Life the Necropolis is a comic by an artist at my local comic book store, Nick Klie. It’s a sci-fi story with a bit of fantasy elements following the main character, Life. Life is…a mercenary, I guess? That’s what he’s called a few times throughout the stories, but he’s more of a gun-for-hire. Which, yeah, is technically what a mercenary is, but Life leans pretty hard into the “gun” part of that. He takes away people’s body parts and has had a few of his own taken away, and let’s just say a necropolis is a type of cemetery. So, yeah. A merc that’s more shooty than Samus, and whose catchphrase is “crap”.

This review is going to be about Life the Necropolis in general, as well as the latest issue, 6 Doomwrecked Knights. I’m going to go a wee bit into spoiler territory, so if you’re interested in checking it out, you can grab a copy at lifethen.com.

Right off the bat, I want to make note of how much Nick has improved his skills over the years. In the start, the stories were generally told in a more classic comic book format. Each page had six to eight panels, sometimes extended on an axis in order to fit more in. In 6 Doomwrecked Knights, however, a lot of that is done away. There are a few pages that are more classic-like, but even in those cases, the panels will be slightly misaligned with each other, or have rounded corners. And in every case, the edges of the panels are ragged, which is a really good choice who who Life is, something I’ll get into later. The colours are also used really well, even for where the story takes place. It’s mostly told at night, and there are a few gross, purple-y monsters near the end. But for all that, you can still see everything so well. Were I in that darkness, I’d be pretty damn impressed with my night vision goggles. Life himself has had major improvements, too. Don’t get me wrong, he’s drawn well in the first comic, but to look back on it is kind of like a high school student tried to draw their own version of Life. A good high school student, mind you, but not one with the skill Nick has today.

Getting to the ragged edges of the panels, you have to understand that Life is…pretty gross. Don’t forget that he says “crap” a lot, gets shot even more, and is called a cemetery. In 6 Doomwrecked Knights, his hirer, Way, is pissed off that he came to meet a princess in such bad form. But that was also Life’s only real choice, because the medicine he uses, while very effective, is also very expensive. This is again, reflected really well in the colouring throughout the issues. Lots of the stories are told at night or in caves, but even in lit areas, the lit goes away when Life is there. A panel without Life might have a lot of light, a panel with him, no. Even if he himself is shown as a golden yellow, the area around him is not. Blue, purple, blood-red, and snot-green. No gold there.

Now let’s get a bit more into 6 Doomwrecked Knights itself, close your eyes and grab a copy if you want to be spoiler-free. Life is hired by Way to stop these knights, mutated beyond recognition into pure killing machines. The knights themselves don’t really have an end goal, other than the killing. Rather, they are puppets. Puppets for the prince of an overthrown kingdom, and one that isn’t going to spend a lot of his own time on the throne. He’ll sit a while, but the real crown is two generations away, with his daughter to bring it back–by her choice or not. Another puppet, like the knights. Just a little girl during the fall of the kingdom, the princess does not have the evil blood of her father or grandfather. And this is kind of where we get to my biggest issue with the story: I don’t really care about the princess. Guy tells Life about her when they first meet, but it’s all kind of your standard evil kingdom/un-evil heir stuff. We learn more about her father than we do about her. To be clear, I’m not asking for extra pages. Nick puts a lot of work into these, and can only put out about one per year. But other than the first one, these comics aren’t so much about Life as they are the people he helps. We learn about the princess early on, as do we learn how good the Doomwrecked Knights are at killing. I’d have much preferred a page of fighting removed to see a page of the princess being good, whatever kind of good she has. We see the good when she confronts her father, kinda creates a Sokka’s girlfriend scenario. But her good before that? A lot harder to tell.

Moving on, I don’t like to be told things, which probably comes down to my theatre days. I’d much rather be shown that information. I know the princess is good from the get-go. Guy tells Life, and tells him that the fall of the kingdom played a large part in her lack of evil. I’m completely fine with this. Guy’s not telling us, he’s telling Life, which in turn tells us. Conversation, not comment. This is mostly done throughout the story; in addition to being Life’s partner, Guy is also the narrator. But when we go somewhere new, we are told where it is. Why? Why do we need a box that says “high up in the desert hills”? Why not have Guy tell Life “I know where he’s taking her, a plateau in the desert hills”. They’ve already discussed why it’s so important they need to fight the knights, to stop the prince. They can discuss this, too. This isn’t anything against Nick, it’s a fairly common practise in comics. And at the start of a story, showing is sometimes the only option. But if you have other options, why not make use of them?

Hoo boy, I didn’t mean to criticise that much. Back to the good! Like I said, the issues of Life the Necropolis are only released about once a year. You can start at any of the stories, and you’ll understand what’s going on. A large part of this is from his acquaintances also narrating. They’re just learning about Life, which helps us just learn about Life, if we need to. This draws back to my show don’t tell comments from earlier, and in this instance is done very well. It’s of course done better the more of the issues you read, with each one giving us a greater look at who Life is. That is a truly awesome way of storytelling, and it’s something I really like about comics. Except for the ones that are planned to be long from the get-go, comics largely let you start anywhere. A story might be four or five issues long, so when you go to the comic store and see it’s issue 200 of something you’ve never heard of, you’re not going to be impeded by those two hundred issues. And Nick Klie doesn’t even need those four or five issues–he can tell Life’s story in two dozen pages.

6 Doomwrecked Knights is an excellent story, as are any of the stories following Life. We can so easily learn about both him and the people around him in these stories, they’re stories about everyone, after all. About Life, about Way, about Main, and about that cute little y-hupadgh Shrub. Just because Life is a main character doesn’t mean that the camera is always on him, things can be just as great when it’s pointed away. And if you’re not much of a science fiction fan, that’s fine too. It’s by all means a sci-fi comic, but if you look away from the space ports and the lasers, you’ll still have a great story. In your mind, change the lasers to guns, and the space ports to train stations. You’ll still be told the story that Nick wants told. That level of storytelling is magical, and no, I don’t mean the kind of magic that opens up evil portals.

How about you? Have you read Live the Necropolis? Does your local comic store have an artist drawing stories up? Tell us on Facebook, or in the comments below!