Woodland Creatures: Wild Souls Volume I
This past week I got the chance to read Cristina Roswell’s Woodland Creatures: Wild Souls Volume I. Which is actually a graphic novel adaptation of her own novel which was carefully scripted by award-winner author Rafael Ruiz-Davila and art by the talented Tomás Aira (artist of Garth Ennis’ War Stories).
Nothing is more beautiful than a girl and her dog-right?
While normally the case, that is the complete opposite with Roswell’s Wild Souls.
The story opens up with us being introduced to Calliope (Callie) Conway, a blood-thirsty lycan in the middle of a sports hunt of a human but is quickly interrupted by her moral compass, alpha boyfriend Christopher (Chris) Szilágyi.
If cleaning up after his killer girlfriend and dealing with PTSD isn’t enough, the former army Lieutenant Chris also has to take on the UN in the hopes of saving his fellow kind from being used as military weapons.
To be honest, when I saw the cover it was beautiful but I was worried it was just going to be a typical supernatural love story with werewolves. To a much-appreciated surprise Roswell has found a way to bring new life into the l lore.
Instead of the usual hairy dog humanoids, the lycanthropes in Wild souls do not physically turn into wolves themselves but instead, they each have an amaroq (a giant wolf based off of folklore) who they are mentally and spiritually connected to.
Besides a great story, what really brings it home is the exciting inking by Aira. Sometimes when reading a black and white comic I start to wonder what it would be like with a dash of color. This is not the case for Aira’s pages, he finds a way to really capture expressions and action that you forget there’s no color.
A final aspect that I would like to point out that made me appreciate the creative team even took the extra step and actually made Woodland Creatures available in both English and Spanish.
It is pretty clear why volume I of Woodland Creatures did so well with its Kickstarter campaign and why the second volume has already been funded. I highly recommend Woodland Creatures: Wild Souls Volume I to anyone who loves the sexy side of the supernatural as well as the social commentary that comes with urban fantasy.
If you would like to hear more about Woodland Creatures from the creator herself, Cristiana Roswell go ahead and check out John Horsley and Kenric Regan’s podcast interview here and support Woodland Creatures: Wild Souls Volume Two here at their Kickstarter.