And the name of his Legion – a review of the book “Deman”

It has been quite difficult for me to come back to reviewing after so long. One that I had absolutely no idea what to do, and two – I just got used to writing. The premiere of Arthur Urbanowicz ‘s book Deman solved the first problem, and reading it – the second. So let’s start without extending!

 

Comic book or comic book novel?

So what is Deman? There is no clear answer to this question. Even a short plot does not help in finding her. On the cover we can read that the book tells the story of a young priest, Dorian, who, as a result of a tragic exorcism, becomes a host for a demon. Possessing supernatural powers, he begins the fight against evil. However, this brief description covers roughly one-third of the book, for there are two protagonists (or three, if you acknowledge the main evil). And each of the main characters in the novel has some powers. Dorian is the title Deman (referred to in the novel as a man-demon), the second of the heroes, David, is a werewolf, and the third, a certain Zet, is a Nazi-zombie (I know what it sounds like, but this is a character created as a result of the sick experiments of the Third Reich ).Deman is. And this is a superhero book. The author himself says directly what he was inspired by and that it is a tribute to armwrestlers. Yet even that doesn’t explain one hundred percent of what this book is.

A man in the skin of a demon or a demon in the skin of a man?

Then what is Deman ? In my opinion, this is a comic. It is deprived of a graphic layer, which has been turned into very suggestive descriptions, but still a comic book. The story told in the pages of this novel may as well be presented with the help of drawings. The events are so wide that it would be fitting to draw them. However, the author made a different decision and simply described them. And here we come to Deman ‘s biggest problem , namely the literary layer. It is clearly visible that although the author’s workshop is really powerful, world-creating of the highest caliber, and the characters’ descriptions are extremely suggestive, the author is lost somewhere. The marriage of comics and novels is always a risky act and usually results in a graphic novel, but not in this case.Deman is a very unequal book. The descriptions are brilliant, but the pace of the action has faded away. We have great heroes, but their interactions are numb. An attempt to repaint comic-book pictures with words is very difficult and here it was unfortunately average. Where there should be a thrill is just a shrug, sometimes a raised eyebrow. The only thing that cannot be faulted is the quality of the release. Vesper is responsible for the book, and it’s in a class of its own. And that’s about it.

All in all, Deman is an average book. It had the makings of something bigger, but unfortunately did not live up to the hopes placed in it. Despite the great plot and language, he suffers from a lack of panache. She misses that something. In my opinion, this is an unsuccessful marriage between a novel and a comic book. I regret it all the more, because it was going to be really good.