A couple years ago, Dark Horse produced a hardcover called Scarlet Traces, a story of post-War of the Worlds England by Ian Edginton and D'Israeli. It was a great read that came out of nowhere and didn't really get that much recognition. The same is true of Kingdom of the Wicked, their follow-up, and hopefully this review will at least point a few people toward the book. It's clearly a labor of love for all involved, and while passion is nice, it's even better when passion and personal vision pays off in a fantastic read, and that's what Kingdom of the Wicked is. It has elements of Wonderland/Oz in that it's about someone from our world entering a fantasyland, but it's a darker book than that, as the magical young readers' world of Castrovalva has been taken over by war and strife of the most horrific nature, and it all ties back into the psychological problems of children's author Chris Grahame, who dreamed the whole thing up. Think of it as Abadazad by way of DC's Vertigo imprint and you're about halfway there, but that really doesn't convey the strength of Edington's twisted villain or D'Israeli's lush and stirring visuals.
The central concept of Kingdom of the Wicked is a familiar one. The notion of a beloved children's fiction setting actually having a life beyond fiction that someone can leap into has been explored in novels and comics before, most recently in Abadazad, cut short before it could realize its potential. While familiar, the premise isn't overused, and certainly there's a lot of life in the general concept. Especially when it comes with a twist like the one that Edginton introduces to create the villain of the piece, a spooky character who appears to be purely evil and monstrous despite his human appearance, for which D'Israeli deserves some major credit.
Key to making this kind of scenario work is getting the reader to invest in these characters who are so fictional they're removed another level, fictional characters inside an already fictional story. Despite the cute, quaint nature of a teddy bear army, or a faux-British colonel, Edginton and D'Israeli do a good job of making these characters human and relatable. The tragedy that has befallen them and the inevitability of their fates is truly tragic and effective, and it's easy to care about what happens to these characters even knowing that they're not only imaginary but imaginary for the characters in this imaginary story.
A big part of that is the expressiveness that D'Israeli brings to the characters. The aging on the faces of a teddy bear squad and the wistful, sad reaction he has to his childhood friend's reappearance is moving and effective, and we see the same forlorn, lost appearance for Colonel Flashheart. There is a strong sense that things have been wrong in this world for a long time, and just as much a sense of the guilt that Grahame feels for these circumstances. Then there's the villain of the piece, who carries a sinister intelligence in the way he looks, with D'Israeli doing some particularly nice color work to highlight his over-the-top evil by the end.
D'Israeli also has the visual imagination that is necessary to make Kingdom of the Wicked work, and you need only look at the cover to get a sense of what I'm talking about. D'Israeli seems to have a specific appreciation for the Victorian era, as seen in his work on Scarlet Traces, and he brings that to some of the military of Castrovalva, along with World War I designs, and the effect is a look that evokes some of the worst horrors mankind has had to offer with a veneer of ultimate civility. Throw in the cuter elements of children's fiction like talking animals, and you've got a bizarre and visually stirring look.
While much of the story takes place in the fictional storyland of Castrovalva, there's a compelling central story taking place in the "real" world surrounding Chris Grahame. The revelation of why and how not only Castrovalva but its nemesis came to exist is a fascinating little twist, and Edington manages the difficult balancing act of making us care about these fictions even while making it clear that they are fictions of the mind and not a magical other dimension with its own existence or anything like that. 9/10
