(courtesy Image Comics)
OMG D’orc is fun! SO. MUCH. FUN.
Created by Brett Bean, and now its first five issues gathered together in a trade paper, playfully and appealing titled Volume One: The Book of Certain Doom, D’Orc is the kind of goodhearted character you want when you’re trying to make your way through the Scar, a sliver of land which sits rather uncomfortably between the Kingdoms of Light and Dark.
It’s in this sliver of much fought in and over land that our selfless half dwarf-half orc protagonist ekes out a living, trying to avoid being killed by various violence-prone individuals who have taken to heart a prophecy from the titular The Book of Certain Doom, and in particular Revelations 49:98 which says that a creature born of light and dark is going to end the world as everyone knows it.
That quite the weight to wear upon you and frankly D’Orc, who has travelled for twenty years with a Death Shield of no fixed name in which the soul of some blighted, amnesia-ridden soul is held, has had enough of everyone assuming he’s the one who’s going to ruin things when the citizens of the two warring kingdoms seem more than capable of doing that themselves.
In fact, Bean does a superb job of highlighting how very much alike the light and the dark are, and while they are loathe to paint themselves as villains in their own self-justifying national narratives, and happily see themselves as the heroes they seem not to be, he happily paints as being as bad as each other.
It’s a delightful skewering of internal narratives and religiously certain pomposity and it adds some highly weight to a story that is already to the brim with it, along with hilarious banter, quippy asides and some fantastically imaginative cleverness.
(courtesy Image Comics)
As a result of its deft mix of hilarity and barbed and effective satire, Volume One: The Book of Certain Doom is an absolutely rewarding hoot to read, balancing understandable existential angst (being told you are the harbinger of the end of all things will give that in spades to a person), gloriously escapist silliness (unicorn barbeque anyone?) and a sense of liberating self discovery that night possibly come with a tad too much mindless killing fury.
D’Orc is afraid that though he is a kindhearted and caring soul who feels guilty about accidentally beheading a kindly chicken innkeeper and making him to a cadavier-fied half-alive, half-dead being A(who, happily for us, comes along for the ride, adding some comedically rich and possession-savvy stupidity to D’Orc’s quest) and who helps everyone he can, may yet be the victim of some dark urges battling for supremacy within him.
You kind of suspect he will emerge okay on the other side, providing he can reach a certain powerful witch on time, but half the fun of Volume One: The Book of Certain Doom is watching as his good deeds are often undone by himself, the Death Shield or the chicken … or perhaps, all three at once.
Filled to the brim with vibrantly glossy and evocatively fun, top notch world-building art which leaps off the page with vivacious narrative-bolstering style, Volume One: The Book of Certain Doom is one of those collections which allows you to take a deep dive into a story and world and be glad you had five chapters at once to luxuriate in its loopy but emotional resonant storytelling.
It’s an absolute gem which you some serious heartfelt character-building and narrative immersion but which is also chilled and relaxed to make merry within all that seriousness too, serving laughs, emotional identification and not a little satire with absolute and deeply pleasurable ease.
Volume One: The Book of Certain Doom is out now from Image Comics.
(courtesy Image Comics)