Audace is the most experimental label of Sergio Bonelli Editore, it was born in 2018 and until now has tried different types of formats, but I never expected an exit from the schemes such as ATTICA, the miniseries written and designed by Giacomo Keison Bevilacqua (author of Panda Likes, The Sound of the World by Heart, Lavennder) in format… shōnen manga!
POWERS, FIGHTS AND SCHEMES TO BE REVERSED
Kat Scandaglia lives in New York. Her particular deductive skills, like a Sherlock Holmes novel, allow her to make ends meet by getting information about people from their social profiles.
His goal is to leave for Attica, where he has a mission entrusted to him by his friend Esse (a character so mysterious that he communicates with Kat since she was little only by SMS via an old mobile phone).
Attica is a city which, following a revolution 15 years ago, defined itself as an independent city-state and is now considered a utopian paradise. To manage it there is the President Ino, a dictator more than anything else, who solves the problems literally throwing them out of the city, beyond an imposing wall, where all the destitute or those who cannot afford to enter or live in Attica are massed.
Kat must be able to find four other people, called "symbols", who have special powers like hers, reach Attica with them in time for her national holiday, Father's Day, and "tear down that ## of wall" .
It is sure that many ATTICA will give a sense of "already seen".
As Bevilacqua himself defines it, "ATTICA is a mix”Born from his many passions and influences over the years.
So we have Kat doing the verse to a well known London detective, Aiden and her Foxtail are a reworking of the genre super sentai (guys who transform and acquire superpowers), Cilla could easily be a Hufflepuff and the villain of these first two volumes, Jimmy Jimmy, we see him in black and white for printing reasons, but I can hardly imagine him with a beautiful purple complexion . All this in the set and easily recognizable frame of the genre shonen (therefore we have theatricality, the characters with exaggerated or exasperated reactions, highly fighting actionpacked)
The charm of ATTICA lies in taking all these elements familiar to us as if they were toys taken from a basket, but knowingly dismantling and reassembling them together to build a new and cohesive mosaic, avoiding with fancy and style a false effect fan fiction.
A further advantage of ATTICA is that, despite putting so much meat on the fire between events, mysteries and characters, it does not putty or stun the reader. Each piece of the puzzle is introduced with timings apt in a linear main plot and that remains focused on the goal.
Action is the absolute protagonist of this series. With fights and clashes he creates the narrative engine which, in addition to making the heroes move in their search, tells us about them from their group dynamics.
Bevilacqua chooses to present his characters immediately catapulting them into the fray, managing to summarize the typical narrative expedient of "recruiting", which in many manga is didactic and very slow (if you think of One Piece we even have sagas to explain the background of the characters before they are included in the group) while here instead it is optimized very well.
On drawing we can make many interesting considerations. First of all, I was pleasantly surprised that despite being a manga-style story, you don't monkey them. The tables have aesthetic settings that recall the Japanese comics (for example the irregular shape of some vignettes or a freer cage, especially in the more lively scenes), but the structure of the page remains largely the western one (With tables of three or four stripes) and the sense of reading is not confused or chaotic. Also on the directorial side we have an interesting "mix", with cartoons and action boards shonen which alternate with humorous sequences of fixed-room cartoons, typical of our local comic strip. On the backgrounds we have already seen in other venues that Bevilacqua is not only technically a monster, it has the ability to make its backgrounds speak, drawing scenes that first create an atmosphere before representing the space in which the characters move.
The only flaw, if I have to find the fur in the egg, is that every now and then the trait of the characters becomes too synthetic and this penalizes what are expressions or poses, which in these cases are a little stiff or empty.
WAS THIS MANGA IN BONELLI A GOOD IDEA?
With only two volumes out of six published, it is early for me to lose balance and give a complete judgment on the work, I think it is right to draw conclusions when you have the whole picture.
It is understandable that this series at first glance may not attract or leave indifferent (the only truly revolutionary thing is that it is a proposal by Sergio Bonelli Editore), however the two issues that I have read have shown me a good comic, fresh , who tries to innovate and who above all wants to speak to young readers and readers with sincerity and naturalness. I consider innovation an important element, the graphic design has conquered me and history is amusing me. For those who like the genre I think the worst thing that can happen to the most demanding of them is having fun during the whole reading of the volumes.
Let's see what happens if that wall is knocked down.
