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Comic Review: Trinity (2018) #1

Dapo "Naija Geek" Olasiyan

— 3 min read
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Comic Review: Trinity (2018) #1

Writer: Sewedo Nupowaku

Artist: Seun Odukoya
Publisher: Revolutionary
Release Date: June 1, 2018

I took my sweet time getting around to reading this book; it's been out for around two weeks now so apologies for the late review. Let me start off with the positives: It was a good sized comic. This may sound like a lame positive but I have found a lot of Nigerian comics to be too brief - you barely start the comic and it is over! And this problem is made worse knowing that you may not get another issue for 3 months. Trinity evades this trap as the creators made sure they had enough story before publishing.
It was very engaging. I read it straight through in one sitting without losing interest. The plot was pitched at a level of intellect that was just right - not too simplistic and also not trying too hard to be clever. I see anyone from a precocious teen to a discerning adult reading and enjoying it on different levels. The art was good. Now I need to clarify: I found that the artist was at his best when drawing locales and scenery. His Eagle Rock depiction was epic! However when it came to drawing humans and faces, I still found him to be fine but nowhere near as good as his drawing of backgrounds. The dialogue comes alive This was the strongest aspect of the book. Not once did I feel that the dialogue was not “real”. Many comics in Nigeria have dialogue that takes you out of the moment because it just sounds wrong. This is a challenge that all Nigerian comics face as there are difficulties deciding what path to tread when writing a comic for a diverse nation of many languages. But I think Trinity nails it. The characters came to life for me through the dialogue and interactions.

Strong female characters

I really do enjoy how many Nigerian comics show women as strong characters naturally and without it seem forced due to some politically-correct agenda. This comic follows the trend with one of the female characters Kadara being my favourite already. I love her.

Now onto the few flaws:

The lettering This was the biggest flaw by a big margin. It looks blurry and many times I had to squint to make out some words. I am not sure if this is an issue with how Okada Books rendered the comic or a flaw in the comic creation process itself, but this needs fixing as a matter of urgency. This cost the comic at least 0.5 in my final score. A dense plot There a few moments in the comic where the “info dump” became a bit much to absorb. There was so much going on and so much history given to us all at once in certain scenes that I was drowning in it. It would have been better to deconstruct the comic a bit more and spread out the back-story over a few more issues. Too many characters This goes hand in hand with my last point. So many characters and sects and factions and motivations were introduced all at once. This reminded me of the book series

Malazan Book of the Fallen

which was so dense with characters and backstory it made many readers abandon them in spite of how good they were. It would have been better to meet fewer characters and gradually introduce the larger cast in future issues. This would have given us a much better deep dive into the characters.
In summary, this book is a very solid entry in the Nigerian comic book scene. Still, it is not without flaws but not the sort of flaws I would call a deal-breaker. Especially not for a first issue. More

encouraging is the fact that the flaws can be easily addressed.

Naija Geek Says: Overall this is a good book and and I am giving it a solid Naijanerd 6/10. Keep up the good work.

Source: Revolutionary

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