Obscure Comic of the Month - Red Warrior: Assassin for the Thieves World

Obscure Comic of the Month is a monthly feature which takes a detailed look at a little known entry from my personal comic book collection. Some will be from major publishers, others self published projects, Original Graphic Novels, issues and Manga. What they'll all have in common though, is that I've rarely, if ever, seen anybody talk about them.

                                                           

Red Warrior: Assassin for the Thieves World by Jeff Amano and Andy MacDonald – Image Comics 2006

Contains Major Spoilers

Agent Tolik Kalinchenko convinces Elena – a Russian Mafiya leader's daughter – to seduce an old flame that may be connected to a secret combat system called “Bespredel” (Russian for “without limits”). Elena risks her life for her country, Mother Russia, the world, but most of all, for Tolik. In a race against the clock, Tolik must destroy Bespredel's Red Warriors in time to save Elena, who has been discovered as an informant. But when war has no limits, where can love hide?

Red Warrior was another book that I picked up on the cheap from Worlds Apart Liverpool when I was at University. It was in the bargain bin for about two pounds, and it's cover not only had a skull but also a HAMMER AND AK SYMBOL! How could I possibly turn that down?

Unfortunately, Red Warrior never lives up to it's cover. The story is a mash up of serious espionage and more fantastical super hero elements, about a covert team of Russians working in the US. As a premise, that's real fertile ground to build something unique and stand out from the crowd. Unfortunately, Red Warrior foregoes any opportunity to build upon those unique areas and instead chooses to give us something far more generic.

The story, for what it's worth, is not particularly complex. Tolik, a Russian spy with superpowers, is tasked with seducing a mobster's daughter for his agency's war against the Russian Mafiya. Elena, falling hard for Tolik, has to do the same to another mobster, in order to get the names of those involved in the secret Red Warrior program.

Tolik oversteps his authority and gets reassigned to Texas, where he comes across the creator of the Red Warrior program. In a “shocking twist,” Tolik is revealed to have been a Red Warrior all along. He kills his creator, heads back to New York, only to find that his boss has been wounded and Elena killed. With her dying breath she gives him the names, and the story ends with him setting off on a path of revenge.

As stories go, a simple narrative is no bad thing, it gives plenty of room for scene setting and world building. If Red Warrior has one sin though, it's that it decides to tell the audience absolutely nothing. The whole nature of Tolik's organisation is barely discussed, the superpowers are poorly defined and the actual stakes in their war against the Mafiya are unclear.

 

Is Tolik's organisation affiliated in any way with US services? Are superpowers common knowledge? Are the Mafiya a foreign crime family or have they integrated into American society? We never find out. All the way through, Red Warrior takes no time to fill in any of the gaps. There isn't even an American character in this American set story. They're all either Mafiya this, or Spetsnaz that, and we never get any real sense anything that sets them apart.

This lack of clarity kills the story dead. The reader has no concept of the stakes whatsoever. Without establishing the specifics of what the powers of a Red Warrior are, it ultimately renders the twist meaningless. We spend so little time getting to know Elena that we have no emotional investment in the race against time. We're never given a reason to root for Tolik, nor boo the Mafiya, nothing is established, no themes are reinforced.

But what's more frustrating is how Red Warrior squanders such a promising premise. The story could have given us a taste of what the life of a Russian immigrant in the US must actually be like. Or it could have explored what place the new Russia has on the world stage. Hell, it could have at least been an interesting take on a spy drama with the introduction of superpowers, but their relevance to the plot is completely superfluous and is barely featured in the actual story.

Instead, Red Warrior is more interested in telling us it's generic spy tale full of generic stock characters and tropes. It's so generic that you could erase all mention of the characters being Russian and it wouldn't change the plot one iota.

I haven't talked about Andy MacDonald's art yet and that's because there's not really that much to say. It's serviceable, but he's not really given much to do and his art doesn't really elevate the source material much. His scrappy, gritty art style works well enough for the spy stuff but doesn't do much for the action scenes.

So Red Warrior is a generic spy story that doesn't live up to it's promise, but that's not quite the end of it. See, once our story is concluded, we're treated to an article by Kat Amano about Mixed Martial Arts, followed by a bunch of adverts for Judo training and the like. Not what I expected to find in the back of an Image graphic novel about Russian spies.

See I think... and I've looked, but found nothing online to verify this... but I think Red Warrior is supposed to be some kind of MMA spin-off. There's a big deal made in the text about Tolik knowing all these different kinds of martial arts, and the fight scenes, sparse though they are, look as though they might be influenced by actual techniques.

 It's like Charles Atlas never left us.

If this is true, then it's all the more damning for Red Warrior. When it comes to spin-off's you can get away with a throwaway plot if you're just there for some themed action, but if Red Warrior is indeed some kind of MMA comic, then it's a bad one at that. The fights are few and far between and lack any focus on the moves. It's not an action comic, it's an espionage comic. An odd fit if it's supposed to have an MMA connection.

Ultimately, if you're a fan of spy comics, I can't really recommend Red Warrior, go and read Greg Rucka's Queen and Country instead. If you like MMA, well I can't really recommend it either. Red Warrior isn't bad, but it so generic you'd be hard pressed to remember the comic mere hours after reading it.

                                              

Jack Harvey 2015. Red Warrior (c) 2006 Image Comics and Beckett Entertainment Partners LLC, Jeff Amano and Andy MacDonald. Images used under Fair Use.

Obscure Comic of the Month - The Prisoner: Shattered Visage

Obscure Comic of the Month is a monthly feature which takes a detailed look at a little known entry from my personal comic book collection. Some will be from major publishers, others self published projects, Original Graphic Novels, issues and Manga. What they'll all have in common though, is that I've rarely, if ever, seen anybody talk about them.

                                                          

The Prisoner: Shattered Visage by Dean Motter and Mark Askwith – DC Comics 1988

Contains Major Spoilers

Spies and secret agents were the courageous champions of the 1960's. The glamour, the gadgets, and the beautiful femme fatales were inseparable from the weighty implications of their daring assignments. It was a time when espionage seemed exotic and even heroic.

In 1968 one television show challenged that notion. Indeed, it even questioned the nature of an individual's relationship to society. That show was THE PRISONER.

It was the story of a man who, after resigning from a top secret government agency, finds himself the prisoner of an unknown power in an ominous wonderland known as The Village.

Now, twenty years later, in an era where the morality of covert operations is no longer taken for granted, we again find ourselves in The Village. It's fate and significance are, at last, about to be revealed.

Shattered Visage is far from what can be considered truly obscure, but for a licensed comic, and indeed The Prisoner's only licensed comic, it goes almost unmentioned by many. I once asked Chris Sims from Comics Alliance about his thoughts on the book, and he confessed he couldn't really remember much about it. So, since nobody else felt up to the task, here is The Prisoner: Shattered Visage.

One can never understate the importance of The Prisoner. It was the first TV series, truly the first, that insisted the viewer engage the story as a whole. Though each episode was mostly self contained, it demanded that viewers tune in every week to pick the story apart for clues. You can almost see the through line with it's legacy today. Without The Prisoner there would have been no Twin Peaks, no X-Files, no The Wire, Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones.

Shattered Visage is a strange book, even by it's source material's standards. It seeks to be many things. A continuation of a long finished TV series. Both a re-visitation and deconstruction of it's themes. An explanation of it's final mysteries. That Shattered Visage would set it's goal so high, is almost certainly undermined by the fact that it is not nearly as clever as it thinks it is.

The story is packed with call backs and references. Conversations and lines of dialogue are taken almost verbatim from the original series and uttered in a new context. The art repeatedly uses visual cues to reinforce it's 'prisoner' theme, using panel frames as prison bars being one such example.

By and large a lot of this stuff hits its mark. I first read Shattered Visage about three months after finishing the TV series, and I lapped up all of the fanservice. It's only looking back now that I realise that the book is all style and no substance. It's actual narrative has very little to add or say about the series on which it is based.

Our story is split mostly into two parts. Alice, a former secret agent, has her round-the-world boat trip sabotaged and ends up stranded in The Village, crossing paths with a now deranged Number Six. Her ambitious husband, Thomas, also a secret agent and the one responsible for the sabotage, scrabbles around the halls of power trying to unravel The Village's mystery.

Practically nothing happens for most of The Village segments beyond nods to the series, and instilling a cathartic tone at seeing the previously sinister landscape brought low. The Whitehall segments have significantly more meat, but don't give us anywhere near enough answers to feel fulfilling. Nor do the Whitehall segments feel like The Prisoner at all.

In many respects Shattered Visage feels as though it was written too early. That the writers didn't have enough hindsight to truly deconstruct The Prisoner. It's worth mentioning that overturning nostalgia was still a new trick back in 1988 (Watchmen was published only a year earlier.)

It's main theme, the idea that The Village was merely a prototype for Western Civilisation is a great pay off. Though it would be a lot more cutting now in a world of mass surveillance, media outreach and cult of celebrity. The warnings of The Prisoner now are a hell of a lot more harrowing than they were in 1988.

The story finally starts kicking into gear towards the climax, with Number Six and Number Two finally having a showdown and the British Government moving to take The Village and it's secrets. But it's all over far to quickly, with little to give us a satisfying conclusion and it's pessimistic predictions given little foundation to build upon.

It's frustrating in a way. A lot of the written dialogue has the wit and sharpness of the TV show at it's best, yet we're never really given the great stakes for it to rise to. Motter's art too is great, but some weird design choices, like giving Number 6 a massive beard and rendering him almost unrecognisable, rob the book of that classic Prisoner identity.

When it comes down to it, Shattered Visage is fan fiction. It may be classed as an authorised sequel and headed by a major publisher, but under all of that it's still fanfic. Motter and Askwith themselves know as much of Patrick McGoohan's secrets as you or I do. What conclusions the book gives us are little more than their own theories.

McGoohan, for what it's worth, said something along the lines of “Reasonable enough, I suppose.”

Ultimately, if Shattered Visage had committed fully to at least one of it's goals then maybe it would have been a success. Sadly, it's not nearly trippy and psychedelic enough the feel like a continuation of the series, nor does it provide any satisfying answers to the mysteries that the series left. It wants to make it's mark on The Prisoner canon, but spends most if it's time reiterating things from the series. At one point a character utters “There's something of Number 6 in all of us,” as though it is deep and meaningful. It isn't.

There's a lot of good in Shattered Visage. The numerous references, both texual and visual, will please any fan of the series. But it's undercooked. Shattered Visage hasn't the time to make any grand statements on the human condition, and was written at a time that lacked the perspective to give them.

For most comics, that might still be enough, but when you propose to be a sequel to one of the most important pieces of art the 20^th Century has given us, you are held to a higher standard.

Be seeing you.

                                                

Jack Harvey 2015. The Prisoner: Shattered Visage (c) 1988 DC Comics, Dean Motter and Mark Askwith. The Prisoner was created by Patrick McGoohan and George Markstein and produced by ITC Entertainment. Images used under Fair Use.

Obscure Comic of the Month - The Mire

Obscure Comic of the Month is a monthly feature which takes a detailed look at little known entry from my personal comic book collection. Some will be from major publishers, others self published projects, Original Graphic Novels, issues and Manga. What they'll all have in common though, is that I've rarely, if ever, seen anybody talk about them.

                                                       

The Mire by Becky Cloonan - 2012

Spoiler Free

Dedicated to those of you with crushes on your characters.

Becky Cloonan has made quite a name for herself on the comics scene, but I confess that I'm very under read when it comes to her work. My reason for picking up The Mire was not, as you may suspect, an effort to rectify this. In actuality I didn't even know she was the writer until after I had purchased it. I picked up The Mire during a trip to Newcastle in May. I'd planned on grabbing a couple of small press comics but The Mire was the only one that really caught my eye.

The comic is, as you would expect, one issue long. It tells the story of a young squire called Aiden sent on a mission by his mentor Owain. Right from the get go the story is deeply rooted in fairy tale tradition, but Cloonan uses this to her benefit. When you've only got twenty two pages to tell a story, you can really save a lot of time by relying on archetypal characters like Aiden and Owain.

One of the things I like about The Mire is it's whole hearted embrace of the classic fable structure. Cloonan makes use of a great deal of clever narrative tricks to tie the whole tale together. When Owain gives Aiden a message to deliver near the beginning he says “This letter means the difference between life and death.” Of course, it's not until the end of the story we realise who's life, and who's death, Owain is referring to.

Likewise, the line “We all have ghosts who haunt us.” could be described as the central theme of the story, with several characters haunted figuratively, and literally by elements of their past. The story reminds me a lot of the short, standalone Hellboy stories, which likewise were heavily inspired by classic folklore. Even Cloonan's art, which can be bright and cutesy at times, is channelling full Mignola here, with heavy use of inking and an emphasis on the grotesque.

The Mire is short, sharp and to the point. It's hardly telling a new tale, but it's a quality comic that doesn't waste your time trying to be frivolous or quirky. 

The final page finishes with the message “Self Publish or Perish.” It's worth remembering that Cloonan didn't write this for a big publisher. She wrote it because she wanted to. Self publishing is the cornerstone of the comic book community, and it's comics like this that are a great reminder of that. Especially inspirational for someone like me who's been considering self publishing for a long time.

On that final note it's worth mentioning that I got The Mire for five pound, which is a little pricey for something the size of a single issue. While that shouldn't be held against the comic, (It was great, and everything above still stands) it should serve as a reminder of what goes in to self publishing in the first place. Small press creators don't have the luxury of being able to charge a couple of pound for their work, so it's really important to support them when you can, even if you're tempted to say it isn't worth the cost.

Because at the end of the day, if we as fans don't support them, then they won't be around for long. That would be a real shame, and The Mire is evidence of that.

                                     

Jack Harvey 2015. The Mire (c) 2012 Rebecca Cloonan. Images used under Fair Use.

Semi Big News Coming Shortly

I've got a big announcement to make soon, but the full details haven't been finalised yet so I won't be going into details. Suffice to say, it's something, so watch this space.

In other news, I've been putting a lot of work into the possibility of starting a self published Modern Realms series. They'd be short, comic book sized novellas, each one illustrated by a different artist. I haven't asked any yet, but I have a few in mind. If anyone is interested in helping out or has any advice on the self publishing side of things please feel free to contact me. You can get me over on my Tumblr or Deviantart, or just leave a comment here.

Semi related, as a bit of a prototype I'm planning on remastering and expanding the Modern Realms short stories I've done here and selling them as an ebook omnibus on Amazon. This'll involve both expanding the stories and re working some of the art. It'll be a one time thing only, I don't plan going the full Amazon ebook route but I figured I've nothing to lose by doing it.

So that's three things to keep an eye out for. Updates will be here as you'd expect and Obscure Comic of the Month will continue as normal.

Cheers for reading.

Jack

Obscure Comic of the Month - War-Fix

Obscure Comic of the Month is a monthly feature which takes a detailed look at little known entry from my personal comic book collection. Some will be from major publishers, others self published projects, Original Graphic Novels, issues and Manga. What they'll all have in common though, is that I've rarely, if ever, seen anybody talk about them.

                                                                   

War-Fix by David Axe and Steven Olexa – ComicsLit/NBM 2006

Contains Mild Spoilers

Weened in his youth on scenes of war in the evening news, a small town journalist named David discards life as he has known it to report on the war in Iraq. But what outwardly appears to be nothing more than a dangerous job is in reality a strange personal quest, where David is both a voyeur and participant in the condition which intrigues, frightens, excites and consumes him – violence.

War-Fix is another book I picked out of the indy section of Worlds Apart Liverpool back in the day. It looked pseudo-intellectual and was cheap, perfect for my developing tastes. I'd never even really heard of Joe Sacco at the time (And to be honest I still haven’t looked into enough of his stuff), so this was my first tastes of what could be described as the war journalism genre.

Unlike Sacco and his contemporaries however, War-Fix is a purely fictitious tale. It's plot is immediately familiar to anyone who's seen the film The Hurt Locker, though following a journalist rather than a bomb disposal expert.

It's a story about war addiction and the disconnect from reality it provides. Despite appearances the book is very short. Pages tend to contain no more than five lines of dialogue apiece. Some pages none at all. You could get through the book in less than twenty minutes. That's isn't a flaw though. The story is more concerned with communicating it's point through visuals that it is through words.

Steven Olexa's art is very similar to that of Vertigo mainstay Jock. For most of the book he disregards more traditional panel structures, tending to let one scene melt into the next. This is all part of the stream of consciousness storytelling on behalf of the book's main character David. David isn't particularly complex, you know who he is and what he wants right from the get go, but instead he serves to communicate to us our social, and by extension personal, obsession with war.

War-Fix manages to avoid becoming dated by exploring war as a whole. While it takes place during the occupation of Iraq it'll also touch on other conflicts. Croatia, China during WW2 and the medieval battlefields of the past. Indeed, it also takes a nuanced look at some of the lesser known participants of the war, such as Nepalese contractors or Georgian irregulars. The story may take place in one specific war, but in it's way, it is about all wars.

The storytelling includes quite a lot of nice touches. There is heavy use of visual symbolism and juxtaposition with the text. One stand out moment near the end involves David taking photographs of civilian casualties, where for one panel he's portrayed holding a gun rather than his camera. This shows him, and indeed ourselves, to be just as complicit in these crimes as the soldiers and combatants.

It's not all perfect however. Most of the text is rendered in a faux-handwritten font, making it difficult to read at points. It's a head bangingly stupid decision that damages what is otherwise a tight delivery.

War-Fix gets in, makes it's point and finishes up without outstaying it's welcome. I think it cost me about a fiver at the time and it's hard to argue with that price for what you get.

NBM Publishing is still going strong, apparently, and David Axe likewise is still keeping himself busy. Couldn't really find much on Steven Olexa though. They're still selling a wide range of comics, War-Fix included. It's a little bizarre to say the least, I've been to quite a few cons and expos over the years now and I've never seen them promoting. I remember checking out the ComicsLit range back in the day. I'd kind of assumed after all these years they'd probably have gone bust.

So War-Fix is a nice little ditty with an important point to make. General fiction comics tend not to have so wide an audience and it's kind of easy to get buried under the giants of the genre. It's hard to say if War-Fix deserves any recognition for that, but it is a moving read. It'd be great in a classroom or school library.

And in the end, it also kind of got to make a point three years before Hurt Locker did.

                                                                

Jack Harvey 2015. War-Fix (c) 2006 David Axe and Steven Olexa. Images used under Fair Use.

Obscure Comic of the Month - Maxwell Strangewell

This is the first of a monthly feature which takes a detailed look at an obscure entry from my personal comic book collection. Some will be from major publishers, others self published projects, Original Graphic Novels, issues and Manga. What they'll all have in common though, is that I've rarely, if ever, seen anybody talk about them.

                                                              

Maxwell Strangewell by The Fillbach Brothers – Dark Horse Books 2007

Contains minor spoilers for the first third of the book.

Photographer Anna Gilmour discovers a ten-foot-tall alien immediately after his fall to earth. He can't speak, but communicates through telepathic empathy, and Anna introduces him to her father as “Max.” Their home is soon beset by a sea of beatific Tibetan monks, alien assassins in disguise, and heavy weapons fire! Max might not know who he is, but a lot of others sure seem to. Before the final act, Anna and Max encounter a prophecy, the man in the moon, an entire race of alien accountants, and the Revolver - an innocuous-looking jogger responsible for keeping the world spinning.

I first picked up Maxwell Strangewell during my final year of university. It was around this time that I had finally decided to take my interest in comics seriously. To really explore the medium I'd fallen in love with. Up to this point I'd only really experienced Cape Comics, 2000ad and a few Vertigo titles.

I really wanted to explore further afield, didn't really have a starting point. Instead, exploring further afield mostly meant digging through the indy section of Worlds Apart Liverpool and going with my gut. Maxwell Strangewell was a promising prospect; a standalone story by creators I'd never heard of. Even better, it was about the size of the Alien vs Predator anthology I was buying at the same time, but twice as cheap.

It was a joy to read, and once I finished it all I could think was “Why does nobody ever talk about this? Why does nobody know about Maxwell Strangewell?”

It's been years now, and I never found my answer. But my repertoire of graphic storytelling has grown exponentially since then. It's hard to look back at something like Maxwell Strangewell without wondering if it's all rose tinted glasses now. That's what made me pick for the first of this series of columns.

So what of the book itself? Well, our first page starts with a quote by Robert Frost. Yes, it is that one about the road not travelled. So far, so predicable. Softening the blow is another quote, this time by Douglas Adams. It's fitting that the book should start with an Adams quote, considering how reminiscent the story is of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. The book owes a great deal to Adams, being a spiritual successor of sorts. It's not the only influence though. The story opens immediately with an homage to the light tunnel scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

It's interesting how quickly the story hits the ground running with it's fantastical elements. Anna finds Max, (A character that seems to be one part Morpheus from Gaiman's Sandman and one part David Bowie's The Man Who Fell to Earth.) and she and her father immediately accept that he is an extra-terrestrial. It's refreshing, and a good thing too, since the story has a lot of diverging plot lines to get through. Doing the whole ET thing would have stifled the story's momentum.

Before long the plot follows Anna and a pair of monks on their way to find out what Max really is as a bunch of evil alien factions fight to obtain his power. Anna's dad is separated from her and instead teams up with rogue FBI agent Jerkins and a moon man. There's a lot of plot going on at any given time, but each is following it's own thread, so never feels overcomplicated. It also gives you more bang for your buck. You can never get bored since it'll jump from one thing to the next before you get the chance.

Let's talk characters. Max's design is a little uninspired to be honest, but he's more of a mobile MacGuffin than anything else. Ironically this makes him the least interesting part of the cast. During an early part of the story, he's flipping through TV channels, reacting to different visuals. He reacts badly to Adolf Hitler, and fondly to Charlie Chaplin. The duality is notable, but decidedly non-committal.

It's hardly interesting to see a character react unfavourably to Adolf Hitler of all people. What would Max have thought of George Bush I wonder? (He would have been in office at the time remember?). Indeed, the whole story lacks any kind of strong moral or allegorical statement, instead leaving us with a generic 'love everyone message'. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but with a story that owes so much to writers like Douglas Adams, it certainly takes the bite out of it.

Anna too is pretty much white bread. She's the nicest character in the cast, and her arc mainly consists of getting over her mother's death. Pretty much all the characters are archetypes, but that's okay, it serves the humour and the visuals. There are a few weak links as a result though.

Two characters, Jerkins and Ringo, are cut from the same cloth. They're both 'no nonsense badasses who need to get over themselves'. I think it's worth noting that there's a bit of gay subtext between Ringo and his partner Phelp. They're represented as nothing more than 'buds' in the story, and I don't think they were supposed to be read as gay, but it's a massive oversight that could have helped differentiate Ringo from Jerkins more. There are a lot of moments like this. Missed opportunities that could have added a more interesting dynamic to the characters.

Easily the best character is Lobscrum, the tiny, one eyed, foul mouthed alien pilgrim. He's mostly there for comic relief, but damn it if the comic isn't worth reading for Lobscrum alone.

The plot has a lot of high concept stuff going on. It's about coming to terms with death, mostly, but also about the nature of love, greed, pettiness and war. It's no massive philosophical text, but it wants to speak about higher truths in, once again, the same way Douglas Adams did.

It's mostly successful at it too, having an almost filmic quality to the work. (The Fillbach brothers are credited as 'directors' at the end.) The art is clean, functional, and expressive. It's perfect for the story being told and it reminds me a lot of Paul Grist and a lot of 2000ad Future Shocks. The artwork alone gives you a whole cavalcade of wild and interesting aliens. Not a single page is wasted, each giving you something a new and mind boggling spectacle of alien ships and weird dimensions.

I'm happy to say it is still a joy to read. And it's ending hit me in exactly the same way it did all those years ago.

Why then, is Maxwell Strangewell not regarded as a modern classic?

Maxwell Strangewell was published under Dark Horse Books, not Dark Horse Comics, which probably meant it didn't get the promotion you'd otherwise expect. The Fillbach Brothers have a fairly small back catalogue and haven't produced anything since 2009. It sucks, because Maxwell Strangewell feels like a great foundation to build from. Maybe they'll surface again with something that does, who knows.

The answer is simple in hindsight. Maxwell Strangewell is a great comic, but there's just nothing that interesting about it. It lacks a central conceit with which to make it noteworthy. It owes too much to Douglas Adams, and it doesn't do anything to build on that inspiration.

Maxwell Stangewell is a book I love. I'd never sell it, and I'll likely revisit it again in years to come. But it's a book that truly struggles to find an identity and stand out. Why talk about Maxwell Strangewell, when there are so many wilder, greater, weirder comics out there?

It's an obscure classic. No more, no less.

                                                                 

Jack Harvey 2015. Maxwell Strangewell (c) 2007 Matthew Fillbach and Sean Fillbach. Images used under Fair Use.

Hero Forge Product Review

Just over a year ago, a Kickstarter for 3D printed custom miniatures was successfully funded. I was one of the backers, mainly motivated to see the dream become a reality, since me and my fellows don't get much miniature gaming done these days, though the possibility of owning miniatures tricked out to look specifically like characters I had created was a chance I couldn't pass up. A few days ago, said tricked out miniatures arrived, so it's time to air my thoughts on the final outcome.

Before we do though, I want to talk a little about Hero Forge's character creator and the customisations on offer. First of all, it is easy to use. If you have a character in mind then there's a few pre-made templates that you can use as a starting point. Armour and weapons from all ranges can be mixed and matched accordingly, and the range of stances, as well as both the facial and anatomical sliders means you're hard pressed not to come out with something unique. There are however, a few improvements I'd like to see, namely a wider range of poses and the ability to tweak the positioning of shoulder pads and pouches and the like.

One other issue I have with the character creator is the options available. Now don't get me wrong, there's a wide range so you're never stuck for archetypal designs, but if you have a specific design in mind you might be surprised at what's not an option. The character designer does not include options for any of the list below.

Berets

Waistcoats

Medium length hair

Short, messy hair

An M-16 Assault rifle

Wings

Tails

Backpacks

A back mounted quiver

A classic shaped medium shield

A texture-less shield (so no decals 4 u!)

Skeletons/skulls

Kevlar vest over shirt/jumper

Fedoras

Any Native American stuff (despite there being a western range)

And there's probably a few more I haven't thought of, the list isn't exhaustive. Now I'm pretty sure we'll probably see some of these added in the future, but conspicuous in their absence and it's probably a bummer if you have a specific character in mind that you want a beret on, for example. All things considered, it's pretty adaptable, but like I said, also exhaustive.

Anyway, time to move onto the product itself. I designed two characters, based on two that have been rolling around for a long time, Jocasta, and Katie. I've designed both of them with Fantasy and Contemporary looks in the past, but due to the aforementioned limitations, had to compromise with going with Jocasta's fantasy design and Katie's contemporary one. Still, they came out pretty close to how I imagined them to, and soon enough the crate landed in the mail.

I was a little nervous that the miniatures would be damaged, they were after all made of resin and coming from overseas. I was convinced Katie's rifle would have snapped off when they arrived, but I needn’t have worried. The package was carefully packed, and they arrived safe and sound.

The miniatures are of a more accurate anatomical scale than the common 'Heroic Scale' a lot of companies go by. To be honest, I'm more of a fan of Heroic scale because it helps the miniatures stand out more on the table, but I know a lot of people, especially those more into the painting side of things, prefer a more detailed look, so that's what you get here. Think more Forge World than Games Workshop classic.

The models come complete, so there's no gluing required, though that might present it's own problems depending on how you've designed your characters. There doesn't seem to be any flash at all to deal with, so you can probably jump right into painting, though some surfaces that should be smooth do appear a little bumpy, so some preparation might be required before you start. Also, parts of the model can feel a little 'sweaty' when it arrives as a side affect of the 3D printing process.

They are extremely detailed, and will come as designed. They are also extremely delicate, I honestly don't expect I'll be using them for gaming since I'd worry about how to transport them. Your average foam packed case doesn't strike me as safe enough, so I wouldn't take any chances. The service does offer a more sturdier form of resin, but is more difficult to paint, so it depends on where your priorities lie.

So as for the models themselves, I am extremely satisfied, though woefully protective of them. I'll probably paint them up and get a little display case sorted out. If Hero Forge does add more options it's likely they might be joined by even more characters.

Katie and Jocasta MK1 vs Katie and Jocasta MK2. You have no idea how hard it is to find a girl with a mohawk and a rife. And in miniautre form too.

The ultimate question you have to ask yourself before purchasing is if Hero Forge is right for you. The miniatures themselves are more expensive than any of their competitors, so if you're trying to run a campaign on a budget it's a definite no no. Likewise, the options themselves are not infinite, so it might turn out that you have a better chance of finding something close to your character at Reaper. Also consider how delicate the models are. If you are the type of gamer who travels around a lot, you might be better off going with something more durable.

On a final note, I'd say that it's best to go with Hero Forge if, like me, you want something special for yourself. It's a real thrill to see a character you've designed be brought to life, rather than have to compromise on a miniature that just sort of looks like what you want them to look like. Ultimately the price ain't cheap, so you've got to really want to see your character immortalised in resin before you purchase.

Final Judgement: A highly detailed but expensive product. Recommended for vanity projects, miniature enthusiasts and gamers with a lot of clout to throw around. Wouldn't recommend for those on a budget and gamers who play fast and often.