Ase: The Blood Huntress #1 is a comic written by Eric Alan Nelson with pencils and inks by Sean Joyce and colors by Periya Pillai. Ase travels to a brothel to find her bounty. This is a fantasy comic with a lot of gory action and nudity that stars a tall woman. The leading lady here is Ase, she is a skilled fighter and bounty hunter and she can be blunt and ruthless when necessary. This story begins with Ase on a camel-like creature traveling across the desert on her way to the town of Urbs Aquivergium. Upon reaching her destination she heads straight to the brothel to locate Lazar. The action here is bloody and gory with a lot of dismemberment. The pacing is somewhat slow at the beginning but afterwards the speed picks up. The tone is like that of your standard sword and sandal fantasy tale. The intensity is high at multiple points due to violence, danger, and suspense. The dialogue is conversation outside of intro which is Ase’s narrated thoughts. The talking style is proper English and there are some older terms used. The text bubble/blocks can be thick but there are no word heavy pages. This is an exciting debut issue that shows the main character in her element and paired with a plot driven by violence.

            The art here is drawn in a detailed but rough style reminiscent of 70’s/80’s comics. The color palette consists of a lot of browns and tans as this is an arid environment. For scenery we have long stretches of desert strewn with interesting rock formations. The main location for this story is a brothel that has a bar and many rooms. The backgrounds always show the nearby and distant surroundings; this adds more impact to the different scenes. The expression level here is a bit below-average as most characters, including the lead, maintain a hard look. The primary emotions here are anger, fear, and shock with happiness being extremely rare. The faces are drawn with a good amount of detail and strong features so all the different expressions come across clearly. Swords are the weapon of choice here. The violence here is bloody due to the many gruesome attacks that lead to dismemberment. The action scenes tend to come in bursts and flow well overall. Most of the women here are topless and wear revealing or no clothing, including Ase.

“Is this worth reading?”

Yes if this is up your alley.

“Would I like this?”

If you like fantasy stories starring a strong, tall, woman that features heavy violence and nudity then this is for you.

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

NC-17. Violence, blood, gore, gruesomeness, nudity, sexual scenes.

“Could I get a quote from the comic?”

“So what is your pleasure? Man or wench?”

 

Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/maelstromwardance/ase-the-blood-goddess-1/description

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

Probably Contains Spoilers

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Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 24

Violent Pages: 7, for 29% of the comic

Sexy Pages: 5, for 21% 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 – 5

“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.”