Okko: The Cycle of Air #1

by Hub, with Emmanuel Michalak

This issue marks the beginning of the third volume of the Okko stories, after the Cycles of Water and Earth, the second of which I enjoyed enough to continue with the characters, despite having never read the first volume of the story.

This time around, Okko and his crew are traveling in much nicer places, as they journey to a castle to help a young girl who has been afflicted by some strange fright.  As usually happens when Okko journeys through places, he runs across a few people looking to kill him, including a guy who lives on a bridge whose father Okko killed years before.

The story involves wind spirits, old rivalries, drunk monks, and Hub's usual unconventional methods of providing exposition (this time largely coming from a conversation between two old people at a noodle hut).

Hub's art is always beautiful, if cramped when squeezed down to fit the pages of an American comic, and I have been enjoying the ways in which he uses Japanese culture and mythology to ground his stories in a fantastical, and unfamiliar world.  Hopefully this volume will maintain a regular schedule...