REVIEW | ONE PAGE COMIC COLLECTION BY EMMANUEL ADELEKUN (AUTHOR), SHANGOMOLA EDUNJOBI (ILLUSTRATOR)

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OPC111 dif­fer­ent stor­ies nar­rated as short com­ics each con­sist­ing of only one page, this is the concept behind – The ‘One Page Com­ic Col­lec­tion’. Easy to digest, but each one leav­ing you want­ing to read the next, so much so you can go through the entire col­lec­tion in just one sit­ting. Des­pite the short length of each story they are sur­pris­ingly cap­tiv­at­ing explor­ing a range of themes and con­cepts, a must for any avid com­ic book lov­er or just any­one look­ing for good short stor­ies. Avail­able on Amazon or if you’re lucky, you could pur­chase a signed copy in per­son as I did.

Writ­ten and illus­trated by a UK duo, the storylines have been birthed by writer Emmanuel Adelekun who has been writ­ing since an early age and com­mands a very diverse range of writ­ing styles from poetry to screen­plays, also a film-maker he has a couple of short film pro­duc­tions under his belt. Per­haps the vari­ety in his nar­rat­ives can be explained by his eclect­ic life­style which com­bines his love for bboy­ing and mar­tial arts, both of which he has stud­ied and been an act­ive par­ti­cip­ate for sev­er­al years, which has also in turn lead him to travel the world and open his mind to all it entails. Typ­ic­ally Emmanuel is drawn to explor­ing adven­tur­ous stor­ies which touch on per­son­al growth and devel­op­ment, so you are sure to expect a deep­er hid­den mean­ing with­in these pages.

In this inform­a­tion age atten­tion spans are short, and I remem­ber Emmanuel and myself hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion about the effect­ive­ness of keep­ing pieces of writ­ing short and con­cise for the read­er, and these do exactly that to deliv­er diverse and punchy thought pro­vok­ing tales.

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Bring­ing his stor­ies to life is tal­en­ted illus­trat­or – Shango­mola Edun­jobi. Draw­ing for many years he won first prize in the Lon­don Graph­ic Nov­el Net­work A3 com­pet­i­tion in 2014 and 2017 Manga Jiman com­ic com­pet­i­tion. His career in com­ic book illus­tra­tion was launched inter­est­ing enough with his one page A3 com­ic win­ner entitled ‘Scar­let’ which is also included in this col­lec­tion as a bonus. The One Page Com­ic Col­lec­tion sees a devel­op­ment of the concept that star­ted with Scar­lett. The illus­tra­tions are fresh with vivid col­ors which only lead to spark­ing the ima­gin­a­tion fur­ther.  Shangomola’s sig­na­ture style also comes in the form of inclus­ive eth­nic diversity in his com­ics, which is actu­ally quite refreshing.

Both artists work very well togeth­er, explor­ing a range of ima­gin­at­ive ideas involving war­ri­ors to super­her­oes. I appre­ci­ated the some­what dark twists! And look for­ward to see­ing what the future brings in terms of their collaboration.

IG: onepage­com­ic­col­lec­tion

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