(courtesy Simon & Schuster)
Heroes are often portrayed as larger than life, towering giants capable of great things and possessed of qualities we mere mortals can only hope to dream of.
But in the 21st century particularly, another sort of hero has emerged, one which has feet of clay, human fallibilities and a propensity, like all of us, to make mistakes but who, despite all that, pushes forward with energetic persistence and tenacity to win the city.
And if they don’t win the day, they continue to put one foot in front of the other, their eyes on the prize and their commitment to reaching the finish line, no matter the odds.
These sorts of new age heroes find a charmingly intense and sweetly dark evocation in Haru: Summer book two of the Haru series by the immensely talented Joe Latham (already read and reviewed is Haru: Spring), in which our plucky protagonists, the titular bird Haru and their pig friend Yama continue their quest to reach the Beacon to rid themselves and the world of a sinister artifact which has attached itself to Yama and is effecting them very much like the One Ring does to Frodo in The Lord of the Rings saga.
If this all sounds like a reasonably straightforward journey of epic heroism, think again because Haru and Yama are two young school kids who are on the mother of all coming of age adventures, learning fast about how good intentions can often be cruelled by the dire evil or robust misfortune and how life rarely lets you do something without complications of an almost fatal or corrupting kind.
They have a LOT to deal with, and if anything it grows worse in Haru: Summer which is darker, more troubled and more challenging than its predecessor which proved unafraid to go to some imaginatively dark places indeed.
But the heart of this uniquely charming and often intensely moving series remains – the friendship between Haru and Yama which comes again some major pressure this time around, most especially from the skeletal Big Bad, the Blight, which unleashes a fearsomely nightmarish golem and a Void Fly which acts like a negative devilish voice besetting another key character Herb whose firefly companion has a fight to keep him believing in his particular part of the quest.
There’s also a deep familiar connection at work in Haru: Summer as Haru’s younger sibling Gose faces their own set of challenges, which come to a head in a magical lake where a battle not only between good and evil takes place but one for the strong bond between the two siblings too.
Haru: Summer is INTENSE but sweetly so, its very dark, almost horrific moments leavened by Latham’s lushly evocative artwork which brings alive the light and the dark of the story and the specialness of the characters in ways that vividly and affectingly leap off the page.
While the story is the thing, and Latham has a gift tight narratives and emotive dialogue that allows for the epic and the intimate often in one moving moment, the artwork reigns supreme too, dancing between the light and dark, summoning up time and place every bit as effectively as does the often tried emotions and motivations of its characters.
Awash with charm, hope and energy, Haru: Summer is also dark and troubling and honest about how grim life can be, even when you believe wholeheartedly in what you are doing, and that reaching the finish line you have in mind is never easy, especially when your enemies are arrayed against you and even use your own sense of self against you.
Haru: Summer is out now from Andrews McMeel Publishing
