Artistry In Paneled Form: Reviewing ‘Miss Truesdale And The Rise Of Man’ #1

Welcome to the table,

Miss Truesdale and the Fall of Hyperborea was a comic that, provided my faculties remain with me till my final days, will stick with me for the rest of my life.

Crafted by Mike Mignola, with art and colors by Jesse Lonergan and letters by the always talented Clem Robins, the story follows Miss Truesdale, a woman living in Victorian-era London, and her past life, Anum Yassa, a gladiator during the fall of the once grand Hyperborean Empire.

The artistry is dreamlike and powerful. The tone is so atmospheric and ethereal that it feels like it’s part of some shared primal dream we have all experienced. Yet, much like a dream, it drifts away, leaving only impressions of events and a sense of being connected to something far more existential in its wake. It’s beautiful. It’s artistry in paneled form. Miss Truesdale was a transcendental emotional experience, and the fact that we have another series now makes me happy I’m here to enjoy it.

The new offering in this past-life expedition is titled Miss Truesdale and the Rise of Man.

This book is exactly what I want every time. It’s so lore-heavy, with secret histories not only of mankind but also of the greater cosmological web. Its unique mythos is crafted in the world that the B.P.R.D. stories and Hellboy also take place in, and it just adds to the larger picture that spirals out of those seeds planted so long ago.

The story begins with Miss Margaret Truesdale speaking with a ghost, who regales her with snippets of the secret history of things beyond human understanding. The origin story gives us some insight into what happened to the fallen angels after the war above and below, and that related story turns into a story of lives remembered back after the fall of the Hyperborian age, with one of the fallen angels taking on a kind of physical form and observing the warrior Anum Yassa as she travels through a forest thinking on other lives she has yet to lead.

The fallen angel in elven humanoid form, hinting at a primordial elven-like existence, continues to follow Anum as she travels. A speaking snake gives us an indication that the fallen one has become smitten with Anum, and it’s foolish, as she will be its downfall.

It’s brilliant because the narrative is a bit of a visual remembrance, along with a collection of panels that show Anum traveling through the woods.

I don’t know that this can be done in any other art form. Sequential storytelling in comics is a powerful thing, and this is the kind of story that thrives on the page in a way that film or animation would struggle to capture. You need the macro and the micro balanced so harmoniously, exactly the way Lonergan does, to make it work.

<<Spoilers Follow>>

Eventually ego, as it is wont to do, causes the elven entity to grow its own congregation of followers and eventually clash with Anum, who, after a brilliantly brutal combat, cuts it down, as the snake has warned would happen.

The book is brilliant and feels leagues larger than its page count, with each page containing multitudes. Visual storytelling is rampant, and the story is a mix of a present narrative and a larger free-flowing allegory with mythological underpinnings that rival the master poets of old.

It’s beautiful. I don’t know how else to present this to you. The book is a work of art, and it, much like its predecessor series, is profoundly moving to me. I have no idea where it is going. I honestly don’t want to know until I can experience the issues as they come.

Until next time, it occurs to me as I read Miss Truesdale and the larger works connected to them that what I love so much about this ever-growing mythos is that, as someone who came from a very toxic religious place, the mythos here is one I choose and one that does not make me feel ashamed or guilty for the simple act of existing. It’s fun stories of magical gods and powers beyond mortal understanding that provide moral allegory without feeling like condemnation. In this dark time, finding peace and comfort where you can is important. Have the day you deserve.