Comic - Ella: Amulet of Sharzim
Ella is a new all-ages graphic novel currently being crowdfunded by Alex Giles and Ammar Al-Chalabi. Susan Omand tells you why you should back it...
When Ella’s Great Grandma passes away and she is left a gift, her world turns upside down. Instead of watching Netflix and going out with her friends, this twelve-year-old is now the legacy holder of the ‘Amulet of Sharzim’ which grants her the ability of anthropomorphism and sends her on an adventure with talking animals, which culminates in an epic battle between the "Good" and the "Villainous".
We get told about a lot of comics and graphic novel crowdfunders here at The DreamCage and it takes something a bit different to catch our eyes. Here are three reasons why this one did for me:
1) The Kickstarter page for Ella begins with "If you can imagine the Pixar film ‘Brave’ mixed with ‘My Neighbour Totoro’ with a touch of ‘The Goonies’ thrown in ..." Yup, I'm interested.
2) We've seen the work of Alex Giles before, in the good fun comic Betty "The Slayer" Mitchell (see my review of that here) so I know Ella is going to get a great story.
2a) Alex Giles is from Aberdeen (well, it's important to me. We Aberdonians have to stick together you know.)
3) There's a cat. An orange, talking cat. Called Ezra. SOLD!
So those are my own personal reasons for wanting this 88-page graphic novel Kickstarter to do well (OK, I'm quite easily pleased) but if you're not yet persuaded, maybe some of the perks available will help. As well as getting your mitts on the book itself, in both digital and print form, there are art prints, stickers and badges up for grabs. What's more, Alex is offering his talents as a letterer for a project of your own, whether it's an 8 page short story or a full 22 page comic. And it that's not enough, you can also get a hand-drawn pencil commission portrait sketch done of yourself or your child - how great would that be as a gift for someone?
But the best way to show you that Ella is worth throwing some money at is to let you see some of the pages from the book itself because the character artwork by Ammar Al-Chalabi is superb...
See? Told you. Visit the Kickstarter page at http://kck.st/2STodJ4 for more information and show Ella and Ezra (and Alex and Ammar) some support.
Images - courtesy Alex Giles
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