Santera #1 is a comic created by Jose Varese. A violent woman who loves to talk becomes a hunter of supernatural creatures. Santera is on death row for an egregious amount of first-degree murders when she is “encouraged” to sign her body over to science. Santera is a foul-mouthed, fourth wall-breaking, very sexual Hispanic lady. The most prominent of her associates are two women, one named Pura and an Agent Blanca; Blanca does appear to be white. The plot is basically just Santera going through an average workday of fighting creatures but it ends on a big note. The action here is very bloody and not afraid to get gory. Lots of slicing and the scenes usually aren’t short. The dialogue is reminiscent of Deadpool; it is humorous with a large number of sexual references and comment directed at the reader. Important information is given in chunks so while the page might not be wordy overall the speech bubbles are thick. This is a very interesting start to a story about an imperfect woman fighting evil from the other side.

            This comic is drawn in a more modern style with the eye-popping colors and nice use of shadows. We do visit a good variety of locations but most of them don’t hang around in the background from panel-to-panel. The expression level here is about average, we see a few different looks but sometimes the faces look a bit stiff. Faces here are unique and have little features that help differentiate; the only negative I can say is that a few times a face will look like it was added onto the body separately. The creatures look like your standard horror monsters, from hulking monstrosities to zombies. Santera’s main weapon of choice is a big ol axe that is called “El Hefe”. The action scenes have great flow and get nasty quick; body fluids and dismemberment are standard fare. Santera’s combat fit is what I’m assuming is a sports bra with matching legless bottoms. This comic is very hornily drawn and there are substantial shots of booty and Santera is topless frequently.

“Is this worth reading?”

Yes.

“Would I like this?”

If you like Hispanic leading ladies distributing violence to supernatural creatures while making jokes and being sexy this is for you.

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

R for gratuitous violence and nudity.

“Could I get a quote from the comic?”

“Hey fugly! Do us all a solid and put some pants on!”

 

Purchase Link: https://josevarese.com/collections/all/santera

Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/josevarese/santera/description

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

Probably Contains Spoilers

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Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 32

Violent Pages: 10, for 31% of the comic

Sexy Pages: 11, for 34% 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 – 2

“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 – 3

“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.”