Also launching this week, we have the return of Linda Medley's acclaimed Castle Waiting. 

It's a light comedy, all-ages series set in a fairytale world and following the lives of the various characters who live in the titular castle after the original royal inhabitants moved on.  Beautiful and charming, it was one of those cult small press books that was hugely acclaimed by the usual suspects for a few years but never seemed to actually sell many copies as a result.  But the first time round it was mostly self-published; now it's got Fantagraphics behind it, a publisher who at least know what to do with a critical hit.

I never read any of the original series - frankly, at this stage I can't even remember whether I ever saw it on sale - so I'm coming to this as a newcomer.  Unfortunately, it's a little more complicated than that, because this story isn't really an issue #1.

The publishing history of Castle Waiting is, shall we say, convoluted.  This is the third Castle Waiting #1, so naturally it's called Castle Waiting vol 2 #1.  Of course, the second issue #1 was already called vol 2 #1, but Medley retroactively deemed it to be vol 1 #8 several years ago.  So the third issue #1 is the second vol 2 #1.  Confused yet?  If it helps, none of them are the actual first issue - that was Castle Waiting: The Curse of Brambly Hedge.

Anyhow, Castle Waiting has been on hiatus since 2001, which is a polite way of saying it got cancelled due to low sales.  At that point Medley was already two issues into a storyline.  So, logically enough, Fantagraphics have started the new series with an issue #1 that actually reprints the final two issues of the original series, and then continues with a new chapter.  In theory the book should now continue on a six weekly schedule.

What this means in practice, however, is that the story was originally intended as issues #15-17.  Consequently, it's not written as the first issue in a series, and there seems to be a general assumption that we know who the characters are.  It's not inaccessible, as such, but it's full of moments that are clearly supposed to play off our existing knowledge of the characters.  It's certainly not an ideal story to launch a new title with - unfortunate, but inevitable given that the previous series ended mid-arc.

Given that it's been five years and that the book was selling poorly anyway, you'd have thought they could have at least thrown in a recap of the story to date.  There's certainly space for it - the issue has six pages of pencil sketches, and although Fantagraphics are still soliciting the issue has having 24 new pages, I count sixteen.  Even the concept of the series, and why all these people are living in the castle, is never clearly explained.

Having said all that, though, it's clearly a very good title.  It's a charming title which skilfully builds strong characters, and uses a welter of detail to make them both loveable and believable.  It's these little things that make them into real people, where in lesser hands they'd just be a bunch of storytelling shortcuts.

It keeps its fairytale ambience without falling into cliche, or making any silly attempts to subvert the genre.  Even though very little actually happens, there's something extremely endearing about the book.  And while there are scenes here that go over my head because I don't know the back story, the quality of the book is high enough to convince me that I'm missing out - I just need to go back and read the set-up

Its flaws as a first issue stem primarily from the fact that this story was never meant to serve that function.  While it can't quite overcome them, it's certainly good enough to prove that there's an excellent comic in here, and one worth reading from the start.

Rating: A-

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