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 128 Pages, Paperback
ISBN 978-0345521002
Villard Books and Th3rd World Studios http://www.th3rdworld.com/book/The-Stuff-of-Legend

Although Toy Story may be the most recent and popular example, storytellers have imaged tales of toys coming to life when humans aren’t looking. Whether the toys roam the world we inhabit, or come to life through another world, these stories catch the imagination because, after all, it is what children do with their toys.

It is partially with this premise, and that of the Boogeyman stealing children, that storytellers Mike Raicht & Brian Smith with artist Charles Paul Wilson III launch Stuff of Legend v1, which tells the tale of a stolen boy whose toys set out to search for him in the lands where toys come alive.

One night, the Boogeyman pulls the young boy (who in this volume is not given a name) through his closet into a fairy-tale land known as the Dark. A group of the boy’s favorite toys set out on a quest to rescue him. The leader of the group of toys is the young boy’s toy army man, who is known by his toy-peers as The Colonel. His second-in-command is Maxwell the teddy bear, who upon entrance into the Dark, becomes a life-sized ferocious talking bear. Joining the army is jack-in-the-box who comes to life as an acrobatic jester, an Indian princess, a piggy bank becomes a worrisome living pig and the boy’s pet dog. While the toys have grown to the size of their real-lfe counterparts, the bear is bear-sized, the jester becomes man-sized and so forth, the dog remains dog-sized, so is again smaller than the living toys. A bit of tension ensues as Maxwell remarks of his frustration at being chewed by the dog.

This may seem a simple youthful tale, but as it develops, the tale takes a darker and more complex turn. In their first attempt to locate the boy, the toys fight what comes to be known as the Battle of Brooklyn Creek, since the boy lives in Brooklyn. Once the battle is finished and the boy is still lost, the toys must gather the remnants of their group and move forward to rescue the boy. The battle is early in the story, so we get to see some nice character development since it isn’t easy to keep people unaccustomed to war together after a battle, and the storytellers (writers and artists alike) have conveyed this quite well.

Immediately after the battle, the piggy bank is tempted to switch sides from the group in search of the boy to the side of the boy’s captor, the Boogyeman himself. This plot development is under the current of the main story as they enter a game town, modeled in large part on the classic board game Candyland. What seems an inviting town soon turns to something much more sinister as a game is played for the fate of the toys and their mission to save the boy.

This book immediately brought to mind an older tale by Dean Koontz illustrated by Phil Parks – Oddkins, more for the tone and art than the story itself. In the case of The Stuff of Legend, the book under review here is just the first volume of a projected series. Considering it is subtitled Volume I, the ending isn’t too much of a surprise.

When this book first arrived, I wasn’t sure what to think of it. Two blurbs on the book; however, immediately impressed me – Brian K. Vaughan and Frank Quietly, two modern comic creator greats – which gave me the impetus to try the book. As soon as I started reading the first page, I was unable to put it down until I finished it. The narrative immediately drew me in and Wilson’s art was perfectly suited for the tale, both the style and color tone used. Though the art is neither black and white nor full color, a muted sepia tone is employed lending a nice aged, authentic, and historical feel to the story told.

The Stuff of Legend, Book One: The Dark is highly recommended and I enthusiastically await the second book.

© 2010 Rob H. Bedford