Once Upon A Time In The North

From my school library.

Title: Once Upon A Time In The North
Publisher: Random House Kids
Date: 2023
Writer: Philip Pullman
Artist: Chris Wormell

Not a comic, but beautifully illustrated, this novella (novelette? fairly long short story?) is a prequel to Pullman's His Dark Materials series. This is a classic western tale (well, northern, technically) featuring a stranger coming to town, a corrupt politician, an evil mining company, a good-hearted librarian, gunslingers, and, of course, a talking bear.

This is the story of the first meeting of Lee Scoresby and Iorek Byrnison. Lee arrives in a sleepy northern oil town, and gets introduced to the local political scene, where an offer is made to pay him to be hired muscle in the unfair treatment of a merchant captain. Instead, Lee decided to side with the captain, and earns the support of the armored bear Iorek Byrnison.

This was really fun because the pacing of most of His Dark Materials makes it difficult to give center stage to secondary characters like Scoresby and Byrnison, and even more difficult to spotlight a character like Scoresby's daemon, Hester, who is absolutely awesome here.

This features an intense gunfight with an extremely nasty villain, a good bit of worldbuilding, and some fun subplots. Really enjoyable as a fan of Pullman's other works, but stands on its own pretty well as long as you have an idea of the daemon concept.

Rating: 8.5/10