by Joe Iconic, Reporter
Story By: Nathan Fairbairn
Art By: Matt Smith
Art By: Nathan Fairbairn
SERIES PREMIERE! It is 1220 AD, and the gears of the Albigensian Crusade grind on. When an alien spacecraft infested with a horde of bloodthirsty predators crash-lands in the remote wilderness of the French Pyrenees, a small band of crusaders and a Cathar heretic are all that stand between God’s Kingdom and Hell on Earth. DOUBLE-SIZED FIRST ISSUE featuring FORTY-FOUR PAGES of story with no ads for just $3.99!
Lake of Fire #1 is Dark Ages meets Starship Troopers, and it’s wonderful! Misfit crusaders find that their fool’s errand becomes out-of-this-world deadly. A quest to find heretics in a small village quickly goes Expedition to the Barrier Peaks done right.
As a long time Dungeons and Dragons player and history buff, I have a lot of respect for a fantasy series that shows the width and depth of possibilities for storytelling from our past. The diversity of different people, different sects, different faiths are a much deeper wellspring for story inspiration and grounding than a Tolkien-based world. I love my stories with hobbits and smidgens as much as the next dice rolling/comics fan, but Lake of Fire #1 is how we should teach history to the next generation.
The other day, a friend of mine said he did not read graphic novels because he missed good dialogue. Lake of Fire #1 will be among the titles I recommend to him. The dialogue is well-crafted, and feels authentic while avoiding the purple prose so easily attributed to this often romanticized era of history.
Spoilers ahead!
My moment of zen was when the party made first contact with the aliens. The entire party watches in shock the utter chaos of Starship Trooper-level bugs massacring man and steed. They encounter something so very far outside their frame of reference of even their nightmares. This is the moment they re-evaluate their understanding of reality. It is Hell on Earth, and yet worse than they had ever imagined. In gaming parlance, a good Dungeon Master would make his players roll a saving throw against fear at the mere sight of this paradigm-changing moment. Got the picture? Then…the veteran Mondragon calmly asks his squire for a spear. The look of their expressions is wonderfully wide-eyed, and Smith captures the moment brilliantly. Their faces loom for a last moment in the shadows, before rushing out into the light of uncertain reality. Storytelling like in Lake of Fire #1 reinforces we are in a new Golden Age for comic books and comic book fans.
Fairbairn mentioned in a recent interview that he knew the coloring of certain scenes in his mind while he wrote Lake of Fire #1, and that level of finesse of visual storytelling is manifold many times in this first, spectacular issue. Fans of historical fiction, fantasy, and good comics in general need to check out this buzz-worthy new series from Image Comics. Lake of Fire #1 sold well enough for a second printing, which comes out in September. Now is the perfect time to jump on board this fantastic new series. Lake of Fire #1 started as an impulse buy from one of our excellent local comic book stores, but is now on the top of my pull list.
Rating: 
ComicsOnline gives Lake of Fire #1 5 heretic cathar prisoner-turned-sidekicks out of 5 heretic cathar prisoner-turned-sidekicks.
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