Visit An Action Filled Fantasy World With Mystical Creatures In Sanford Greene’s 1000

There have been a few well known comic creators who have utilized the digital media platform of LINE Webtoon to publish their work. Dean Haspiel with Red Hook, Katie Cook with Nothing Special, and the more recently announced Fabian Nicieza and Riley Brown series Outrage are a few examples that come to mind.
Sanford Greene is also included on that list as he brought his passion project of over 20 years in the making, 1000, to the webcomic publisher. The series is created by Greene and his late friend and colleague, James Bruce Brown III and is written by his Rotten Apple collaborator, Chuck Brown. Originally slated to come out this past summer, the prologue and first chapter were recently released.
1000 takes place in an alternative earth where creatures of fantasy and folklore coexist with humans. In this world, dragons are gods and live on a separate plane in their own kingdom. One of their own, Dragon Son, was banished to earth for his past treasonous transgressions. In order to return to his kind, Son must travel a path of redemption and perform 1000 acts of penance, hence the series title. To help accomplish his task, Son has joined forces with the Elder’s Echo, a rag-tag group of powered beings that protect the world from any monstrous threats that could destroy civilization.

The prologue serves as a good introduction of the premise of the series as well as introducing the other members of the team and their backgrounds. Amongst the crew are a fallen angel, a woman who manipulates shadows, an imp and his jinn, a telepath/teleporter, and a vampire. After the heroes have been established, Chapter 1 follows part of the team trying to contain a dragon attack in New York City.

The prologue and first chapter do a good job of pulling the reader into the world of 1000. As mentioned above, the prologue helps distinguish each member of the team clearly and the basis of the series. This allows the story in Chapter 1 to jump straight into the action instead of spending time building the characters up. The fighting scenes are well choreographed and it’s fun to watch each character battle in their own unique way.
What stands out the most is the artwork. The designs and costuming of each member provide an idea of their personalities, even though not much character development has occurred in these first two episodes. Also for all the characters, even the ones in the background, there is both a cartoony and anime/manga influence that gives them a cool aesthetic. In addition, Mike Chung’s coloring work provides a hazy, post-apocalyptic feel, which is fitting for a world with so much danger.
As enjoyable as the series has been so far, the dragon attack in the first chapter was a little confusing. These looked more like conventional dragons compared to Son so it is not clear if they different. Also, this is a LINE Webtoon series, so one might need to adjust to the vertical format. However, a nice touch, that isn’t offered in conventional comic books, is the accompanying track for each chapter playing in the background. 1000 has gotten off to a good start with awesome looking characters, an intriguing premise, and great action. It should be interesting to learn more about each member of the team and what dangers they will face.
1000 can be found on LINE Webtoon and new episodes are posted every Thursday.