A review by carroq
Rasputin, Vol. 1 by Ryan Stegman, Nick Pitarra, Riley Rossmo, Thomas Mauer, Ivan Plascencia, Alex Grecian

3.0

The stand out element of this book is the art, hands down. It is absolutely gorgeous at times and it's worth checking out for the art alone.

This is the about the life of Rasputin. Or more specifically his death. It jumps around a bit, but the story leads off with the final moments of his life and then goes back to examine how things built to that point. I didn't know much about Rasputin going into this book, so I was excited to get some insight into the man even with the fictional/fantastical elements mixed in.

So I loved the art and liked the premise, but the execution held this one back for me. There was too much movement between different time periods to get a good feel for the characters. Since this ends with the title character's death, I would have liked some more build up to why it mattered for the other characters. My favorite character aside from Rasputin seemed to have dropped out of his life without an explanation. There is so much more that could have been developed, such as the references to Russian folklore, that I would have enjoyed.

This is a decent book. I liked it and would consider reading the next volume, especially to see more of Rossmo's art.