Angelica Reigns #1 is a comic written by Brian Hawkins with art by Federico Sabbatini, colors by Chiara Miriade, and letters by Brant Fowler. A woman and those close to her find themselves in danger as she discovers just how important she is. This is a comic full of magic and mysteries with a story that features a few unexpected moments. Our leading lady is Angelica, a woman with magic abilities hunting for a job so she can pay rent. She has a roommate named Brie who has something mysterious about her too. There is also a guy named Josue who Angelica has a crush on who also has some magical abilities. The plot follows Angelica as she goes through a pretty normal day before things take a turn. We get some interesting and revealing interactions between the various characters. This story takes place in Chicago during the fall but occasionally moves to some eerier locations. There seems to be a theme here of dealing with your past. The action here is explosive and reaches the extremes in blood and gore. The pacing bounces back-and-forth between slow and fast. Things do get very intense in certain moments. The dialogue is pretty modern and hip and while there aren’t really any wordy pages there are some paragraph text bubbles. This is an exciting debut comic starring a very interesting woman paired with a story that is filled with the unexpected.

            This comic is drawn in a style that is slightly more cartoonish than realistic; it’s reminiscent of Cartoon Network shows from the early 2000’s. The coloring is very realistic so nothing is too bright or too dark. The scenery stands out here from the tall buildings to the trees turned brown and dropping leaves. A good job was done on the interiors when it came to making the places seem alive. The only shame is that the backgrounds tend to not persist from panel-to-panel. This story mainly takes place in the city but it does venture to a couple of other places. The expression level here is above-average with characters having different looks nearly every panel. The faces here, though cartoony, have enough detail to get all the different emotions across very well. There is a pretty wide range of looks here from shock and disbelief to joy and anger. The magical effects are spectacularly bright and stand out on the page. There is only one lengthy action scene and it flows well while featuring a lot of blood and gore.

“Is this worth reading?”

Yes.

“Would I like this?”

If you like magic-heavy comics starring women taking place in the modern world with mysterious backstories and yet unanswered questions this is for you.

“What would this comic’s film rating be?”

R. Lots of gore.

“Could I get a quote from the comic?”

“Yea… about that. It’s hard to go cold turkey, you know?”

 

Purchase Link: https://www.indyplanet.com/angelica-reigns-1

Digital Link: https://nosleeppress.gumroad.com/l/rdKhq

Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/782290703/angelica-reigns-1/description

***IN-DEPTH COMIC STATS BELOW***

Probably Contains Spoilers

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Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 22

Violent Pages: 6, for 27% of the comic

Sexy Pages: 0, for 0% of the comic

 

**The levels below aren’t necessarily maintained throughout the whole comic, but they were definitely reached**

 

Violence Level – 3

“Wasn’t no tussling at all.”

“Sometimes you gotta hit somebody.”

“I’m getting charged with how many counts of assault?”

“This was a tournament arc.”

“All my life I had to fight.”

 

Gore Level – 5

“The only thing leaking out your face is tears.”

“Looks like somebody spilled some ketchup.”

“Might need to soak that up with a bath towel.”

“That isn’t supposed to be outside the body.”

“This is a slaughterhouse.”

 

Death Level – 3

“And everybody lived happily ever after.”

“We might have gone to a couple funerals.”

“It just LOOKS like a serial killer was here.”

“Yeah this was a tragedy.”

“Think Gettysburg.”

 

Porn Level – 1

“Everybody kept their clothes on.”

“I guess it was too hot for a bra.”

“Sometimes you got to let everything air out.”

“This is like late night Cinemax in the early 2000’s.”

“Oh. This is porn.”