Samurai Grandpa

Samurai Grandpa by Eastin DeVerna
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Retired samurai Ojichan is forced to go into action one last time when his son is murdered and his granddaughter goes missing. Ojichan's journey will see him confronting an ancient foe...

Somehow I missed this when the Kickstarter was active but I grabbed it from Sourepoint's website awhile back.

The story draws on Japanese folklore, treading the same road as some of the more mystical Usagi Yojimbo stories. Ojichan's path takes him into the realm of the dead and beyond. The writing reminds of Stan Sakai as well, life lessons injected into an adventure story with big damn monsters.

The art is gorgeous. The figures are rendered in a cartoony style that reminds me of Rob Guillory work on Chew with some Darwyn Cooke thrown into the mix. The coloring is what really grabbed me, though. It was subdued and felt like watercolor at times, a nice departure in the age of overdone computer effects.

The story itself was a journey tale with some unexpected twists. The characters of Ojichan and Harume was nicely contrasted. Ojichan's story hinted of a long and storied past, including a romance with a fox woman, apparently. Harume had secrets of her own, secrets I wanted to learn more about.

I think my only gripe with this is that the ending seemed a little abrupt to me. I think the unanswered questions about Ojichan and Harume actually made the story better, made me want to read it again in the coming months and years.

"Let us become trees!" Four out of five stars.

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