Comic books and animation are two distinct storytelling mediums that tend to appeal to the same people thanks to the overlap between them. What happens however when the lines separating the two mediums are completely erased? Drum roll, Man of the Law!

Collectible Comics is back with another awesome story. Drumroll, Man of the Law,  a voiced, motion comic that dances fluidly between animation and sequential art.

Man of the Law Synopsis

Man of the Law centres on a police detective, Frank Martins, who is charged with investigating a peculiar murder. The deceased, James Bayo, was a wealthy man rumoured to be into narcotics and kidnapping. He was also a drunk and a wifebeater. Evidence points to the man’s wife as the murderer but she insists the police killed her husband. 

All this goes on in the foreground while in the background are issues of infidelity, betrayal of friendships, personal conflicts of interest within the police department, as well as sensitive secrets being spilled to bloggers. 

What We Liked

Storytelling Technique

Man of the Law is narrated with a style common to the crime noir genre which is usually characterized by introspection, cynicism, fatalism, and moral ambiguity.

Believable Characters

Murewa Ayodele gives us a brilliant character in Frank Martins. A man determined to get to the truth of a crime while being confronted with the consequences of his philandering. This is an ironical fact that a man who claims to be a man of the Law is also morally flawed in some way, same as every human in the world. 

The piece also stars Charles, another man who according to Frank was one of the best in the force. Charles is also the only cop in that police station without a record of wrongdoing, he was also the only one person Frank could look up to. The comic reveals further that Charles was also weak-minded and unable to resist temptation.

Julie Ajayi, another character deliberately planted by the victim’s wife to blackmail the police. And she was pretty good at her job. There is also Oyin, who cheats on her husband (Charles) with Frank and according to him, she is troublesome. 

Finally, Mrs Bayo, the prime suspect in the investigation, a voluptuous seductress and a classic maneater, she seems to be the only one capable of revealing what truly happened to James Bayo.

With this set of characters, Murewa Ayodele has written a piece that would stay with fans of crime fiction for a long time. The strengths and flaws of these characters make them unique as well as dangerous in the pursuit of their individual goals. 

The So-so

While the vibrant voicing lends strength to the overall piece, the illustrations are woefully inadequate for the story being told. Overall, in the first episode, there were 9 illustrations for the whole of 6 minutes 59 seconds and the second episode had 10 illustrations for 9 minutes 21 seconds. This ended up leaving so much to the imagination. More would have sufficed. 

That notwithstanding, however, the overall art by Dotun Akande mirrored the darkness and the ominous feel of the story. 

What’s Next?

The first two episodes have thrown the story into a climax that one cannot wait for what’s to come next. Watch the episodes unfold below. 

Man of the Law Episode 1

Man of the Law Episode 2

Man of the Law Episode 3