Defalt

Good Ol’ Fantasy Continues

Cool action right from the beginning featuring various, nasty monsters which just keep getting more interesting as the story progresses. But characters also talk a lot about their past or present problems and we gradually learn—because it’s a sad story—their reasons for this revenge quest.

The art is great—detailed enough, especially the faces, with nice two-page scenes and stylised colours. And the ending feels intriguing.

I really hope this series continues and stays this good for a very long time.

Detective Murderbot

Our beloved murderbot tries to blend in the society and struggles with new kinds of anxiety. There’s a lot of mystery and detective work here and just one action scene.

The simplicity of descriptions is kinda refreshing after most other books and reminds me of some classic sci-fi like Stainless Steel Rat. But there’s a bit too much recapping of the previous book, especially considering that they’re both pretty short.

Also it features some new, interesting sci-fi concepts like future forms of money and communication between bots. And the ending is fine, leading to the next adventure.

Wish it was a bit longer, but I'm still glad that it exists.

The duel

Again the art style and the atmosphere are fantastic. And I can’t get enough of one of its great qualities—each soldier's outfit looks different. Also there are a few very beautiful landscapes.

Starts pretty slow, but eventually presents some very brutal action scenes of every kind, especially the long and really intense duel. And we get some more interesting background about Thorffin's father and Thorkell.

But there are a bit too many reaction shots and an unusual philosophy about love, not sure if it is needed here at all.

The ending is nice leading to some big events.

Can't wait to read the next volume!

Riddle me this: where’s another Zero Year volume?

The art style is still nice with a lot of pink elements, cool panel layout and some scary episodes. Also smoke and rain look amazing.

Riddler proves to be even smarter with every appearance and the riddles get progressively more difficult. Also Gordon's character is very detailed and provides a new point of view from inside the police.

Still very confused about the scenes with a crossbow, though. And some flashbacks are a bit strange.

Sadly there’s no next volume, at least this one is really large compared to most other volumes.

Berserker

Miura's super detailed art really stands out in this edition!

Awesome, large scale battle against trolls where everyone uses some unique weapon and there are a lot of various close ups on troll faces showing all kinds of emotions. Ogre and kelpie look so nasty and weird. Also all kinds of water—rain, flood, river, spirits—look incredible. And the sea is really beautiful.

Again many various, new enemy designs after 25 volumes—crazy looking, animal shaped, extremely weird armour, giants, huge crystal dragon, demon knights, very nice armour with a lot of crescent elements. And there’s the astral world's cave filled with all kinds of eerie, terrifying stuff and a very creepy castle.

And we finally get the Berserker armour with a lot of full page panels and an incredible cape!

Interested to see how the story goes after this one.

Unique adventure

Surprising quality and amount of details for a black and white comics. Backgrounds are often solid colour but this is compensated by a fantastic range of emotions and gestures from really distinct characters.

It also features an insane swarm of locusts, nasty and fascinating monsters and intriguing villain.

Looking forward to reading the next volume.

Too short

A great opportunity to see a lot of familiar characters in their prime or just youth. Although some stories are pretty simple in plot, they all have that beloved First Law style and atmosphere.

It could be just a bunch of stories in the same places, for the fans, for nostalgia, but this is Joe Abercrombie. He gives us an adventure with the same character over many years, multiple points of view and even a story with chained points of view about stealing a package! And the story that is written by Sworbreck feels fascinating and fresh!

Hope there will be more some day.

Pink

Panel layout throughout the whole book is insane, especially in the beginning where the truck scene is shown from all possible angles on just two pages! Although the art style is pretty typical for comics and not very detailed.

Overall there are some really interesting features in this origin story, but the first villain is really not threatening, even tells his whole plan at one point.

Looking forward to reading the next volume.

Frog people

Still great, unique art style with very cool depiction of the underworld, fantastic faces with all kinds of emotions and awesome action.

Also it’s still really funny and has some new character development. And there’s a great, large one shot co-written with Nicholas Eames!

Can't wait to read the next one!

Fantastic Fantasy

It's just perfect—creative, colourful, hilarious, violent, epic, detailed, well-written, unpredictable, bright!

Can’t wait for the second compendium book!

Epic battles and a bit more of Casca’s past

We finally learn some parts about Griffith’s past and see what he’s gone through. Again he talks about his dream but we still don’t know what that is.

Also here’s a lot of action! Awesome episode where Guts and Casca fight together, giant enemies in scary-looking armour with large, super dangerous weapons. And, of course, Guts being a super cool swordsman again! (he killed just too many enemies in one fight)

And I can’t not talk about the art. Night forest panels in black and white are so unusual and nice! And there’s a shot with some maps on a table as a part of the environment and even they’re extremely detailed when they don’t have to be. And here you can really appreciate the amount of different things like armour—most of the armour pieces are different between each other and there are a lot of shots with many armoured soldiers. The art is just getting better, it’s amazing!

And the ending is really cool. I have to read the next volume immediately!!