Review – Caliber: Cannon of Justice by Sam Sarkar and Garrie Gastonny (4/5 stars)

I saw this book and had to get it.  I mean a graphic novel retelling the tale of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table but as a Gun-slinging western?  How can you miss?  This was a very good graphic novel.

What this book is about it pretty straightforward.  Arthur is a Gun-slinging cowboy, Merlin an Indian shaman, and the bad guys a group of corrupt sheriffs and outlaws.

The real hightlight of this graphic novel is the artwork; this is just a beautiful book.  The quality of artwork you see on the cover represents the quality of the artwork throughout the book, it is just stunning.  Page after page I just keep thinking wow this art is awesome!

The story is also very good.  The author did some clever things in adapting this to a graphic novel.  I was surprised how well the author was able to fit King Arthur’s story to a good western, I suppose I shouldn’t be, but it actually works really well and comes off as being very clever.

I have a couple small complaints.  The first is that you get a lot of characters thrown at you and at times I had trouble distinguishing them because they looked similar.  I really had to pay careful attention to not confuse them.  Also this book basically just sets up the story; showing us how Arthur got Caliber (the magic gun) and set up his round table.  I would really like to see a sequel to this book that goes into detail on some of the adventures these guys have.

Also this is a book meant for mature audiences.  There isn’t any nudity, but there are sex scenes and a boatload of graphic violence.  I didn’t have a problem with that, but some people might.

Overall I really enjoyed this graphic novel.  It is a great twist on the King Arthur legend, a good story, and had stellar artwork throughout.  A very high quality piece of work.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– The 100+ Book Reading Challenge