Comic– Rat Queens Volume One: Sass and Sorcery covering issues 1-5

Producer– Image’s Shadowline

Price-~$10

TL; DR– Awesome fantasy, but not for the faint of heart! 100%

 

Basics– Rat Queens follows the story of the Rat Queens as the smash, bash, burn, and screw their way through a fantasy world.  The Queens start of in jail being forced to do minor quests to avoid a longer sentence.  However, along the way assassins target them nearly killing some of them.  Will the Queens stop the assassins, get vengeance, and have enough money left over for candy and magic mushrooms?

 

Story– This is an amazingly fun story.  The story builds an interesting world as you learn the different races that exist in this world.  After five comics, you do feel like you’ve learned a lot about the world through the characters.  There are almost no text dumps to explain who, what, or where, but, I feel like I’ve learned enough.  The story has a good pace with no artificial extensions.  Also, the story is quite original.  I’ve read way to much fantasy that was crap, and, this was a breath of fresh air.  However, this book is NOT for children or the easily offended.  The common use of curse words would drive most goody two shoes from the room.  I’m a horrible person, and I love every minute of dialog!  Good job Kurtis Wiebe. 5/5

 

Characters-The Rat Queens all have their own personalities, goals, and lives.  No main character was just a carbon copy of any other.  Also, I never felt like I was watching just a reskin of the four humours.  Each character felt fresh and never seemed to do anything outside of their own motivations.  The main characters felt true.  The side characters all present various side issues and associates for the main characters, but, they also felt like they had their own lives to live.  No one character was their just to assist the main character.  Well done through and through. 5/5

 

Art– I liked this art style.  It’s minimalistic.  Details are often left off armor and other large things.  This isn’t like Todd McFarlane’s art style of hyper details.  In this style, the artist will just draw a shirt and leave it mostly white.  If a detail is shown, it’s because it’s important to the world.  I liked that.  Good job Ed Brisson.

 

Summary– I really liked this book.  It’s well done, funny, and entertaining.  This comic is almost like my standard DnD game.  The main characters feel more like people and less like stock Lord of the Ring characters.  The dialog, world, and story make this a can’t miss.  But, if you can’t handle obscene language or violence, maybe you should stick to the Hobbit. 100%