Reviewing RAMBOL and TROPA # 1

I was finally able to get my hands on Gilbert Monsanto's Sacred Mountain debut releases. First up is the flipbook RAMBOL KOMIKS which features Alagad Inc. (not pictured) and Metropolitan. What is most noticeable is ALAGAD INC's art style which gets much inspiration from Japanese manga and anime. The story is about some supernatural beings, most probably ancient deities of some sort, coming down from their domain to send a challenge to Earth's mightiest champions. A group called Alagad Inc. re-recruits some of its best agents to help in this time of crisis. On the flip side is Gilbert Monsanto's METROPOLITAN which brings back Monsanto's old characters from his 90's stint in Infinity, Sonic, GASI etc. Drawn by Monsanto himself, this Metropolitan features quite a lot of fight sequences. There is also some hint that the Biotrog character featured in this book may not be the Biotrog we know and grew up with.

Next is TROPA. This comics stars a group of high school friends imbued with different abilities via different circumstances. I'm not saying no more. All is explained in this "origin" issue. This comic was drawn by different artists like Gilbert Monsanto, Luisito G. Antonio, Jim Jimenez, and others. Though I was first bothered when I learned about this via Monsanto's blog, I was quite satisfied with the implementation and the results. Each artist draws each of the main character's origin story. Hopefully once we get a non-flashback story, we'll also get only one artist per issue.

All in all, I found the both books quite satisfactory. The materials used for these releases are also quite different from the komiks back in the day. Komiks before were printed on newspaper-like materials, Tropa was printed on glossy paper probably the ones used on magazines while Rambol on some thicker paper. My only big problem with the books specifically the flipbook Rambol Komiks was the coloring. Although Tropa was fully colored, Rambol only had colors on the first few pages, the rest were black and white. I would have preferred to have everything in black and white instead of having only the first few pages colored. I'm OC that way.