Rare Flavours #1 Review: An Exquisite Taste of Comics

After my grandmother passed when I was much younger, her children had the opportunity to collect mementos from the small farmhouse she lived in. I recall my mother moving directly to her mother-in-law's kitchen, while others sought out seemingly more desirable locales, and retrieving her pie dish. It certainly wasn't the most valuable object in the house, but as soon as the other Magnett children saw the only object my mother chose to retrieve, they all sighed in disappointment. My grandmother's cherry pies were the stuff of legend and, upon seeing the dish, we all understood there was perhaps no better symbol of the love, family, and care she had brought all of us in life. 

Rare Flavours #1 summoned this memory because it, too, reminded me of the centrality of food in human existence and how this ephemeral artform distills so many of our best (and most contradictory) qualities.

The new miniseries from Boom Studios reunites the creative team behind the critically-acclaimed The Many Deaths of Laila Starr with writer Ram V, artist Filipe Andrade, and lettering from Andworld Design. Together they pursue another modern fable that builds upon Indian mythology to invoke both an exciting adventure and contemplation of the human condition. While that bar established by Many Deaths is quite high, every page of Rare Flavours #1 suggests that the new project is more than capable of reaching it.

This new fable centers upon Rubin, a rakshasa stretching his legs to explore the country for new flavors and with new ambitions, and Mohan, a film director disinterested in the continued pursuit of his creative career. The former introduces himself to readers in a letter to their former "employer." Andworld Design's outstanding lettering is combined with Andrade's luxuriant painting depicting a battle between the mythic figures Bheema and Bakasura, with the latter implied as a relation of Rubin or Rubin himself. It's a splendid introduction to the series' tone with magical characters and elements flirting with the typically grounded elements on the page. Rubin subsequently introduces himself to Mohan and reveals a shared fascination when he invites the young man to craft a film about food.

Andrade's sequences depicting the food stories behind this story are simply superb. The first issue, titled "Masala Chai," details both the preparation of this special tea and the story of Satish, a street vendor utilizing his family's recipe. Open panels filled with ingredients utilize color to draw out the best qualities of ingredients and offer a clear sense of texture and heat within the panel. When paired with warm, earth tone-laden depictions of the man crafting this brew, it summons Parts Unknown to mind – a connection purposefully made with an early reference to Bourdain's legacy.

Those vignettes of food preparation integrate themselves splendidly into the rich, dreamlike vision of India (specifically Mumbai in issue #1) that populates the entire issue. Andrade's figures all resemble mundane humans but their forms reveal personality and power. Rubin looms in a fashion reminiscent of Sienkiewicz's Demon Bear, massive, powerful, and absolutely confident. This informs the figures of two men stalking his trail who only hint at their supernatural ties, but whose bodies reveal far more. The busy streets of the Bandra neighborhood are filled with activity and loose lines that imply as much as they define. Andrade's colors paint the space with life and make the setting as vital as any individual walking its streets.

Throughout Rare Flavours #1 there is an undercurrent of memory played out in both the creation of food and capture of film. Rubin reflects on their millennia-long path; Mohan is reminded of his very first, and most precious, film; Satish carries the memory of home in his tea. Different forms of art connect characters to their past and work to reveal both comfort and ominous secrets. Whatever path lies ahead for the humans, rakshasa, and other mythical beings involved, this debut makes clear that it takes its subject matter, food, very seriously. With wondrous depictions of simple recipes, deep-seated emotional experiences, and a sense of wonder at the mundane, it summons an odyssey of memory bound to remind readers of the most profound flavors from their own past.

Published by Boom Studios

On September 20, 2023

Written by Ram V

Art by Filipe Andrade

Colors by Filipe Andrade

Letters by Andworld Design

Cover by Filipe Andrade