The high concept of Lullaby sounded like a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen of children's literature, but in truth, it's got just as much in common with the anime-style adventure of Final Fantasy and the real world meets fantasy of Fables and Aria. Miller and Avery introduce a lot of characters and a lot of story in this first issue, and the book almost feels too crowded, but gorgeous artwork from Sevilla and a house full of colorists and some generally likable characters carry it through to a large extent. Miller and Avery aren't as faithful to the source material as Moore was to his, and I can't help but feel like they're cheating a little bit in recreating some of these characters of myth, but it's a joy to see them getting together on the page, and the overall adventure structure is pretty solid.
In the world that Sevilla, Miller and Avery have created, Alice's journey in Wonderland ended a little differently, and resulted in her taking place in a war fighting alongside the Queen of Hearts. Pinocchio started life as a real boy, not a puppet. Jim Hawkins sailed with a much different crew than the one usually seen in Treasure Island. And it seems like the Pied Piper began his life on the same world that Alice began hers. These are tweaks to the legend, and it's akin to the kind of thing Disney does when adapting classic literature, only these creators go a bit more afield. Truthfully, I would have preferred that the creators stay a little closer to the original myths, especially since it wouldn't really have affected the story they want to tell (at least so far), but these are minor cosmetic complaints.
Another tweak of Lullaby is in the visuals, and here I have no complaint. I don't know where Hector Sevilla came from, but he's a find, and every colorist working on this book is tremendously talented as well. Sevilla's designs remind me of nothing so much as the bulked-up, detailed fantasy meets technology visuals of Final Fantasy, and the manga/anime influence doesn't stop there. The Cheshire Cat and the Queen both have manga style expressions and design qualities, and the first we see of Jim Hawkins and the Treasure Island crew really looks like an anime version as well. The style really works, though, and the artwork is lush and beautiful to look at. A big part of making Lullaby work is selling the whole notion of this magical fantasy land, and Sevilla's costumes and backdrops definitely get that across.
There's a lot going on in this first issue, and a lot of dialogue and narrative captions to take in. At a casual glance, Lullaby is a bit intimidating, with word balloons covering up a lot of the artwork, but when you actually sit down to read it, the dialogue flows smoothly and the amount of text allows Miller and Avery to convey a lot of information. They actually work in most of the origins of two of the lead characters and hint heavily at two of the other five, and get the journey started, although we don't know much about the threat facing the world or the bad guys just yet. I'd also like it if the creators had given a bit more backstory on the literary stories of some of these characters, notably Jim Hawkins, especially if the book is aimed in some part in interesting a younger audience in the original stories that inspired the book, but I had a similar quibble with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen at first, so Lullaby is in good company.
With its distinctively anime look and innocent, all-ages tone, Lullaby probably won't be for everyone. However, those whose taste for adventure fiction was first stoked by classics like Alice in Wonderland, Treasure Island and Pinocchio (or even the Disney versions of some of them) will find plenty to like in Lullaby, and while I think the book is a little over-written for a truly young audience, it strikes me as the kind of thing that many children would like their parents to read them at bedtime. 7/10
