REVIEW: ‘Marguerite vs. the Occupation’

Marguerite vs. the Occupation is a one-shot comic written by John Luzar with pencils and inks by Kasey Quevedo, color by Laurel Dundee, and lettering by Toben Racicot. This Kickstarter from Resistance Comics follows a soldier who loses his whole band in an attempt to clear a small French town of Nazis and the local girl who risks it all to save her town.

Foremost, this comic is just great. It’s a simple, single sequence, but it’s impactful, lovely to look at, and not your typical war story. Marguerite has lost a lot to the Nazis, and when resistance forces are nearly wiped out by gunners occupying her home atop a hill, she can no longer stand by, expecting others to pick up the fight for her. She uses her love and knowledge of her hometown to survive the Nazi gunners and get her revenge. I appreciate that the story is one fluid sequence, using dialogue and apparitions to provide context or flashback rather than dedicating whole panels to it. Keeping you in the present raises the stakes and keeps the story grounded rather than meandering through time.

Artistically, the bold lines give a definite character to the comic that sets it apart from a typical gritty war story. The slight cartoonish nature isn’t photorealistic and feels inviting beyond fans of historical fiction, which is extra good because the story is less about the grueling nature of war or and more about the human beings contained in the story. I firmly believe the best war stories focus on human beings and Marguerite vs. the Occupation does just that.

However, this is still a war story, and I appreciate that there’s a level of creativity and ingenuity in the scenario itself. The way Marguerite uses her wit and her personal experience to come up with a solution to the plot that I’d never seen before was a great way to incorporate action into this otherwise character-based story.

The coloring is also excellent. Most of the comic is dark and dreary with tons of rain, lightning, and dark clouds, but there are some very well-blended colors that show you distinct clouds among the storm and keeps all of the assets distinct from one another. Marguerite’s clothes and lipstick (and bloody forehead) are the only bright spots in most of the comic, but smartly, they’re not bright red, but rather a duller red that doesn’t stand out too starkly against the dreary comic. It’s a perfect balance. A few of the time displacement elements are also brightly colored, which helps make them clearly distinct from the rest of the story. The lettering is also just slightly outside of the standard letter font to noticeably better befit the overall style of the comic.

Marguerite vs. the Occupation is a seriously great Kickstarter. It’s a character-driven war story with good action elements and a great art direction.

Follow Marguerite vs. the Occupation’s Kickstarter campaign now.