Comics – Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard

Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard #3 (Archaia)

Art & stories by Katie Cook, Guy Davis, Nate Pride, Jason Shawn Alexander; additional pages by David Peteresen

Yet another issue set in David Petersen’s world of the Mouse Guard. The story-telling contest (a la The Canterbury Tales), for the night’s tab at the inn continues.

Cook’s story, “A Mouse Named Fox,” usus an art style that seems 180 degrees away from Petersen’s. Yet it suits the humorous twist that the story title promises. “The Critic” by Guy Davis spins a humorous and non-verbal tale about the misleading effects of art. Nate Pride delivers his improbable “The Ballad of Nettledown” in ballad verse form, his story being about the miraculous rescue of Nettledown from a flood. Jason Shawn Alexander adapts Poe’s “The Raven,” and you’ll discover how much more sinister the ending seems when the narrator is a mouse much smaller than the unmoving Raven.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll repeat it: while we wait for Petersen to deliver the next major story arc in the adventures of the Mouse Guard, these tales from others are a lot of fun. Each of the stories in this issue will satisfy.

Plus, the cover art is charming in its own right.