Articles tagged with: Comic Book

The Book of Blood is an anthology/compilation of a black & white comic, a novella and four short stories, all themed around the Blood Angels Space Marines chapter.

I had the book forgotten in a shelve, because after reading the comic I wasn't specially enjoying the Space Hulk novella. As I ended up reading it alone, I recently decided to finish the book.

The results are that the comic is the best piece, then the short stories vary. This is my first reading about the Blood Angels specific lore, "vampirism" and the black rage, so while is interesting to see the differences from Dark Angels and Ultramarines (of whom I've read a few books) on most stories it feels like too exagerated, as if the bloodlust or the rage was terrible, while I had an image of some crazed marines but the rest more normal.

Not bad but I'm not impressed either... and as I said, the best part is the comic.

Posted on 2014-11-04

Lone Wolves is B/W comic depicting an ice world, where the remains of an Imperial Guard squadron must survive terrible attacks from the Tyranids. When everything seems lost, a pack of Space Wolves appears to help them. Together they'll try to push forward the alien menace.

Quite interesting comic and for once not the typical Ultramarines chapter. I enjoyed the almost-feral character of the wolves of Fenris. Well written, well drawn and while the story is nothing awesome, it is good enough to keep you entertained. If anything bad, feels a bit short.

Posted on 2014-07-06

I can't remember exactly from where I got info about the presence of the comic book Inquisitor Ascendant, but I wanted to get my hands on it. Now that I've read it here are my thoughts.

As the name implies, the comic talks about Gravier, an inquisitor apprentice that follows a hardass inquisitor called Defay. The story is split on two parts, first of it telling some stories while Gravier learns from his master, and the second one afterwards when Gravier itself is an interrogator and Defay has gone missing.

It was originally published in fragments, and thus the drawings are from different artists. I really liked some of the styles, while others were just good. It is a bit of a pity that you make a visual idea of a character and some pages later it gets redrawn differently, but there's no option so... we must embrace it.

The story is nice, nothing incredibly deep but an enjoyable read, depicting some of the typical adventures an inquisitor would have, moral decisions he would have to take, and quite some action. It is partly from Dan Abnett, although there is a fragment from the second part suspiciously similar to Apocalypse Now movie...

Overall, quite good B&W comic, recommended if you want inquisitorial tales.

Posted on 2014-03-29

Road Rage is a comic book adaptation of two stories: Duel, a Richard Matheson tale about a normal guy who is chased by a crazy truck (there is a great movie about it!), and Throttle, a rethinking of Duel written by Stephen King and his son.

As I enjoyed a lot watching Duel for the first time when I was a child (and the other times I've watched it again) but haven't read the book, I bought Road Rage to see how was adapted into a comic.

There results are quite nice: The drawings are nicely done, with dark tones of browns, greys and reds. The pacing is good and you get nervous admiring each page.

But there is a clear separation between both stories. Matheson's original one is as nice as expected, and the changes regarding the movie are small. Instead, Stephen King's tale... is a bit dull. It changes the characters (a gang of motorbike riders), it changes in other important aspects (they are not so passive/defensive as the original chased driver), but in general feels still too similar to the original. Maybe I just expected something more different and elaborate.

I recommend it even despite my unmet expectations.

Posted on 2014-03-01

While Ultramarines Captain Uriel Ventris and it's companion Pasanius are on a death oath and counted as dead already, orks appear in one of the planets under their command and sargeant Learchus will lead the defense and erradication of the greenskins.

With this simple premise, Defenders of Ultramar makes for a plain read. Not wanting to have any amazing plot, nor interesting twists, it is just a visual narration of space marines versus orks, very iconic, displaying a lot of unit types, and typical quotes from the rulebooks. That said, it is quite nicely drawn and painted, and it manages to plug itself into existing lore (at least the one existing in the books).

Not a bad comic if you like Warhammer 40k universe, I got mine second hand and I don't regret it :)

Posted on 2013-05-04