Written by: Alain Jost, Luc Parthoens
Illustrations: Jeroen De Coninck, Miguel Diaz, Alain Maury, Laurent Cagniat
Coloring: Paolo Maddaleni
Publisher: Standaard Uitgeverij
De Smurfen en het Verloren Dorp – Comic Book Review
Even though the film Smurfs: The Lost Village will only hit theaters later this spring, Standaard Uitgeverij came up with a comic book bearing the same name, in which you can already meet the Smurfs’ new friends. Other than the title might suggest, this comic book doesn’t tell the film’s story, but contains five small stories which feature both the Smurfs and their new blue haired friends of Smurfette Village in the Forbidden Forest.
In the first story of the bunch, the Smurfs have only just met the inhabitants of Smurfette Village, who all happen to be girls. At first, they don’t really know what to do, but when the girls ask Brainy Smurf out on a walk, the ice is broken. Along the walk, Brainy will get to know the girls better.
The Smurfs have their Hefty Smurf, the Smurfette Village Smurfs have Smurfstorm. She’s not afraid of anything, and when she hears Hefty brag a bit too much about his braveness, in the second story of this release, she challenges him to a duel to see who is in fact the bravest.
The third story tells that of Clumsy Smurf, who would love to have a flying dragon, just like Smurfstorm. Smurflily tells him that he can, if he really wants to, and shows him where the dragons live. Unfortunately, Clumsy is quite clumsy, as was to be expected, and disturbs the peace among the dragons, causing one to attack him.
The Smurfettes mainly eat pumpkins, and are very proud to show their gardens to the Smurfs. At regular times, parts of their gardens get ransacked though, yet they don’t know by what kind of animal. The Smurfs help the Smurfettes to set a trap to try and find out more.
In the last story, Smurfwillow calls Smurflily to her desk, as she hears that Smurflily has gone outside of the safe walls of Smurfette Village. An explanation is needed, but Smurflily seems to have a very convincing one ready.
As the storylines in this comic book are really short, they don’t have too much detail to them, yet they make sure that you can already meet the characters in the upcoming movie. The new characters change things up a bit from the usual we’ve been seeing, but we felt like there would have been more to this release if there was one longer storyline instead of the short ones we get. What we found a bit confusing is that, while the film is not yet released, the new characters are not introduced at all. We would therefore suggest reading this comic book after watching the film, as it should provide a bit more context then.
The colors have more depth to them than in other Smurfs comic books. This makes the whole look very lively and even magical, which suits the setting of the Forbidden Forest quite well.
Conclusion
De Smurfen en het Verloren Dorp offers five short stories that will introduce you to the new characters that will also be featured in the upcoming film. Nonetheless, a real introduction is left out, and as the stories are so short, you don’t get much more than just a teaser. While the comic book is certainly not bad, we hoped it had more to it.
De Smurfen en het Verloren Dorp - Comic Book Review,
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