We Get Answers: Ekho v5: “The Preshauns’ Secret”

Fourmille, Yuri, and Sigisbert travel to Italy, where the secrets of the Mirror World will be revealed.  Why is Fourmille there now?  What’s going on with the Preshauns?  And would you want to take a cruise on the back of a giant squid?

All these questions — and more! — are answered in “Ekho” v5.

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What’s Going On?

Continuing from the end of the previous volume, Fourmille, Yuri, and Sigisbert are taking a cruise ship to Italy. This being the Ekho world, the cruise ship is a squid with a boat-like structure strapped on top of it. There’s also a dome that goes over it for when the squid submerges.

Fourmille is looking forward to their trip to what is Italy to get answers about the Preshaun agenda. She’s also enjoying the trip, sunning herself on deck and welcoming the advances of an Italian prince who has taken a liking to her.

This, needless to say, causes no small amount of jealousy in Yuri, who does everything he can to interrupt the two of them, and act put out and annoyed the rest of the time.

Sigisbert is also there with them, but he’s distracted by the presence of another Preshaun on the ship. What’s the story between those two? And what does it mean for their overseas trip?

We Get Answers

I can’t talk too much more about this book after that set-up. The spoilers start coming pretty quickly after that.

Let’s just say that there’s a Preshaun power struggle in Vatican City, and Sigisbert is waist-deep in the middle of it, thanks to his mysterious visitor on the cruise ship.

Fourmille takes the form of a Preshaun, and mimics his face perfectly:

The established Preshaun tea problems come back into play out in the open, a civil war basically breaks out, and we learn the reason for Fourmille and Yuri’s transfer to this Ekho Mirror World, at last.

While that reason is a well-worn one in science fiction and fantasy tales, her reaction to it feels natural and well-reasoned. It also allows the book to continue while setting up what will be its ultimate ending at some point down the line.

I hope that time doesn’t come soon, though. Thankfully, there are already three other books out there, with a fourth in the works, I believe.

Disclaimer and Word of Warning

If you’ve read the previous four volumes of this series, you know that Barbucci is a bit of a Good Girl artist.  It comes out here and there in the various books. Usually, his drawings are about as sexy as J. Scott Campbell’s: beautiful women with perfect bodies drawn from occasionally provocative angles. 

Unlike Campbell’s work, though, Barbucci draws topless women here and there. It’s a European thing.

It’s not that much — there are a couple of topless moments for Fourmille, but it is more than usual in this book. To be honest, it’s not all that necessary.  It feels like a weird choice in this book.  It’s not a stripper doing a performance or an artist preparing a body to be shrunken down into a marble or someone just stepping out of the shower, like in previous books.

There’s no real good excuse for it, except that Fourmille is wearing a costume that happens to be somewhat exposed in the front, but then Barbucci draws it a step further along.

There’s also a moment when she gets out of her tub awkwardly. Rather than reframe the moment to make it obvious that he’s hiding something, Barbucci sticks with his storytelling style, and that means you’ll see more than you might expect. (It’s the tier after the panels I reproduced above.)

It doesn’t bother me, but I mention it here because it might not be something a North American audience would be expecting. This book is far from cheesecake/good girl art excuses with a thin plot running through it. Far from it. But there is that element at play intermittently.

Recommended?

Yes. If you’ve read any of this series before and are looking for answers, this is what you’re looking for. It features more creative and beautiful Barbucci art, the return of Preshaun politics, and more gorgeous coloring that helps rank this as one of the best-looking fantasy comics on stands (digital stands in English’s case) today.

Buy it now on Amazon, and I might earn a small commission but it won’t cost you a penny extra.

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