Telling the story of a new comic hero in a new world can be hard. How do you handle the necessary exposition and develop your characters while maintaining pace and capturing the attention of your audience? A lot of first issues struggle with this, and some just knock it right out of the park. Happily, I can say that Quixote by Deron Bennett is from the latter category. He manages to introduce his title character, Quixote, his sidekick, the villain, and the backstory that will support this new world all in the first issue, while leaving room for a wonderful fight sequence and a great cliffhanger. This book is everything you would want in a first issue. Exposition is delivered in bits of snappy dialogue between characters that not only sets the plot in motion, but gives you an insight into their motivation and background. Bennett manages to build a great, new fantasy setting with bits of sci-fi, introduces his cast of characters, and delivers on the action all at one time without sacrificing any one element for the others, and that is just the writing.

Let’s talk a moment about Dan Mora and Paul Little’s art. Mora’s character designs are great. His characters are expressive and look like they’d be right at home in an animated feature. The dialogue scenes are nicely drawn with great attention given to body language that really sells the humor and the fun interaction between our two heroes. When it comes time for the action, Mora really shines with great use of perspective and intelligent panel layout to really sell the movement and intensity of the battle. Paul Little’s colors really bring out the best of Mora’s art. Early in the book, his scenes are bright and colorful and really draw out the fun adventures of our characters. Later, when the book shifts to night, he lights the scene perfectly, switching to dark blues and greens that help to build the tension to the final confrontation.

So, you may be asking, “Jason, this sounds great, but what is the book about?” Well, I don’t want to give too much away, because I want you to go and enjoy it, but I’ll give you a bit. Quixote is about a pair of adventures who are trying to uncover the secrets of the past and a king who wants those same secrets for his own selfish reasons. In the process of their adventures, they find exactly what they were looking for, but it may be more than any of them could handle. Sounds like pretty common fantasy fare, but it’s not straight-up fantasy, as this world is filled with flying machines and robots. Bennett, Mora, and Little deliver a story that is both familiar and refreshingly new, and, even better, they deliver it with style. This book is a must-read.

5 Laser-Shooting Iron Giants out of 5