‘The Lost City of Heracleon Advance’ Early Review

Writer: Bruce Livingstone / Artist: Mike Willcox / Boom! Studios I often think about the phrase “there is nothing new underneath the sun.” The very fact of the matter is that given how long the very idea of storytelling has existed, it’s next to impossible to analyze and review a piece of work with the larger context that it exists in whether it is comparatively to its peers or tracing the lineage of its core structures. Concepts are considered cliched or tropes are often indicative of how poignant of a storytelling device they have served in the past, and time and time again, the efficacy of a story ultimately hinges on how well executed that particular sequence of tropes is.

Which brings us to The Lost City of Heracleon, a graphic novel from Bruce Livingstone and Mike Willcox that is very much rooted in classical tropes. Two young boys answering a call to the adventure, and then they proceed to find themselves in increasingly complex scenarios, and they are expected to learn and grow before some sort of resolution. There are countless stories that have this basic framework, and I’d read so many of them because it’s a genre that I very much consider a proverbial home as a speculative fiction. And honestly, The Lost City of Heracleon is a roaring success in my eyes because, while the narrative beats are indeed familiar and at times predictable, the way that they executed and iterated on is truly something to behold and I am able to safely say that I haven’t seen a graphic no…