Comic book tombac – review of the comic book “Dozorca. Not all gold “

A group of young boys from a block of flats and a mysterious caretaker on the trail of a monster murdering the inhabitants. Did you manage to put together an interesting story out of these hackneyed plot tropes?

The story presented in The Dozorca is a mix of archetypes and clichés known from many other stories combining comedy, action and horror. A creature that brutally kills people, a protagonist with supernatural abilities, who tries to stop the monster with his friends, a secret organization, and some social and moral threads. A bit of it Stranger Things , Attack on the Neighborhood and classic slashers. Buffy fans will probably find familiar elements too. And everything is watered with the atmosphere of a housing estate straight from the Swoboda estate . And it must be admitted that it combines into quite pleasant reading, although the plot lacks its own character and development that would make it memorable.

The drawings are rocking

On the aesthetic level of the caretaker. Not all goldlooks very interesting. At first glance, it is associated with the combination of the features of the watercolors of Francophone comics with the free, expressive line of Śledziej or Jemi Hewlett. Ivan Shavrin has full control over the boards, composing illustrations in such a way as to emphasize the mood and pace of the action and express his style at the same time. The artist experiments with the composition; Sometimes he separates individual frames with thick lines, and other times he does not do it at all – depending on the nature of the scene. In seemingly careless, as if unfinished drawings, he shows varied, emotional faces, a threatening, grotesque figure of a monster and dynamic sequences of fights and chases. Shavrin also plays with the palette, mixing color and monochrome elements and changing the colors dominating on the following pages. It emphasizes dynamics by using long strokes of a marker and lines that look smudged in a hurry. An additional twist is added to the boards by frequently used rasters, as well as hand-typed onomatopoeias and some dialogues (mainly singing and shouting). However, I must point out that leaving these texts in English gives me mixed feelings. Although I understand that Polish publishers did not want or could not interfere too much with the source materials, in several places the jump between the original and the translation causes dissonance during reading. Despite this, visually viewing the album is a great pleasure, especially that it was issued in a hardcover, on matte paper, perfectly matching the slightly “dirty” graphics. An additional twist is added to the boards by frequently used rasters, as well as by hand-typed onomatopoeias and some dialogues (mainly singing and shouting). However, I must point out that leaving these texts in English gives me mixed feelings. Although I understand that Polish publishers did not want or could not interfere too much with the source materials, in several places the jump between the original and the translation causes dissonance during reading. Despite this, visually viewing the album is a great pleasure, especially that it was issued in a hardcover, on matte paper, perfectly matching the slightly “dirty” graphics. An additional twist is added to the boards by frequently used rasters, as well as by hand-typed onomatopoeias and some dialogues (mainly singing and shouting). However, I must point out that leaving these texts in English gives me mixed feelings. Although I understand that Polish publishers did not want or could not interfere too much with the source materials, in several places the jump between the original and the translation causes dissonance during reading. Despite this, visually viewing the album is a great pleasure, especially that it was issued in a hardcover, on matte paper, perfectly matching the slightly “dirty” graphics. that leaving these texts in English gives me mixed feelings. Although I understand that Polish publishers did not want or could not interfere too much with the source materials, in several places the jump between the original and the translation causes dissonance during reading. Despite this, visually viewing the album is a great pleasure, especially that it was issued in a hardcover, on matte paper, perfectly matching the slightly “dirty” graphics. that leaving these texts in English gives me mixed feelings. Although I understand that Polish publishers did not want or could not interfere too much with the source materials, in several places the jump between the original and the translation causes dissonance during reading. Despite this, visually viewing the album is a great pleasure, especially that it was issued in a hardcover, on matte paper, perfectly matching the slightly “dirty” graphics.

The plot is fine

Unfortunately, it is difficult to express such superlatives about Bartosz Sztybor’s script. The Caretaker plotit is not boring, nor is it complicated. On the contrary, the comic reads quickly and fluently. The problem is that you put it back on a shelf and forget about it just as quickly. Unfortunately, the story presented in it is so uncharacteristic that after a few weeks of reading, only very blurred impressions remain in the memory. Dialogues, the course of action, the world presented – all this is just OK. Craftsmanship without any glaring shortcomings, but also not distinguished by anything special. The story goes headlong, and the scriptwriter does not give us time for the mystery to intrigue us, the characters conduct a real investigation and fight the antagonist with a real event. As a result, the whole adventure ends before it unfolds for good, leaving you feeling unsatisfied.

The caretaker is reading that the mind quickly clears from memory – just at a time. The subtitle of the album Not All Gold turned out to be prophetic in this case. Behind the tempting cover of interesting, eye-catching illustrations and a nice edition, there is a not very valuable, not very original and unremarkable story.