I happened to bump into my friend Jesse Labbe today, the co-creator, along with partner Anthony Coffey, of a book titled Berona’s Hundred Year War. The last time I saw Jesse, this project was just getting off of the ground. Flash forward almost a year, and suddenly Berona is being featured in Previews, sold in comic book shops around the country, and getting rave reviews from the likes of Humberto Ramos and Francisco Herrera. In pretty much ever sense of the word, Berona appears to be a success.
I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of Berona when Jesse and Anthony were first starting out, and have enjoyed it immensely.
Berona’s Hundred Year War isn’t exactly a graphic novel or a sketchbook. Rather, it’s a hybrid form: a series of notes and drawings detailing the weapons and key characters involved in a century long conflict between two alien races: the Ele-Alta and the Cropones. These disarmingly cute aliens use a bewildering array of military technology and tactics in their conflict: zombies and pikemen give way to snipers and machine gunners, which give way to chemical and biological weapons, all accompanied by a simple descriptive narrative that is reminiscent of a fable – a cautionary one, at that. The cause of this war is never revealed, and what begins seemingly as a lack of context ends as a message all its own: war itself is messy, confusing and oftentimes seemingly bereft of meaning to its participants.
You can get a taste of what Berona’s Hundred Year War is like in this short video. If you’d like to learn more about the book or perhaps to order a copy, check out the official site at www.amityink.com.
