Graphic Novel Review – Barbarian Lord by Matt Smith (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy/Graphic Novel
Length: 176 pages
Publisher: Clarion Books
Release Date: July 1, 2014
ISBN-13: 978-0547859064
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: ARC through Amazon Vine
Rating: 3/5 stars

I got this to review through the Amazon Vine program. I love graphic novels and was excited to read this one. It probably wasn’t fair to this book that I just finished reading Vinland Saga, since that book is absolutely awesome and deals with similar subject matter.

This is about a Barbarian Lord who gets exiled from his home country and is forced to seek refuge in a neighboring kingdom. There he must prove his worth through a series of quests.

I honestly didn’t enjoy the art style that much. The lines are very heavy and very cartoony, none of the characters show much expression and the artwork didn’t add a ton to the story.

The dialogue and story are very simple and the writing didn’t flow all that well, I had to reread portions to figure out what was being said. Given the fact that there wasn’t much here, it was pretty slow to read.

I had trouble figuring out if this story was supposed to be taken seriously (if it is then this was horrible) or if it was more tongue in cheek and meant to be a parody (if this is the case then this was somewhat funny). The fact that I couldn’t tell the difference though tells you something about the story.

I did read the afterword and Matt Smith mentions drawing inspiration from He-Man. This book totally reminds me of some sort of Viking He-Man novel. So I guess if you were a huge He-Man fan you might enjoy this. It even has a skeleton-like villain.

Overall an okay read but not great. As I said if this was a parody, it was kind of funny. It it’s meant to be taken seriously it’s a disaster. I am going to settle on…eh…it was okay. I would recommend taking a quick look through it before purchasing to see if you are a fan of the artwork style…I wasn’t.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Graphic Novel Reading Challenge
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge