Villordsutch reviews Image Comics’ Rat Queens #1…
“A band of four women, a human, a dwarf, a hobbit and an elf, form an adventuring party to kill monsters and party with the rewards.”
Now this is comic is a breath of fun filled fresh air that is certainly not for children. Rat Queens is set in a Dungeons & Dragons styled world and rather expertly amalgamated with a world of online fantasy gamers who haunt the Teamspeak/Ventrillo servers. What is forged here is a rather not too serious, occasionally fouled mouthed, perfect comic book of fun, fantasy and messy deaths.
The Rat Queens are four rather rowdy young ladies who are currently suffering from violent tendencies and they are also upsetting the local town’s people with their lairy ways. A town meeting has been called as the residents have had enough of the Rat Queens (and other gangs) ruining their streets, markets and personal happiness. All turning to the local law keeper, they badger him to sort out their gang problem. He takes to assigning the Rat Queens and other bothersome gangs (The Four Daves was sheer genius) quests that they must complete to restore the town’s confidence in them.
As I said at the beginning this comic is fun. After a large number of comics that have dealt with more serious topics which require you to have some level of maturity and subject matter that can be difficult to read due to death, loss or violence, it’s great to come across something that allows you to take 10-20 minutes out to read and enjoy as you go about your day with it running around your head, replaying the scenes of finely sliced member of the Obsidian Darkness gang or troll-squashed Assassins – all with quick witted/pop culture savvy comebacks woven through the comic.
Written by Kurtis J. Weibe (Beautiful Creatures, Debris) who is clearly a person who has both a sack full of fun to give to the world and a finger on the pulse of what is talked and laughed about in the gamer universe, bringing it to the pages of Rat Queens for us all. Looking at the art by Roc Upchurch (Vescell) it looks perfect with its T.V. cartoon feel to the characters, with its shaded forests to the hapless soul from the Obsidian Darkness whose end is rather gruesome, but fantastic to look at nevertheless. The artistic style drawn here wouldn’t go a miss in a D&D issue.
To give a quick wrap up – if you’re feeling a bit melancholy and the comics you buy aren’t giving you a burst of fun, buy Rat Queens for it will make you smile and give you a chuckle or three.
Villordsutch is married with kids and pets. He looks like a tubby Viking and enjoys science fiction. Follow him on Twitter.
Originally published October 1, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
