Several contain no dialogue or narration, only images, and, while I am a great proponent of the images in graphic literature carrying at least a portion of the narrative, given the surround - after all, someone is supposed to be telling these stories – it’s a bit of a head-scratcher. This is understandable given the probable constraints on submissions, but there are a number of stories that could benefit from more development.

Needless to say, at thirteen stories in each volume, the tales are brief, sometimes elliptical to the point of being cryptic: they are sometimes no more than sketches. Given the number of stories in these first three volumes - nearly forty - it’s asking for trouble to try to give a blow-by-blow “review” of each one, so I’m going to make some general observations while pointing out highlights and possible flaws. (There are some hefty tabs running, and June is losing patience.) The Inn provides us a “rogue’s gallery” of the inhabitants of the mouse city of Barkstone, as well as some visitors – the transitions are sometimes as entertaining as the stories themselves. Peterson provides continuity for these tales in the form of the June Alley Inn, where June, the proprietress, offers a contest: everyone is to tell a story about the Guard, and the winner of the night’s competition will have his or her tab forgiven everyone else has to pay up.

And indeed, Peterson has brought us one himself, with the aid of a number of collaborators: Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard. Given the popularity and critical acclaim of David Peterson’s Mouse Guard series (as witness our own very positive review of the first book, Mouse Guard: Fall 1152), it was almost inevitable that there would be spin-offs.

Mouse guard legends of the guard