
 
 

12218202_10205258461157314_1445237253_oIF WE HOLD ON TOGETHER

One of the best selections in the PIKO Anthology, in my humble opinion, is the sole entry made by Julius Villanueva entitled Lucky that utilizes dinosaurs in his heartwarming graphic narrative. He further expands his love on the prehistoric beasts in his one-shot issue named, COLD TOOTH. Similar to his previous take, readers and fans of the classic animated film, “The Land Before Time”, will surely impress with Villanueva’s latest discourse that even before the existence of humanity and human species, maternal love already existed.

[CHECK OUT: GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: PIKO: Pambatang Komiks – Innocence, Values & Childhood]

After reading this short yet very impactful tale, it reminds yours truly the one of the movie’s dramatic and tear-jerking scenes where the mother Apatosaurus defended valiantly her little one against the hungry and tenacious Tyrannosaurus Rex, and her eventual succumbing to the inevitable. Indeed, one may question almost anything, but most probably, a mother’s love is eternal and appears in the most unexpected and surprising moments, as the author-illustrator masterfully illuminates here. Henceforth, the emotional intensity can also be felt and arguably parallel upon reading the creator’s work here.

Due to obvious time constraints, the illustrations are entirely in black-and-white scheme. But at least, the cover art is quite impressive enough to give the readers the impression that the creator really did his serious research about anything dinosaurs. No one absolutely knows what were the actual pigmentation of these prehistoric beasts, more so the specific species, but at least the illustrator gave us something to theorize on the possibilities on the colorization of that specific dinosaur he christened as Cold Tooth. Despite that obvious artistic handicap, the artist drew the characters with precise accuracy based on his latest researches/developments on the anatomical and other important information on the possible lifestyles and/or dietary intakes of these beasts. His utilization of clean lines and his ever improving sequential paneling clearly stand out from the start up to the very last panel. It is reasonable of his full utilization of conventional paneling to make his work highly accessible to the general demographics, most particularly very young audience. His angular perspectives and the command of emotional projection were considerably noticeable to the point of being the extensions of the artistic intangibles he might already harness to full potentiality, especially in the middle up to the latter part of the story that can make one tough guy’s heart melt like butter. Even his storytelling approach is greatly improved from his sole PIKO entry. Just like his artistic repertoire, his sentence constructions—from syntaxes up his choices of voices—are structurally impeccable and more readers’ friendly more than ever.

My only beefs in this carefully crafted and meticulously researched short one-shot are basically two-folds. Primarily, the ending is personally more ambiguous than his Lucky. If there are no dialogues whatsoever, I could say immediately that the end scenes reminiscent almost perfectly with that tear-jerking scene of the abovementioned cinema classic. But the third-person dialogues made me interpret otherwise. Sure, the carnivore mother took a tremendous beating, but the herbivore lad implicitly mentioned akin to hope and life. Seriously, I was torn on that last panel. In short, I felt so bitin. And, if only this lovely issue has colors on it, seriously, its level of awesomeness could be heightened more than ever.

Nonetheless, Cold Tooth displayed the illustrator’s ever expanding artistic and storytelling repertoires in addition of his true fondness with the prehistoric titans that presented a possibility of possessing something more than ancient or primeval. I believe he has more in store in the near future, and I simply cannot wait for his quasi-anthropomorphic take on these former rulers of the world.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!


Paul Ramos

 


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