THE RIVER OF BLOOD – Review

THE RIVER OF BLOOD, from Black Jack Press on Kickstarter, follows a crew of Northman as they agree to help a starving village under constant siege by attackers. When the truth of the attacks is revealed, it will take more than steel and muscle to save them.

The Details

• Written By: Sean Fahey
• Art By: Carlos Trigo
• Colors By: Jok
• Letters By: Kel Nuttall
• Cover Art By: Carlos Trigo
• Cover Price: $5 (digital pdf)
• Release Date: January 2022 (estimated)

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Was It Good?

THE RIVER OF BLOOD is a thoughtful, exciting, terrifying blend of Northman/Viking content with a supernatural twist.

We love Vikings and Viking content in all its forms and flavors. We especially love Viking content that has a unique spin to put the legendary warriors against something other than an opposing army. Here, readers get a Viking legend steeped in faith and intrigue as a group of Norseman are forced to flee their current home after their leader is falsely accused of misconduct by a jealous soldier. When their wandering travels bring them to a village suffering from a deadly curse, it’s up to this band of courageous warriors to solve the riddle or face a fate worse than death.

This is the stuff of epic tales sung in Viking Halls for centuries. Fahey creates a band of characters not to be trifled with but each possessing a noble heart and a unique voice that endears each one to the reader. When the particulars of the curse are made clear, you’re invested in the lives (and deaths) of the warriors as you root for them to overcome the evil they face. Getting emotionally invested in a character is the surest way to make a story meaningful, and on that count Fahey succeeds.

The plot is surprisingly complex. Readers are tipped off from the prologue that supernatural evil is at the heart of the matter, but a few twists come later in the book that shows the evil is not as simple as originally shown. You’re given a clever twist demonstrating there is a bit of honor even among monsters, and that’s something you don’t see every day. In short, this comic is full of entertaining little surprises. And at a hefty 80+ pages, you more than get your money’s worth for the digital pdf.

The art is, likewise, good. The character designs are mostly unique (sometimes the brothers were difficult to tell apart). There are plenty of dramatic shadows to set the mood for this horror-themed epic, and the color choices are excellent. That said, this is a digitally drawn comic and it shows. You can see slight pixelation on the lines and the color shading isn’t very smooth, but the art quality is a minor down point.

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]

We begin with Wulfgar and his men acting as paid personal guards to the Emperor of Constantinople in 996 A.D. They’ve proven themselves as expert warriors against assassins, but Wulfag is not prepared when he’s arrested by a jealous Captain of the Guard.

After a short time of imprisonment and beatings, Wulfgar’s men break him out of prison, and they flee by boat from Constantinople. Soon, they encounter a trading ship that’s abandoned on the river bank with the entire crew missing. When they later arrive at a village, they learn many trading ships have been attacked and the village is starving due to a lack of provisions. Wulfgar decides to help the village at the behest of the town’s leader to stop whoever is attacking the trading ships.

Wulfgar and his men reluctantly sail upriver to draw the attackers out. As midnight approaches, the crew spots a woman standing in the river. Fearing a trap, the crew is awakened and ordered to take up arms. suddenly the ship is attacked on all sides by hellish witches with a taste for blood.

We conclude the volume with a surrender to an unbeatable foe, the revelation that not all evil things are mindless nor above bargaining, and the realization that the staring town is part of a larger plan.

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

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