Review - Letters from Midia (@aesderelict)

Love is a powerful driving force. In Letters from Midia, love drives a knight to fight a variety of challengers en route to a princess in a castle. The graphic novel is written and illustrated by Boluwatife Oriowo.

A lone knight wanders through a distant land. Through strange environments, malicious mages and savage beasts, he cuts a path through the world on a hunt unrelenting. A missing princess is sequestered away in a dark cage. Stripped of her voice and entrapped by cruel kidnappers and wicked machinations, she writes in an effort to ensure that her story is told. The knight fights to close the gap between the two, taking on a world of insurmountable obstacles. However with each threat he overcomes, he finds not the princess, but still more Letters from Midia.

There's a rather long introduction to the premise behind Letters from Midia as Oriowo seeks to establish the book's timeline and cycle. Establishing those parameters is done very cleanly and methodically, affording the reader an introduction to the characters before getting a sense of the overarching premise behind the book. From there, Oriowo steadily increases the pace (and variety) of the knight's encounters, presenting new challenges to overcome in his quest to find the princess who perpetually seems to be in another (figurative) castle. Each of those challenges is very much an homage to high fantasy, ranging from simple goblins to avion arch-mages to giant slime. There's a certain cadence to Oriowo's approach as well in that there are ebbs and flows of action and dialogue throughout the issue that balance one another out well.

Oriowo also handles the artwork in the book and it feels a lot like The Legend of Zelda cartoon from way back in the day. The knight is illustrated with a sufficient level of stature that affords him credibility in his quest to find the princess. Oriowo also gives the book a general all-ages appeal in its style--save for a few moments where blood is lightly splattered across the panels. The panels are very organized and give the book a sense of order as the knight traverses the kingdom. The color palette is very simplistic as he relies on the major colors throughout the issue, yet there still manages to be enough pop off the page and give the challengers unique appearances.

Letters from Midia is about an extremely persistent knight chasing down love letters as he fights all manner of opponent. There's something to appreciate about his perseverance and the way he works through it all is admirable. Oriowo is very apparent in the approach to Letters to Midia positioning it as an open love letter to a variety of creators and properties before. Oriowo's illustrative style is very lighthearted and cartoony, drawing inspiration from Saturday morning cartoons. Letters from Midia is a very enjoyable read as it capitalizes on human persistence to tell a love story.

Letters from Midia is available via Amazon.