Defend the Grounds (Legend, #1) by Samuel Sattin

Defend the Grounds (Legend, #1) Reviews

• 
  karen

  
  
  
  as much as i hate to use a word so overused that it has lost all its potency, there is no better: this here is the start of something epic.
  
  and i do stress the word “start.” because you can already tell that this is going to be a slow burn. things happen here - boy, do they - but a lot of the narrative space in this first volume is taken up by backstory/mythology; establishing the relationships between characters and species and giving several creatures the opportunity to describe their memories of the time before the apocalypse, their adventures and their previous relationships with humans, both good and bad. the flashback sequences and the main story are illustrated by two different artists, which made for a richer texture and contrast throughout.
  
  and daaaaaaamn, that art
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  i just love all of it. the bleak tone, the semi-defined threats, and even one of the dog’s sour opinion of cats:
  
  
  
  
  oh, and did i mention these are armored cats? with arrows and badass combat training and a code?
  
  
  
  
  the main focus of the story is on the dogs, but these cats, man:
  
  
  
  
  they are stealing the show.
  
  
  
  
  there is also a horrible bird, if that’s not redundant.
  
  
  
  
  i am obsessed with the art, and i am desperate to see where this story is going. i already love it and it’s barely even begun, but i am very confident that it will deliver..
  
  there’s also a bunch of backmatter after the story; art and also some additional stories which flesh out the world of legend in a way that makes me even more eager for the next installment, because people who are willing to take this much time building their mythology are my kind of people.
  
  
  
  
  please tell me when there will be more. i hunger for it.
  
  ***********************************************
  
  every bit as good as i had hoped!! review to come, but definitely go out and grab it while you wait. (that's what she said)
  
  ***********************************************
  
  Cormac McCarthy meets Watership Down??????
  
  
  
  
  come to my blog!
• 
  Rachel

  I've read quite a few comics featuring anthropormorphic animals after societal collapse (see suggested reading at the end of this review) and Legend has got to be one of my new favorites. The artwork is gorgeous, the story solid and the characters fleshed out well. It's not difficult to differentiate between the different dogs and cats, which can sometimes be an issue in other animal-centric comics I've read.
  
  In the near future, North America has been ravaged by some sort of virus, causing the remaining humans to be hyper-aggressive and zombified. Our furry companions have managed to survive and develop their own societies, but not without competition among the factions and danger around every corner. A supernatural threat lurks, as well, bringing dogs and cats together to fight a common enemy. The reader is brought right into their world, with backstory as to how it collapsed peppered throughout the volume. This would be a great comic for younger people interested in zombies or dystopia, but as a 30-something, I'm pretty in love with it, myself. Hopefully, Sattin will be able to add more issues to this series soon!
  
  To see some of the amazing artwork from Legend, check out Karen's
  review.
  
  For another comic showcasing dogs getting by after SHTF, check out
  Rover Red Charlie
  More anthropormorphic animals during life after people:
  
  Squarriors
  Wise dogs and cats fighting the supernatural:
  Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites
• 
  Sian Jones

  Gorgeous art, powerful storytelling -- I am utterly in love. Brutal and metaphysical and beautiful in the same vein as "Watership Down."
• 
  J.I.

  It's a fun book, and it is gorgeously composed. A kind of Watership Down (don't worry, there are like 42 references to keep going back to) set in a post-bioweapons-apocalypse world, starring dogs and cats, this book has things. That's it. The animals aren't really characters, but caricatures. The issues are centered around a bit of dialog, a small action moment and a large action moment. This means there is no growth over the course of 128 pages, only things that happen. The world is cool, the action is cool, the drawings are cool, but it's largely a bunch of stock cut-outs of various character tropes put into the bodies of animals. At one point, during a meeting about something entirely else, a character asks if another character remembers the apocalypse. Why? Well, because the audience doesn't know what happened, and needs backstory, I guess. It is forced, and it also doesn't happen to tell us anything about the character, but it takes 5 pages to explain (again, to someone that already knows this). I was hoping for more. Oh well. If, however, you don't go into this expecting any characterization, or depth, you'll have fun. It's a fun story. It's beautiful. Let's just leave it at that.
• 
  Rakuen

  
  Review originally published on Flayrah.
  
  Legend is a graphic novel by Samuel Sattin and Chris Koehler. It combines the popular post-apocalyptic story setting with talking animals - giving it furry appeal - and wonders how domesticated animals would survive after humanity is wiped out in a biological attack. To be fair, not all the humans are dead, but the only ones that we encounter have been turned into flesh-hungry zombies.
  
  The first volume of Legend begins after humanity has already fallen. We meet a pack of dogs living in The Grounds, an open patch of a land next to a city. They need to choose a new leader as their previous one has just been killed by a mysterious creature in the ruins of the city. Vowing revenge, the new leader of the pack, Legend, begins a journey which leads him to ally with a clowder of cats and traverse a dangerous world which is undergoing dramatic changes.
  
  Much of the comic is dedicated to setting up the world, introducing us to its cast of characters, the land they inhabit, and the back stories that underlie their motivations and mythology. This is all done well. Volume 1 contains the first five chapters of Legend and at the beginning of each chapter is a map. Chapter-by-chapter more of the “fog of war” gradually disappears as we learn the surrounding geography. The flashbacks, too, are entertaining and each one is visually distinct; based on the emotions of the character. It is only in one happy flashback that we ever see the world brightly lit and in full colour.
  
  Throughout the entire comic, the artwork is excellent and does a good job of conveying the tone of the story. The majority of the scenes are highlighted in specific colours to convey mood and were
  a deliberate choice by the artist to limit his palette to better reflect the dogs’ limited colour range. However, the dark tone that falls over most of the story also makes it challenging at times to make out what is happening.
  
  It can also be difficult to follow the text on certain pages where the flow of the dialogue bubbles are not entirely clear. This mostly happens there are multiple characters speaking, where it can also be tricky to know who is saying what. Aside from that, the use of language is sometimes very smart. When we flash back to living with humans, the human dialogue is indecipherable except for a few key words. This, again, gives us the canine perspective but it also raises an issue shared by many similar works; how can all the different animals can understand one another except for the humans?
  
  It’s interesting to see some of the comparisons that were made between Legend and other art. One comparison that appears on the front cover, is quoted inside and which
  the authors list as an influence is
  Watership Down. Aside from having animal characters, I do not really see the similarity. The same applies to comparisons with
  The Incredible Journey. Perhaps it depends on one’s exposure to similar works but I find it would be much better to describe it in comparison to
  Ginga Densetsu Weed which also contains a dog pack, a general lack of humans and a lot more examples of animal diplomacy and combat than Watership Down has. With the city setting, it reminds me of
  The Outlaw Varjak Paw. Although that one had a cat as the main character, we still had packs living in a city and there was a general unease between dogs and cats.
  
  In other places the influences are quite obvious. The authors have mentioned the influence of
  The Secret of Nimh and one of main meetings in Legend's first volume is that with a hawk who knows something no one else does. The parallel to Mrs Brisby meeting with the owl is very obvious. Sometimes there seem to be parallels but which are probably just coincidence. The tensions between whether humans are good or bad, played out between two dogs’ back stories, one having been used for dog fights and the other loved pet, is the same conflict that we see in the Hungarian film
  White God.
  
  In the end though, the allusions and comparisons do not matter. The pertinent question is whether Legend is any good or not. I will not deny that the artwork is beautiful and the world is intriguing but volume 1 only sets up a story and leaves the reader with many questions. If the story is going to continue and we will delve deeper into the mysterious shadow creature and resolve the cliffhanger this first entry ends on, then it will definitely be worth buying. Unfortunately, I was unable to find any information on when, or if, volume 2 would be released.
• 
  varjokoira

  There's some effort here, but based on the first book this story doesn't rise to the level it's trying to achieve (or mimick) - and we all know what that is, since the book is filled with mentions of Watership Down. The animals' myths and origin stories don't fit the environment or seem like they were concieved as a natural result of their lives. And how could they? How could different pet dogs, who have for all their lives lived in separate buildings with separate humans, suddenly have this unified lore that all dogs somehow know? It's just not believable, as it was in Watership Down, where the rabbits lived together in their communities and where storytelling was a way to survive. The same goes for the cat tribe.
  
  The cats also remind me of another thing I didn't buy in this story: if you're going to write about semi-realistic animals, at least do a little research on your animals of choice. Dogs do not form packs with "alphas" like this, and the lore of cats is also based on false beliefs of their nature. If these were things justified by the plot I would have accepted them, but it was obvious it was just a lack of research.
  
  It may be I'm just being too strict here and the story keeps developing from here on, but I'm not so sure it will. And this is coming from a person who really wanted to like this story. Mainly I kinda feel angry that there's actually potential here, but it's being ruined by lazy writing and using the most obvious ideas right away without exploring the premise further. I couldn't get into the heart of the story or the characters because I couldn't find one. The end result looks like a misguided attempt to copy Watership Down without understanding why it was so popular.
• 
  Rhianna

  4.5 stars. More in-depth review can be found
  here!
  
  I'm actually pretty surprised this is more popular, although it has only been out since November. This is an incredibly unique story, one filled with characters that have more depth and intrigue in several panels that most books don't do in an entire series. I'm incredibly impressed by what Sattin is bringing to the table here.
  
  Be warned, there are several animal deaths, which always makes me super sad, but not enough to detract from the story.
• 
  Darrell

  Not just another post-apocalyptic zombie comic. This one is told from the point of view of the animals who got smarter as the humans became mindless. Can dogs and cats learn to work together to fight off their former masters? There's also another mysterious monster more threatening than the zombies. There's a quote from Watership Down at the beginning, so you can tell that's what the author is going for. It's heartwarming, but also a bit of a tearjerker. Why is it sadder when animals die than when people die? Maybe it's because we consider them to be more innocent than we are.
• 
  Maia

  What would happen to our pets after a zombie apocalypse? Well, if they were as brave, smart and resourceful as the animals in Legend the dogs would band together to defend a small part of Golden Gate park and live as best they can on their own and the cats would develop weaponry. The good dogs of this tale just want to protect their friends, but the cats forge armor, wear mounted spears and control flame-throwers. Because the cats know about the dark horror just outside their territory: humans.
• 
  Melissa Bennett

  I have mixed feelings on this one. Mainly because I wanted to like it but it fell short of what I was looking for. The story line is kind of choppy. You know mostly of what is going on but at the same time you're not quite sure you fully understand it. It almost seemed like the writer knew what was happening in his head but couldn't convey it to paper. The artwork was okay but at times you couldn't tell the dogs or the cats apart from each other. I'm debating on whether I'll continue or not.
• 
  David Gallaher

  
  Samuel Sattin and Chris Koehler's LEGEND is a lot like what would happen if Harlan Ellison wrote Call of the Wild, while being possessed by Cthulhu. It's an epic tale of loyalty, courage, and defiance.
• 
  Cam

  Author keeps mentioning “Watership Down” and that should indicate if you’ll like this post-apocalypse dog and cat stuff. Maybe it gets better, but zombie-ish humans and smarter than they used to be as pets animals still doesn’t make it inherently interesting. So-so so far!
• 
  Casey Bennett

  Ever wonder what our cats and dogs would do in a zombie apocalypse? This graphic novel answers that to an entertaining delight. Good voices and mythology to cats and dogs. Cats get armored up, which adds some wonder to the story. Interested in reading future volumes.
• 
  Jennifer

  There's... there's more, right? THERE HAS TO BE MORE!!!!
• 
  Sarah Batchelder

  Amazing art with a keep you on the edge of your seat story and some seriously scary monsters.
• 
  Kest Schwartzman

  There's a few sparks of brilliance in here, but mostly it's a bland oatmeal made of other stories.
• 
  kynndra-jo

  Amazing!
• 
  Karrie

  Where’s the REST?!!!
• 
  Jenn

  missing depth
• 
  Manda

  3.5 stars
  
  I liked this but it took me a bit to get into it. My biggest gripe sadly is the illustrated part of the storytelling. I felt I spent way too much time trying to figure out which dog was which. I'll admit I'm not savvy on dog breeds but it didn't help that most of the story was told in greyscale which omitted coat color as an identifier and here and there the way the angles of a dog's face were drawn made it difficult for me know which dog was talking. This did happen less as the story progressed and I got a little more familiar with each dog. I also felt the layout of panels and word bubbles to be confusing at times; sometimes I couldn't tell if I was reading them in the correct order or not.
  I did like the story though. I have a lot of questions I'm hoping will be answered by volume 2.
  I want to know what the thing beyond the Thornwall is and why the stenchless are suddenly congregating toward The Grounds. I'm curious/concerned about whether Atticus will die or change because of his injuries. I have to think animals can be changed because the pig in the beginning appeared to be changed, but I don't know. If all the humans seem to be affected by the "Fault" who tried to cage Oz? Are there any unchanged humans left? Will we ever find out what happened to the world? Considering the story is written from the point of view of the animals I don't necessarily expect to get the answers to the last 2 questions but...I still want to know.
  
• 
  Six

  hahahah. absolutely great premise.