Lullaby: Wisdom Seeker

The trade for "Lullaby: Wisdom Seeker" hits stores tomorrow. Should you buy it? You decide for yourself. The story is a slow progression of bringing all of the characters of the story together by the end for a big, explosive battle. The characters are from fairy tales: Alice from wonderland, Pinocchio, the Pied Piper, Little Red Riding Hood, etc. They begin in three separate groups after a brief scene where Alice is in the regular world and is involved in a car crash. The story scrolls ahead years to where Alice is the Queen of Heart's right hand, and is venturing off to Oz, as all of the other characters eventually do (Little Red Riding Hood's group is searching for her grandmother, while Pinocchio's group would bring him to see the Wizard). The character designs are all well done, I believe. Alice is in her regular blue get-up with a pink whip that resembles a flamingo, the Cheshire Cat following her around, riddles aplenty. Pinocchio is a wooden boy, found as driftwood by pirates. He vaguely resembles a jack o'lantern or snowman to me, very cutesy. Little Red Riding Hood is a werewolf with a temper. She's kind of the cute little girl that overreacts in plenty of manga series. The Pied Piper is a quiet, mysterious character. The pirate (I assume from Treasure Island) has a sword that's forged from magic, a shark that loves to fight for "yummies." Yeah, a couple of cliches thrown in there, I'll give you, but overall, a good job. But onto the big problem of the series: the art. It's done in a manga-influenced style that kind of grates on my nerves, I must confess. At times it's okay. Or, I should say, at best it's okay. It seems that it's just sloppily illustrated, especially toward the end of the four issue series. During the huge battle, after the characters have come together, it's hard to distinguish what's going on. And the scene where the enemy is ultimately defeated and blows, is squished into a panel in the middle of the page, taking up a mere eighth of the page. The storytelling is lacking here, to say the least. So, in conclusion: storytelling, decent; art, bad. If you can tolerate bad art, I'd check it out. But if you're a serious comic fan, I would suggest you skip this one.