BÊLIT & VALERIA #2 – Review

BÊLIT & VALERIA #2, from Ablaze Publishing on June 8th, 2022, take their unlikely partnership to new lows when they infiltrate a getaway for despicable wizards, sorcerers, and mages to find out who resurrected Bêlit.

The Details

• Written By: Max Bemis
• Art By: Rodney Buchemi
• Colors By: Dinei Ribeiro
• Letters By: Taylor Esposito
• Cover Art By: Mirka Andolfo
• Cover Price: $3.99
• Release Date: June 8, 2022

Was It Good?

BÊLIT & VALERIA #2 is another odd entry in Ablaze’s original series based on Robert E. Howard’s characters because the tone is cross between irreverent, satirical, and bawdy. This reads almost like a barbarian-themed sex comedy adventure, so the characters are true to the source material, and the situations are vaguely similar, but the tone is very modern, out-of-place, and occasionally serious. The net result is a mixed, strange bag.

By far, the strongest piece of this comic is the art. Buchemi and Ribeiro create a visually mesmerizing comic from front to back. The character designs are memorable, the colors are exquisite, and the panel layouts/compositions are sophisticated in a few pages. Regardless of how you feel about the tone of the comic, it looks great.

The down point in the art is Esposito’s narration lettering. When the Bard narrates sections of the story, captions are lettered in long, script fonts with tight kerning (spacing between letters), making it difficult to read. Aesthetically, the font choice matches the setting, but it does so at the expense of readability.

The plot centers around Bêlit and Valeria forcing Glynn to lead them to where they could find necromancers who might know who resurrected Bêlit and why. The central idea and where Glyn takes them are interesting, and the setting is tailor-made for all kinds of debauched shenanigans, but again, the tone is inconsistent and narration dialog is pretentiously overblown on several pages. It’s never a good sign when you’re checking the page count on page ten because it takes so long to get through the narration. Once the action kicks in, the pace improves greatly.

Keep scrolling for a closer look at the covers, or Click Here to jump right to the story description with some spoilers.

What’s It About?

[SPOILERS AHEAD – Click here if you just want the score without spoilers]

The first issue outlines the first time Bêlit and Valeria met. Relive that (odd) adventure in our BÊLIT & VALERIA #1 review.

We begin with a view of a malicious sorcerer named Rath the Impossible. The narrator explains that Rath, and so many other magick practitioners like him, need to get away from it all at a gathering referred to as the Festival of the Blameless. There, nearly all of the worst magick-wielders in the kingdom gather to let their hair down and do whatever they like, no matter how depraved.

Elsewhere, we get a brief rundown of Bêlit and Valeria’s whereabouts after the first issue. They took Glynn’s ring (still attached to his hand) to bind him to their service, forcing him to show them where they can find the most powerful necromancers. Glynn is aware of the festival and takes them to the secret island.

We conclude the issue with “mud” fights, seductive words with foul smells, and feeding time for a giant ape-spider.

Keep scrolling for a closer look at preview images of the internal pages, or Click Here to jump right to the score.

Click Here To Buy This Comic

As an Amazon Associate, we earn revenue from qualifying purchases to help fund this site. Links to Blu-Rays, DVDs, Books, Movies, and more contained in this article are affiliate links. Please consider purchasing if you find something interesting, and thank you for your support.