Not long ago, in my review of another series, I mentioned that I think there are genres of comics that simply aren’t well served by being published as serialized, single issues — that there are stories that benefit from being told without breaks between installments that would allow plot-relevant details to be forgotten or tension to ebb.
So I was delighted to receive a review copy of a new original graphic novel — a single, contained, longer unit of story — and one that the publisher describes as a “historical occult revenge horror”.
Well… be careful what you wish for, I guess?
Let’s talk about The Order of the Circle.
The Order of the Circle
Levi Cory – Writer/Creator
Elisabeth Mkheidze – Artist
Eva de la Cruz – Colorist
Maria Letizia Mirabella – Letterer
Dani & Brad Simpson – Cover
Anna Kubik – Editor
Published by Dead Sky Publishing
“Shrouded in the Great Smog of London in 1952, a cursed woman out for revenge enacts a bold scheme of dark magic to rescue her husband from Hell . . . but an ancient order of mystic protectors is hell-bent on stopping her.”
Let’s start with the good: It really was a good idea to publish The Order of the Circle as a complete graphic novel (albeit one that leaves room for sequels) rather than mucking around trying to break the narrative up into four issues for the direct market. Creator and writer Levi Cori paces the story well, building tension throughout. Eschewing serialization means that chapters are exactly the length they need to be, rather than being forced to fit the number of pages demanded by the requisite length of single issues of comic books.
That being said, I’ve become less enamored of stories that start in media res and then jump backwards and forwards along their timeline to show how we got here. When done poorly, it’s disjointed and confusing, but even when done well as it frequently is here, I’m starting to find it a bit obvious and maybe a little cheap as a device. Leaping directly into peril that would be entirely defanged if the story was told in chronological order is a trick with diminishing returns the more the author uses it.
Over-use of tricks with diminishing returns actually describes a lot of my reservations about the writing in The Order of the Circle.
One example that troubles me is protagonist Dorothy Schafer’s husband, John. The key driver of the plot is that Dorothy is bent on bloody revenge after the Order conjures a demon to kill John and drag him to Hell because he knows too much about their evil conspiracy. They compound their crimes by literally silencing Dorothy via a terrible abuse of their judicial power, magically sewing her mouth shut.
Contrary to the description, there isn’t a lot of horror per se in The Order of the Circle, but that moment is a powerful and shocking jolt of body horror. Dorothy loses her husband and her voice in a terrifying one-two punch from the Order that leaves her entirely alone.
Except she isn’t. John is present almost continuously throughout the story, appearing as… well, it’s not clear. Ghost? Memory? Psychic echo? Regardless, he appears after Dorothy passes out after her magical torture and hits her head.
(Yes, speaking of devices that feel unearned, that’s the only explanation we get. She hit her head.)
And John is a very active ghost, memory, or echo. He’s almost always available, although intangible. He talks to Dorothy throughout, and she talks to him. It’s the vehicle for a ton of not-terribly-subtly inserted exposition.
So although the entire point, the justification for everything that follows (Dorothy robs a grave! She desecrates a corpse! She later explicitly though off-panel saws off the leg of a sorceress in the Order and kills her, not necessarily in that order!) is that Dorothy has been robbed of her husband and her voice… from our perspective, as we follow Dorothy on her journey, and as she herself experiences it, she has her husband and she has her voice in many ways that matter. At least, we almost never see her without them.
I understand the narrative purpose of having Ghost John around, and letting the reader learn important information through Dorothy’s conversations with him. But it’s a device that immediately leaches tension from the story, and power from the protagonist’s motivations.
It just feels poorly thought out, and unfortunately it’s not the only element that does.
Although promotional copy describes The Order of the Circle as historical, this is a graphic novel that features a world where magic, demons, and the afterlife are not only real, but widely understood to be real. A powerful, shadowy society of magic-wielders has nearly unquestioned power in Britain, operating alongside but independently of government, the law, and civil society.
So this is very clearly a flavour of alternate history. Yet 1952 in this London is very much recognizably 1952 in London. There’s still a Great Smog, even though it’s the handiwork of those evil magicians, and Churchill is even Prime Minister.
That’s not the problem. I don’t mind the presence of what alternate history afficionados call butterflies (after the Bradbury story ‘A Sound of Thunder’). Butterflies in alternate history are commonalities with history as we know it that logically wouldn’t exist in a world so different from our own. There very likely wouldn’t be a United Kingdom in a world where magic has always been known and effective, let alone a Churchill. There might not even be a “1952” as we understand it. But the presence of those elements from real history allows a certain kind of story to be told. I appreciate that and enjoy the occasional butterfly.
But that means that I also expect the Britain of The Order of the Circle to function like a Westminister parliamentary democracy, a form of government I understand thanks to living in one, which Levi Cory apparently does not.
As best as I can understand The Order of the Circle‘s plot-driving evil conspiracy, they want to use the Great Smog to trick Churchill into allowing them to… run a candidate… for the election… of a new Minister of Defence?!
It’s a pretty overly-complicated evil conspiracy, yeah, but more importantly as a Canadian I can also tell you, that is not how parliamentary democracy works. Like, at all.
Obviously I don’t know what the writer’s process was. But basic mistakes like that, and the fact that the promotional materials refer to the (real, historical) Great Smog as “as seen in The Crown” truly makes me wonder how much research Cory did.
But on to a brighter side. Well, not brighter in the literal sense, but easier to be positive about — the art.
Elisabeth Mkheidze’s art is strong throughout. Characters are clearly delineated and distinct, and their emotional states are conveyed effectively through expression and body language. Some comics artists tend towards conveying intense expressions too strongly, and characters’ faces look like caricatures or theatrical masks as a result. This seems like a small point, but in a graphic novel with a protagonist who spends virtually all her time on the page some combination of furious, terrified, and grieving, it’s important.
Mkheidze’s art also doesn’t falter in its portrayal of action, or the fantastical elements the story turns on. I’m less sure about her backgrounds, but that’s because virtually all the settings are drenched in smog. (I’m not sure if it’s down to that smog, an attempt to portray the worn-out impoverishment of post-War Britain, or the unfortunately common misapprehension that the past was sepia, but Eva de la Cruz’s colours use a very limited and drab palette.)
As I mentioned above, the story, while reasonably self-contained, ends with an obvious sequel hook. I’m very interested to see what Elisabeth Mkheidze does next, but the inconsistent writing and historical errors in this piece of historical occult revenge horror mean that I’m less invested than I’d like to be in any follow-up volumes. While I appreciate the commitment to the original graphic novel format, and there is much to admire in the creative team’s work, I’m afraid that I can’t recommend The Order of the Circle overall.
Disclosures: I have no personal or professional relationship with the creators. The publisher provided me with a complimentary electronic copy of the graphic novel for review.
