There's a sequence near the end of Aqua Leung, the manga-flavored graphic novel by Mark Andrew Smith and Paul Maybury, where the inevitability of war is captured by a single arrow on an empty white page.
You know the big moment in any giant battle scene, where the two sides are arrayed against one another, each on opposite ends of the field of engagement? And everyone stands there, staring across the void at their mortal enemies, usually just regular schlubs like themselves, drawn by fate or politics or ego into serving some cause by stabbing and shooting at total strangers.
A single volley is fired — a bullet, a spear, an arrow — it arcs across the battlefield. The enemy is engaged, and war is made.
It's a powerful symbol, that arrow, and that page is a high testament to the storytelling abilities of Smith and Maybury. A hundred different graphic novelists would choose one of about seven conventional ways to start a major battle sequence; it's a safe bet none of them would be quite so minimalist, yet precise and evocative.
That page also represents a rare moment of quiet space in a book dense with visual detail. Maybury's art style resonates from Aqua Leung's first pages, in which he depicts a giant turtle thousands of years old directly addressing the reader with a monologue that serves almost as an invocation, along the lines of the opening moments of an ancient Greek drama.
The turtle is vast, and in a way, simple too: There's not much to a turtle, when you get right down to it. Shell, four legs, tail, head.
The intricate details are what bring this turtle to life; Maybury bathes the creature in wrinkles and folds, giving him substance and weight. You can almost feel the massive beast's slouching crawl forward across the ocean floor.
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