‘Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard (Vol. 1)’ – David Peterson et al (Titan Books)

My time in London can be measured in many ways; the number of jobs that I’ve had for instance (eight jobs in six years but most of those were temporary contracts, honest!) or the number of places where I’ve lived (three places in six years, all within a couple of streets of each other). The measurement that I don’t like to talk about though is the number of mice that I’ve had to kill since moving to London (the mouse capitol of the UK apparently...) The current total stands at five (two with a frying pan, one with a place mat, one with a chopping board and one with a pile of dirty washing plates, he shouldn’t have tried hiding in the kitchen sink...) and I’m sure there will be many more to come...
It’s hard to see the nobility in an animal that seems to delight in getting at all your food and leaving its waste behind; the instinct is to kill the little beast before it finds the chocolate stash (although any that I can catch in the humane trap are released). David Peterson’s ‘Legends of the Guard’ has taught me a lesson or two though and in some style. I’ll still do all I can to keep mice out of the house but I think I’ll have a little more respect for them while I’m doing it...

In the western mouse city of Barkstone, the June Alley Inn is the place to go for fine food, fine beer and tall stories. This is even more the case tonight as the teller of the best tale will have his bar tab cleared while the losers will have no excuses but to finally pay up. The only rules are that each story must contain one truth, one lie and must never have been told in the tavern before. Everyone has a tale to tell but who will win...?

David Peterson’s ‘Mouse Guard’ (a tale of the heroics of medieval style soldier mice) is one of those series that I find myself looking at, thinking ‘I really should pick this one up’ and then somehow never getting round to it. I finally got round to it over the weekend (although ‘Legends of the Guard’ is a collection mainly featuring contributions from other writers) and I’m very glad that I did. This collection just blew me away with the storytelling and artwork on offer; here is a book that I literally lost myself in for hours and I think I’ll be tracking down Peterson’s other works to see if he can maintain this standard on his own. Before I even start talking about the book itself I have to say that I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to anyone here. ‘Mouse Guard’ appears to be the logical ‘next step’ for anyone who grew up on the ‘Redwall’ books but it goes far beyond these in taking a life all of its own.

The plot that ties the separate stories together may have been done before but Peterson steers the book past this potential pitfall by keeping things simple and getting to the individual tales as quickly as possible. Without giving too much away, I would also say that I agreed with the final choice of winner but it was a close run thing. There were any number of tales that could have won their teller a clean bar slate and this made for a generally very high standard of tales throughout the book.

I say ‘generally’ though...

The tales that really worked for me were the ones where both writers and artists really stuck to the vision that you can just tell Peterson has given us in previous volumes. I know I haven’t read the previous two books but you can tell from the Peterson’s artwork (and what you see of his part in the book) that we’re looking at something a little more gritty and heroic than you would normally find in a comic book about mice. It’s a real shame then that while Katie Cook’s ‘A Mouse named Fox’ does a good job of extolling the heroic virtues of that smallest of animals her overly bright and cartoonish artwork detracts from the tale and clashes with the more sombre tones on display in the rest of the book. Guy Davis’ ‘The Critic’ fell flat for me when he decided to replace written dialogue with pictures in speech and I spent ages trying to work out what the story was actually all about. I still don’t know if I’m on the right lines here...
Joao Lemos’ ‘Epilogue’ didn’t do it for me either although I did like the possible idea that it could have been that the best story was in fact never told. It just didn’t seem to tie in well with the rest of what was on offer...

When ‘Legends’ gets it right though... Well, it gets things right in some style and more than makes up for the short fallings that I found in other stories. What you have here is a collection where stories merge seamlessly with their artwork to produce stirring tales of heroism, triumph and tragedy that showcase the massive personalities in these tiny creatures. Ted Naifel’s ‘A Bargain in the Dark’ and Karl Kerschl’s ‘Bowen’s Tale’ show us how brave a mouse can be despite the dangers it faces. Alex Kain and Sean Rubin’s ‘Potential’ and Mark Smylie’s ‘Crown of Silver, Crown of Gold’ show that (despite tragedy) good can still come from adversity. Alex Sheikman takes things in a slightly different direction with ‘Oleg the Wise’ and shows us that even a mouse can become too big for its boots and believe its own publicity. Stirring heroics make this a tale to follow though and you do find yourself wondering if the foregone conclusion could in fact be averted? My favourite tale though was Ha and Francis’ ‘Worley & the Mink’ where the hero of the title is a humble accountant looking to get his money back on a deal and finds himself having to deal with something far more dangerous. I love ‘brain over brawn’ stories and this one was handled superbly.

What a way to start my year’s reading for 2011! ‘Legends of the Guard’ is a gorgeously put together volume full of gorgeously told tales and you can’t ask for a lot more than that without looking just a little bit ungrateful. Highly recommended and a book that I’ll be reading over and over again for years to come.

Nine and a Half out of Ten