Tales From Lands Unknown: Uri Tupka and the Gods

Uri Tupka is a heretic.  That’s what happens to theologians who speak truth to power and tell their emperor that the hundred-foot, solid gold goat statue they’re building might not be very pious.  He then finds himself on the run and in the company of a hermit who had an encounter with an unknowable thing.  In desperation, the hermit called out to the gods and was saved.  This is fascinating to Uri, who has long believed like everyone else that the gods had departed his world.  Now he’s on a quest to find out why they left, where they are now, and if they’re ever coming back.

For the second graphic novel in his new “Tales From Lands Unknown” world, creator Mike Mignola takes his own advice and gives us a protagonist to anchor all of the strangeness in these stories.  Uri Tupka is a man on the run whose profession gives him a vested interest in the quest he’s been charged with, and lots of knowledge to help him out along the road.  I wouldn’t say that these things make him a great protagonist, but he’s definitely appealing as an ordinary guy who gets embroiled in some extraordinarily weird circumstances.

Which, in Mignola’s hands, means that the talking cat is the most normal thing you’ll see here.  A deranged student from a university that hasn’t existed for hundreds of years.  A transformed sea monster god who still has enough influence to protect his images.  Devilish banquets where all that you desire can be had for your signature in blood.  Unknowable evil being held off from consuming our world at the edge of the universe.  All of these things, and more, are here and impressively rendered in Mignola’s inimitable style.  It all makes for a much better argument for the creator to start up another fictional universe, as well as to read the follow-up – “Uri Tupka and the Devils” – which is already solicited for this Fall.