My Brother Teddy: A Gold Standard

Creative Team

writer: JAROMIR FRANÇOIS

artist: TODOR HRISTOV

colorist: SONYA ANASTASOVA

publisher: SOURCE POINT PRESS

My Brother Teddy #1 tells an epic and emotional story all with little to no words—instead, the beautiful art and implied narrative takes readers on an incredible journey.

The story begins with a young boy asleep with his teddy bear on a rain-filled night. After lightning strikes, the bear wakes up to find his companion gone and a creepy hand withdrawing into a dark closet. Determined to save the boy, the bear arms himself with a toy sword and shield and enters the darkness.

It would be easy to argue this is a fantasy story full of action set pieces. However, with the story offering no dialogue and flexibility for the reader to make their own assumptions, this offers multiple ways to experience this story making for a beautiful experience with each read.

As previously mentioned, this story largely follows Teddy—a stuffed bear whose bond with their child is so strong they go into a portal to battle an onslaught of monsters to save them. There is a lot of room for interpretation, especially with creative decisions with monster designs and panel layouts.

Readers can take at face value that this is a stuffed animal getting transformed, but it can also serve as an open-ended experience that grows depending on the state of the reader. Questions such as: Why was the boy taken? Do the monsters each represent a unique danger? Why does this other world want the child? It’s this nuance that makes this comic so enriching.

Written by Jaromir François, the story has depth and emotion even if a single word is never spoken. Fortunately, illustrator Todor Hristov and colorist Sonya Anastasova interpret François’ script perfectly and make use of each page.

The art style contains rough lines and the color design adds a layer of texture throughout the various panels. Once the action ramps up, and Teddy transforms into a formidable bear warrior, the character designs are more mature but the colors continue to keep the style from the real world. This allows the experience to be fluid even though the art style has a minor shift.

There is a lot to celebrate from this issue, and emotions are the core of what makes this story excellent. While the overall experience stands tall amongst other comic book stories, there are a few elements that could be improved in (hopefully) subsequent issues. Primarily, the pages that offer one sentence of interpretive exposition feel like lost space that could otherwise give further explanation as to why characters change or why the boy was chosen in the first place. With 26-28 pages of story, the ending does feel a little rushed, but it manages to pack the intended punch.

My Brother Teddy shines as a high standard for what comic book storytelling should be. In just a couple dozen pages, this issue doesn’t just ‘wow’ with its art and rich color palettes, but tells a story that will have readers ready for more from this fantasy adventure.

For more on Jaromir François and his other works, visit https://skysurfer117.gumroad.com/. François has created other titles such as Napoleon and the Machine and The Alien Heroes.

“I’ve always loved the idea of storytelling. Stories, no matter the form, were my first love and I didn’t know it until high school. And when I graduated college, I put all my energy into sharing my creations with the rest of the world.”

-Jaromir François