A Touch Of Spice: Reviewing ‘Rare Flavours’ #2

Comic books truly are a malleable medium. With the right moves, they can be molded into anything one could desire. Sometimes a comic comes along that just proves how amazing the medium can be.

Hopefully, you’re not too full after the first course, because Rare Flavours is back with a second just as tantalizing. A meal painstakingly prepared and delivered by Ram V, Filipe Andrade, and Andworld Design.

No words that can be written seem to really do such a series justice. Like many of the best things in life, this is a series that cannot be read about, but must be experienced. Action-packed heroic series of all types are often what fill the market, delivering a vast variety of genres and ideas. Many of those books are favorites of mine. There aren’t that many that fill the same space as a series like this one.

Ram V is a writer that has many things to say. Able to truly tap into the world and life, delivering characters that are so fleshed out and tangible. Even with one of the main characters being a human-eating demon, there is just something truly grounded about this series. Because it’s speaking to such human elements, centered around something that connects us all: food.

Food sates us, and brings us life, but also is a beautiful thing of creation. It can bring people together, and create bridges through time, all while offering some of the truest emotional support one can imagine. Using that as a framing device was such an inspired move.

True heaviness rests around Rubin Baksh. A being who lives the truth of his darker nature, while understanding and embracing the beauty of the world. Wanting to share what he has seen and experienced through eternal life. There is something almost poetic about the fact that he accepts his nature, while also mourning and immortalizing those that he uses to sustain himself. Similar to how humans treat the food that Rubin wants to celebrate.

Traveling through this world is a visual buffet. Andrade knows exactly what to bring focus to, and when to pull back. Focusing often far more on the feelings, and the tone, than on precise details. Yet, other times the details are so fine and clear as the characters come to such vivid unique life. A style that is very whimsical, with such artistic flourishes, mixing exaggeration with something firmer.

Panels shift and move around to a variety of positions. Zooming in and out in order to keep us right down on the ground level. Such leaps allow us to keep a focus on the center of this story, whether that view needs to be a wide cast shot or close-up shots. Creative uses of the white gutter space make sure that our gaze is kept within the square windows through which we observe this world.

Together this duo seemingly has no limits to what they can accomplish. Creating stories that take us deep into the human experience, never once repeating the same theme. On the surface everything within this issue is just so simple, the story of two people trying to bring art into the world. Scratching beneath that surface though unlocks new tastes and flavors that are incomparable. Each read-through, just like each bite of some dishes, is unique and tells you so much more about the whole.

Their choice to take the medium to levels beyond which it normally occupies means so much more space for AndWorld Design to get creative with lettering. Becoming playful with the fonts, bubbles, and how it is all placed upon the page. Prose that fills the panels in order to deliver portions of the story, chiefly when it really dives deep into the food. Making for a deeper read, one that straddles the lines between storytelling mediums.

Here with the food, all three creative forces can truly push because it’s nothing like what we see in so many other comics. It’s not often that I walk away from a story wanting to really go on a culinary journey. This is one that gets me salivating. Probably a good thing I didn’t read it on an empty stomach.

Rare Flavours #2 is now available from BOOM! Studios.