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Review: ‘Amala’s Blade’ #3

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Civil war is on the brink of being reignited in “Amala’s Blade” #3, and our teenaged assassin is at the centre of it all. With only one more issue left in Steve Horton and Michael Dialynas’ Dark Horse mini, writer and artist continue to approach the narrative with an accelerated pace, and set the stage for what’s expected to be an epic finale to this well-written, and beautifully illustrated, steampunk fantasy series.

WRITTEN BY: Steve Horton
ART BY: Michael Dialynas
PUBLISHER: Dark Horse Comics
PRICE: $3.50
RELEASE: June 26, 2013

Keeping up with the speed of the previous installments, Part 3 continues with Amala’s successful infiltration of Lady Strawbale’s Purifier Palace as she attempts to complete the suicide mission The Vizier vindictively assigned to her. Disastrously, a huge character reveal confirms reader speculation regarding the true identity of Amala’s target. This complicates matters for the hero and sets forth a series of events that’ll keep readers hooked until the very last page.

In contrast to the ample amount of bloodshed leading up to this issue, Horton focusses on building Amala’s story and establishing just how significant her role is in forging a better future for all of Naamaron. Readers are offered more insight into Naamaron’s bureaucracy through Horton’s world-building, as well as Amala’s psyche and disposition towards her role as ‘assassin’.

Besides all the drama bread from recent character and plot developments, “Amala’s Blade” #3 has some comedic aspects to help alleviate the tension. One panel in particular depicts two high-tech Modifier guards debating over the modification of male genitals. This offers a welcomed treat before the action picks up again. Biopunk themes of genetic engineering and bodily enhancements are pretty visible throughout this installment, but the most impressive panels feature the same mechanical wyrm that graces this month’s fantastic cover, and Dialynas does a superb job rendering its body. The scenes where Amala’s facing off with the cybernetic beast makes it hard not to be reminded of Kurtis J. Wiebe and Riley Rossmo’s junk-punk series “Debris” in terms of art, in which Rossmo illustrates the female protagonist battling against machine-like animals. It’s a worthy comparison.

On the topic of art, Dialynas delivers his best work thus far with the release of this month’s issue, and continues to establish himself as a stylistically distinguishable artist. His colour palette of purple and blues when dealing with the Modifier people, and his incorporation of traditional steampunk browns when illustrating the low-tech Purifiers, is perfectly executed on paper. The fact that he successfully manages to portray how vastly different the two warring factions are, is commendable.

As far as lead characters go, there’s still so much to learn about Amala than is provided in these pages, but Horton does an impressive job creating a likeable character that possesses such questionably unlikeable traits. Here’s hoping both writer and artist have more Amala goodies up their sleeve because one more issue doesn’t seem like enough.

4.5/5 Skulls

Reviewed by – ShadowJayd

Comics

[Review] Graphic Novel ‘Tender’ Is Brilliant Feminist Body Horror That Will Make You Squirm & Scream

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Tender Beth Hetland Graphic Novel

Beth Hetland’s debut graphic novel, ‘Tender,’ is a modern tale of love, validation, and self-destruction by way of brutal body horror with a feminist edge.

“I’ve wanted this more than anything.”

Men so often dominate the body horror subgenre, which makes it so rare and insightful whenever women tackle this space. This makes Beth Hetland’s Tender such a refreshing change of pace. It’s earnest, honest, and impossibly exposed. Tender takes the body horror subgenre and brilliantly and subversively mixes it together with a narrative that’s steeped in the societal expectations that women face on a daily basis, whether it comes to empowerment, family, or sexuality. It single-handedly beats other 2023 and ‘24 feminine horror texts like American Horror Story: Delicate, Sick, Lisa Frankenstein, and Immaculate at their own game.

Hetland’s Tender is American Psycho meets Rosemary’s Baby meets Swallow. It’s also absolutely not for the faint of heart.

Right from the jump, Tender grabs hold of its audience and doesn’t let go. Carolanne’s quest for romantic fulfillment, validation, and a grander purpose is easy to empathize with and an effective framework for this woeful saga. Carolanne’s wounds cut so deep simply because they’re so incredibly commonplace. Everybody wants to feel wanted.

Tender is full of beautiful, gross, expressive artwork that makes the reader squirm in their seat and itch. Hetland’s drawings are simultaneously minimalist and comprehensively layered. They’re  reminiscent of Charles Burns’ Black Hole, in the best way possible. There’s consistently inspired and striking use of spot coloring that elevates Hetland’s story whenever it’s incorporated, invading Tender’s muted world.

Hetland employs effective, economical storytelling that makes clever use of panels and scene construction so that Tender can breeze through exposition and get to the story’s gooey, aching heart. There’s an excellent page that depicts Carolanne’s menial domestic tasks where the repetitive panels grow increasingly smaller to illustrate the formulaic rut that her life has become. It’s magical. Tender is full of creative devices like this that further let the reader into Carolanne’s mind without ever getting clunky or explicit on the matter. The graphic novel is bookended with a simple moment that shifts from sweet to suffocating.

Tender gives the audience a proper sense of who Carolanne is right away. Hetland adeptly defines her protagonist so that readers are immediately on her side, praying that she gets her “happily ever after,” and makes it out of this sick story alive…And then they’re rapidly wishing for the opposite and utterly aghast over this chameleon. There’s also some creative experimentation with non-linear storytelling that gets to the root of Carolanne and continually recontextualizes who she is and what she wants out of life so that the audience is kept on guard.

Tender casually transforms from a picture-perfect rom-com, right down to the visual style, into a haunting horror story. There’s such a natural quality to how Tender presents the melancholy manner in which a relationship — and life — can decay. Once the horror elements hit, they hit hard, like a jackhammer, and don’t relent. It’s hard not to wince and grimace through Tender’s terrifying images. They’re reminiscent of the nightmarish dadaist visuals from The Ring’s cursed videotape, distilled to blunt comic panels that the reader is forced to confront and digest, rather than something that simply flickers through their mind and is gone a moment later. Tender makes its audience marinate in its mania and incubates its horror as if it’s a gestating fetus in their womb.

Tender tells a powerful, emotional, disturbing story, but its secret weapon may be its sublime pacing. Hetland paces Tender in such an exceptional manner, so that it takes its time, sneaks up on the reader, and gets under their skin until they’re dreading where the story will go next. Tender pushes the audience right up to the edge so that they’re practically begging that Carolanne won’t do the things that she does, yet the other shoe always drops in the most devastating manner. Audiences will read Tender with clenched fists that make it a struggle to turn each page, although they won’t be able to stop. Tender isn’t a short story, at more than 160 pages, but readers will want to take their time and relish each page so that this macabre story lasts for as long as possible before it cascades to its tragic conclusion. 

Tender is an accomplished and uncomfortable debut graphic novel from Hetland that reveals a strong, unflinching voice that’s the perfect fit for horror. Tender indulges in heightened flights of fancy and toes the line with the supernatural. However, Tender is so successful at what it does because it’s so grounded in reality and presents a horror story that’s all too common in society. It’s a heartbreaking meditation on loneliness and codependency that’s one of 2024’s must-read horror graphic novels.

‘Tender,’ by Beth Hetland and published by Fantagraphics, is now available.

4 out of 5 skulls

Tender graphic novel review

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