MISC. MANGA, *Tales From The Age Of The Cobra

Enrique Fernandez is a Spanish artist who made his big premiere in the American comics market with an album-sized graphic novel of The Wizard Of Oz through Image Comics, then a few years later IDW decided to republish his original 2-part mini-series into a trade paperback titled Tales From The Age Of The Cobra. Fernandez's technique is old school anime similar to rough pencil-drawn animation that made up most of the 70s like Lupin and Captain Harlock, so a lively adventure inspired by the Arabian Nights was a brilliant fit for his style.

A masked storyteller relays a story set ages ago about the illusive thief Irvi who tries to free his love, the beautiful Sian, from a harem, but he has to literally sleep his way up to her room over a few nights. However, Irvi has to give up on Sian and runs across the unlucky in love thug known as the Bull who soon raises his own empire after renaming himself the Cobra with Irvi being his lucky charm that he keeps around. Irvi finally makes his escape after being the subject of several of Cobra's experiments by a quack potion maker in an attempt to make a powerful elixir. Irvi eventually befriends the performing dwarf Maluuk who arranges to finally put an end to Cobra's evil reign while reuniting to Sian for a series of selective endings that the storyteller alludes to which are up to the listener to decide on.

Tales From The Age Of Cobra has a rich story showing sympathetic for both the heroes and villain displaying how none of them are truly guilty or innocent. Enrique Fernandez's artwork thrives with eye-catching imagery that takes you back to Bronze Age of comics. This comes in an album-sized novel with tight but stunning panels that keep you reading the entire saga in one entire experience.