The Nikopol Trilogy

The Nikopol Trilogy is tragic and hilarious simultaneously. It's also so chock full of tons of ideas and symbolism it's bursting at the seams. Though what struck me the most was this odd contrast between the hilarity of the chaos and oddities and the tragedy of them coexisting so closely. This comic makes fun of the horrible circumstances while it is still highlighting that they are really terrible. Such as the possession of Nikopol by the Egyptian God Horus who is using him to further his plot of taking over France, but at the same time Nikopol humorously jokes about how Horus is "all-powerful" yet can't even help with his headaches. This contrast between tragedy and humor happens a lot in comics that are pretty heavy to relive a bit of the tension the comic is creating so it continues to be readable and reading it doesn't feel like jumping into a black abyss of depression.

Unlike other comics however, it does not keep the comic relief past the first act. In fact the overall arch of the Nikopol Trilogy is so different than most other plots in comics, and really all fantasy and science fiction, that I've encountered. Rather than starting from humble beginnings and starting the story off with more personal stories than ramping up to the big events The Nikopol Trilogy starts off with a bang and then slowly begins focusing on smaller stories that would not make a huge worldly impact. This kind of deconstruction of the traditional plot arch make the reader pay much more attention to these human stories rather than huge war over power and control. The author is clearly trying to bring attention to the fact that these stories are more interesting. He even uses a plot device in the comic where a filmmaker is making a movie about the love story between Nikopol and Jill, rather than the events preceding that which are of a much bigger scale and one would think a filmmaker would be making the film about, pointing to the fact that even artists in this world find the human story more interesting. I personally gravitate towards stories that focus more on smaller interpersonal relationships so I found this really refreshing to see the author really make a point to focus on this and try to show how interesting those kind of stories can be, especially when they consequences of a bigger more global event. Those consequences and what happens after the 'big battle' or what have you hardly are touched on and seeing what happens to characters after they win or lose is just as exciting and interesting, if not more so.