COMIC BOOK REVIEW: Sumpa Book 1 Provides Both Aliw and Baliw

Sumpa is a tale of curses and promises and faith. It’s a reimagining of Philippine pre-colonial belief in elemental creatures, in vengeful beings, and in gods and goddesses all repackaged and delivered in a more relatable, modern setting. It centers on Sumpa, a half human, half elemental being; alongside him is the god of amusement and good times, Aliw.—both fun and compelling characters. Throughout the story, Paolo Herras slowly crafts the world of Sumpa, peppering in some oddities such as a man whose head is transformed into that of a fish’s, while also introducing the world’s mythology, the transformation of the native land, and the shrouded existence of that which most cannot see—forgotten gods and curses that walk among the living.

With such a particularly challenging premise, series creators Paolo Herras and Brent Sabas were able to deliver an interesting tale filled with not just characters, but living stories. Every character in Sumpa has the potential to become a great story, which is probably due to Herras laying out such an expansive groundwork for each of them. This is not just a story revolving around the adventures of Sumpa and Aliw. This is the story of the unseen, the forgotten, and the replaced. And every one of them, each god, each goddess, each spirit, each evil creature that lurks, is a story and an adventure waiting to be explored.

[Check out… LET’S TALK COMICS: A Journey From Film To Comics With Paolo Herras!]

Sumpa is rendered in black and white, penciled and inked by Brent Sabas. It’s hard to make a black and white (or grayscale) comic work. Inked pencil works should not look too clean for the fear of making them look overly empty, like a coloring book perhaps. Too much details and crosshatching minus the colors then its messy and hard to understand. I really think that colorists are very integral in making comic art look good, it sets the mood and it enhances detail. To make up for that, great black and white comic art should employ good inking coupled with just the right amount of detail. Sabas puts a lot of effort in detailing in Sumpa, everything is made up of lines and scratches. His character designs are great; however, the main characters don’t look distinctly Filipino? Despite all that, the art in Sumpa is a treat to look at. Sabas fleshes out situations with great dynamism and he reinforces a necessary amount of detail to even the most absurd situations. It’s fun, good art.

Now a comic can’t be all good and Sumpa also has its faults. In their recent comic book launch (see event notes here), local komik publisher Meganon Comics re-released their whole line-up with new book-like bindings. There are many positives to it. One is that it looks much more presentable compared to the usual we-stapled-stacks-of-paper approach; it’s presented in a bigger format (though it’s still smaller compared to regular TPB sizes); and the cover (and the overall book) is made up of more durable material. Now while all of these are good things, it has one really annoying downside, the binding gutter, for Sumpa specifically, wasn’t properly appropriated leading to very minimal separation between the pages. It breaks up the flow and makes everything look like 2-page spreads. I don’t know if this persists in all copies of the book, but maybe the review copy was an unfortunate error. I also think that it suffers a bit of a pacing problem, seemingly jumping from one situation to another. They’re all fun and exciting stories, I just didn’t see enough cohesiveness amongst them.  Lastly, I am not a fan of the lettering as I’m 70% sure that it’s comic sans or a thinner variation of it.

Sumpa tells a great story, backed by great looking art. It’s an exciting reinvention of Filipino mythology set in modern times and I am definitely looking forward to the next installment.