I get what the artist was trying to do by making the art look like cave wall art. It just didn't work. Those panels were simplistic but also covered in so many simple objects that my eyes couldn't pull out the action of the panels. I found this story of cave people a complete waste of time with terrible art.

"Nhun the Huntress" is another installment in this vein of interesting graphic novels. It wasn't quite for me though.

It's such a quick read. The book is mostly covered with drawings and hardly dialogues.
I found this book confusing and not complete. May be it was because of the translation.
Even though Nhun was portrayed as a warrior, the job wasn't done right.
The drawings were done in tribal as well as in traditional way. It was hard to look into the drawings and the color hue was same. throughout.
This book isn't my thing. Some other reader might like it..

Nhun, despite her habit of keeping her right boob exposed, is the tribe's best tracker. Running after deer one day, her boyfriend gets injured when a roc takes him off for its nest full of chicks, but she can even rescue him with a well-aimed weapon. The problem she might not be able to fend off, however, is the stick-in-the-mud theories of the old codgers claiming to be the tribe's wise men, who, despite having grand ideas about settling down and forming a city, insist on having a master tracker who is male. Even worse, the only way she might live to get her way is to defeat her boyfriend in battle and kick some feminist ass while she's at it.

I think this book works, and is quite good fun, but it doesn't help itself. The first section – the hunt – is perfectly wordless, but clear to 'read'. The second wordless chunk however has a lot of imagery – animals in the landscape, and things like Nhun walking one way then the other, and just plain disappearing from view, that don't help our understanding. Oh, and throughout the whole visual style is trying to spin off Turkish cave paintings, with swirls, stick men and women, and so on. (It's amazing how the art can drop characters of lesser interest into stick form, just as manga can likewise turn them into childish simulacra of themselves at times – how little has changed across several thousand years.)

Anyway, this whole trip across the landscape to the city, and the religious ceremonials that go on, are a problem. Only when boyf brings a lion to try and appease her do things kick back into gear. Ultimately, the question of what the tribe should do is of little interest to us – luckily, the book is also about the feminist issue, and clearly how many titties to drop to be of note. Now, all of the above tells a lot more of the plot of a book than I'd normally give, but it's an indication of this volume and the reviews I've read of it, that people struggled. I'd like to say that the struggle can be overcome, and even while the end result is uneven, and certainly not as polished as it should be, it will stand as the only book of this style you'll ever see. Three and a half stars.

Dang, I really wanted to like this but it was just pretty dang bad.
So, Nhun is this bad-ass warrior babe who is also chief hunter and supreme tracker of her tribe. She has the hots for another hunter named Alu who also digs her. One day during a hunt, Alu, trying to show off an be cool almost gets himself killed by a huge bird.
Back at the village, a crusty old man blames Nhun for Alu being stupid because he thinks women should not hunt at all but lay around looking cute, banging and making many babies. Also, he proposes that their tribe, who have always been nomadic hunters, should settle and switch to farming so he can be old and comfortable.
He eggs everyone on until Alu, wanting to show off his awesome manliness to Nhun challenges her to a duel to take her spot as chief hunter.

I won't tell you the rest but the moral, which I THINK was supposed to be that love wins ends up being that hormones win and sex is way more fun than hunting lions.

A visually swirling, curling, lively tale of an ancient tribe carrying out the circle of life, where old and young, male and female are pitted against each other in deciding on their Master Tracker.

The story is an odd combination of slow-moving slice-of-life moments and high-pressure, life-altering events that jerks forward through a series of wordless chunks interspersed with text- and plot-heavy moments.

After reading, I couldn’t help wondering:

-Who is the intended audience for this book?
-Did the artwork (especially the close-ups of facial expressions) move the story forward?
-Would the story work better as a 12-page condensed version?
-Could the book be expanded to be twice as long, with sections of side stories within the world provided between bits of the main narrative?
-Would an earlier ending to the Master Tracker thread provide a stronger narrative? Would an epilogue help?

Nhun the Huntress
By Firat Yaşa
Translated by Cem Ulgen
Europe Comics

On the first read, Nhun the Huntress might be off-putting, but something sticks with you in the wholly unique presentation of its ideas and you realize that the most satisfying work is sometimes not the work that delivers immediately so you can move onto the next thing promptly. Turkish cartoonist Firat Yaşa delivers exactly that, pulling from the histories of civilization, of art, and of gender in rich ways that blend a sublime visual work with a powerful philosophical punch behind it.

In the simplest terms, a story about a master tracker for a hunter-gatherer tribe, the Luvy, Nhun is in constant collision with a faction in her community that wants her leadership position of master tracker to be held by a man, despite her obvious capabilities.

Nhun the HuntressThe first quarter of the book is a wordless hunting expedition that sees Nhun tangling with a giant bird that threatens her male hunting companion, but upon return to her village, Nhun is immediately faced with a spin by a male elder who attempts to take the glory of defeating the bird away from her and transfer it to the companion, Alu. These efforts to disarm Nhun’s authority don’t stop there, but don’t linger on them either, preferring to cover the tribe’s healing methods and accompany Nhun to a city visit where she has a mystical experience and receives matriarchal religious guidance, as well as some flirting with Alu, who appreciates Nhun’s fierce capabilities.

This mix of viewpoints swirls into a tale of transition from a hunter-gatherer way of life to a settled, agricultural-based society that Nhun’s specific story plays a part, specifically regarding the debate among the tribe members. But rather than letting conflict and violence define the human experience, Yaşa advocates for creativity and community as our defining traits, since both those require collaboration.

A good portion of the book’s sophistication is its visual presentation, which is a strange and original confluence of a Vaughn Bode art-style and a jam-packed Where’s Waldo aesthetic, but saturated with a major stylistic embrace of cave paintings. The combination creates a requirement for concentration and definitely more than one reading, but it shows Yaşa as someone capable of letting words and pictures meld together seamlessly in communicating complexity and demanding that the reader meet the work half-way, with the understanding that reading means growth, and growth is what Nhun the Huntress is all about anyhow.

3.5 / 5

I liked this comic book but not everyone will. Unless you've studied prehistoric hunter-gatherer cultures and the impacts of the transition to agriculture, it might not make much sense. It was a very quick read; out of about 75 pages there were only 15 to 20 pages with any dialogue at all.

This story takes place around 9,000 years ago in what is now southeast Turkey. Nhun, the protagonist, is a hypothetical huntress who leads her band of fellow hunter-gatherers. In this time and place people were just beginning to settle down, cultivate crops and raise animals, while most people were still living life on the move, gathering, fishing and hunting.

The artwork is stylized to look like the prehistoric paintings of the early Neolithic. While I loved the modernized "ancient" aesthetic, it was just a bit too busy and monochromatic. I also really appreciated the Goddess symbols that kept popping up – snake, bear, leopard, owl, etc.

The framing could have been better too. The largest frames should be reserved for the most important moments, or to convey scale. Most of the important moments were spread out over rows and rows multiple small frames. There was also no verticality to break up the pages.

Nhun's tribe travels to trade with the people of Çatal Höyük, one of the earliest settlements in human history. One of the male elders says he's tired of wandering and wants to settle down. Then the tribe could multiply and prosper. A female elder wants to maintain their way of life. She argues that settling down leads to war, social inequity, and people thinking they "own" the land.

The root of this debate is whether to abandon a way of life that keeps people in balance, with the earth and each other, or adopt a new way of life that offers more to fewer people. The transition requires a shift from a mostly egalitarian society to a mostly patriarchal society.

While I love the idea of comic books set in the Meso- and Neolithic, I don't know that this one conveyed the story it was trying to tell very well. It was slow in places, and without giving any kind of historical context the average person might end up a little confused.

Archaeologists, anthropologists, and other students of prehistory will really appreciate it. Everyone else though could be lost. Still, it's a unique and important artistic interpretation of a critical point in time for humanity.

I was intrigued by the stylistic art and the idea of a prehistoric love story that Nhun the Huntress offered, so I decided to give this title a read. I find myself having a bit of a hard time knowing quite how to review it, but we’ll get to that here in a minute.
A tribe of people many millennia ago find themselves in a bit of an existential bind, debating both who their next leader should be and also whether they should continue their nomadic lifestyle or settle an area and build a village. The women elders support continuing to travel across the land, and want Nhun to be their hunter-leader. The men elders support settling and building a village, and want Alu to be their hunter leader. Unfortunately for everyone’s plans, Nhun and Alu have some unspoken feelings they need to work out, first.
Nhun the Huntress is structured pretty oddly. The first third of the book is a silent hunting scene, before it switches to the tribe arguing over its future and leadership. The shift is abrupt, and the two pieces of the book don’t really feel like they fulfill the narrative arc. For that matter, the ending is exceptionally abrupt.
The art is really fascinating on its own, but it doesn’t do the best job of telling the story, either. It can frequently become difficult to tell exactly what is going on here. Many panels use close-ups of characters’ faces to try to express non-verbal thoughts, but the facial expression art is not clear enough to fully understand what is meant.
Nhun the Huntress is a very quick read, but not a particularly satisfying one. I would hold off on reading this unless you are really intrigued by the art style. Even then, browse the book first before buying to make sure you know what you are getting into.
CONTENT NOTE: This volume contains some blood and gore in the early hunting scene, and there is non-sexual nudity throughout the entirety of the book. Parents should consider reviewing this before handing it to younger readers.
Review will be available at the provided link on May 23, 2019.

A beautifully illustrated graphic novel that was able to combine a compelling narrative with excellent illustrations and character arcs.

I was very unclear as to why Nhun's breast(s) would be uncovered when she is tracking and hunting. While the artwork was enjoyable, I really couldn't get past that. Clothes! Clothes are useful for preventing injury!

Interesting, but confusing story of a bronze age community, which is hunter gatherer, and the main hunter is Nhun, the huntress. The drawings are done both in a traditional cartoony manner, but also in the style of the cave walls, stick figures.

The story appears to be about the men trying to persuade the women to go back to cooking and cleaning, while the men do the mens working of hunting.

Finally, after much talking and arguing they decide that Nhun will have to fight to keep her place.

<img src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/the-huntress.png" alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5174" />

I liked the artwork, but I was never quite sure what was going on, and I think I undestand the ending, but it is hard to say.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

Received via NetGalley for review.

Nhun the Huntress is about the growth and evolution of a civilization. The women believe in Mother Earth, and that roaming the land is their tribe's past, present, and future. But the men are beginning to grumble, unhappy with Nhun as Master Tracker and the women's insistence on a nomadic lifestyle. They want to settle and live in comfort. The male elder uses Alu, the strongest male hunter, as his pawn in order to challenge Nhun's position in the tribe, which backfires as both Nhun and Alu cannot deny their attraction to each other.

Around 2/3rds of the content is wordless, which means when there are words it's abrupt and out of place. Yasa should have either stuck with entirely pictorial storytelling or created a better balance of dialogue and images. And while the art is clearly tribal-inspired (if not African-inspired), all of the characters are light-skinned and there are a few inconsistencies (mainly in the depiction of Nhun - her hair moves from dark to red, with both breasts covered or one uncovered).

There are interesting ideas here, but as it stands, the graphic novel doesn't deliver.

While I do not read a lot of graphic novel titles this one drew my eye so I thought I'd give it a look. In the format I reviewed it in, the first 24 pages contained no text. I almost started to wonder if I was somehow missing something. After getting more than halfway through the book and still not really understanding what I was looking at, I went onto goodreads.com to see if I could find some additional information that might shed some light on what the subject matter of this book is supposed to be. I really didn't find much. I think this is the same book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20485768-avc-nun?ac=1&from_search=true.
If it is, the fact that it is translated from another language might have been helpful information to have before I began reading. I say this solely because I may have spent less time trying to figure out if the nuances of the language and illustrations were meant to be sexist/racist/agist, etc. and would have maybe given it the benefit of the doubt that it may have been lost in translation.
Anyway, I did not "get" whatever it was this book was trying to express. But, then again, I still don't know what the heck How to Talk to Girls at Parties by Neil Gaiman was trying to tell me and that was in plain English. I'm sorry to say that this simply was not my cup of tea.