The Blackburne Covenant #1
Review by Everest
Story:
Art:

Written by Fabian Nicieza
Art by Stefano Raffaele
Colors by Elena Sanjust
Lettering by Michael Heisler

Published by Dark Horse.
Price: $2.99.
My verdict: Good Stuff – Buy it!

The premise: Suppose you’d been talking about writing a novel for several years; then you finally did it: a great work of historical fiction, appealing to all kinds of readers and topping all the best seller lists. You’re in the money; you’re living it up, but, somewhere or other, a few months down the road, you start to feel a little…odd…about it. Something doesn’t feel right. You start drinking too heavily, start seeing things that just aren’t there, then you begin to suspect that, somehow, this book didn’t just pour forth from the well-spring of your imagination, but that it’s all true. Somehow, what you wrote is true. You just revealed a secret that’s been kept by an extremely powerful secret society for hundreds of years. Now suppose that they’re really not happy about that…

Interested yet? If not, go back to your platinum-embossed, irradiated, thermal-imprinted, glow-in-the-dark copy of Youngblood #1. Okay, now, for those of you who are still with us, this book is well worth reading. The premise is fascinating, and Fabian Nicieza turns in some of the best writing of his career. It’s been years since I’ve seen his name associated with something interesting, but I think he’s found his stride again with this book. The vast majority of this issue is exposition, setting up the rest of the story, but it’s very well done, so it doesn’t seem contrived, nor does it drag on into eternity, as many of these expositional first issues seem to do lately (anyone read Solus yet?).

The artwork in this book is stylistically similar to Alex Maleev, a growing trend lately. It seems a little gritty for this particular style of book, or perhaps just for this first issue, but I can’t argue with the execution of the style. While I think much of the book would have been better served by a cleaner art style – something a little more suave to show us the gleaming skyscrapers, the expansively appointed business offices, the luxury apartments, etc.--there’s no doubt that this is still good art, nor that it will wonderfully convey the horror and spectacle that we just know is coming…

To Sum Up: You should definitely buy this book. It’s well worth the money, and if the rest of the limited series is anywhere near this good, you’ll be glad you’ve got it.