Dark Horse Comics releases an Action, Horror, and Fantasy comic about monsters who are recking havoc but the only ones to fight back are monsters against monsters in Ask For Mercy Volume 1. So, whatever happens, if you take any other particular monster fighting series that you can think of. And then sets a place in a fantasy world full of darkness where monsters are roaming out of the shadows, and our main character is a fencer that has the power to stop these monsters, you get this comic out of another heroine comic book series on Image. So Ask For Mercy is not just an ordinary Dark Fantasy comic that involves anything like hell. But this comic is like having something came out of Final Fantasy but mixed up with Berserk whenever something more based, but the weirdest thing is that the main character has to fight monsters by traveling through time.
The comic is written by Richard Starkings and illustrated by Abigail Jill Harding. Richard is the creator and writer of Elephantmen, but before when he started working with Abigail, he edited a line of original titles for Marvel Comics in the UK, founded the COMICRAFT design and lettering studio to makes every comic book leterring his primary use. And Abigail is an illustrator and comic book artist from Yorkshire, whose first comic appeared in Elephantmen #72. She graduated from York College with a BA Honors in 3D Art and Design in 2015, however, she continued to concentrate on her illustration work and did small comic projects back then.
First of all, I can’t praise enough Abigail’s cover art for this comic. So let’s talk about her art. From what I see, she usually uses some mixed media materials that she could come up with to illustrate her comic, however, she painted with acrylic paint with some pastels. And it looks more detailed as I ever get to witness her art, it’s really beautiful by the way. The characters seem to be more in action because all you can see is some monsters acting more fierce, while the main character is like floating up the air while drawing out her rapier to battle.
I can’t say much better from cover art because I think this comic would be that good for the readers to read something that has much better art. The back cover shows a quotation by some website on Techaeris.com who quoted “The story has that occult-horror feel… The art is beautiful and suits the mood perfectly… A gem of a book.” Well yes, it is amazing from the start when I saw this front cover, but I haven’t gone through the story yet, so let’s go there.
The first thing that you should know is that most of the mediums that the artist uses to illustrate the comic are quite different than anything else because, on the first page, she painted in acrylic by using some mixed media paper as occasion. And then the next page, she started using some inking and watercolor all over the rest of the comic. The story starts with a mysterious door from hell that calls itself the “Real Estate” which would mean that the rent is too much for us. And then next page shows the main character drinking coffee while talking to someone on the phone.
Next, she met some stranger who bought another coffee for her and then he took her inside of the gate and went to another world. A world is full of illusion and darkness which is something that is very unrealistic, where she got attacked by some combat planes that transformed into monsters. And then the next few chapters, the main character is going to fight against the Nazis and eventually, the leader turned into a monster, well crazy stuff. And all of that is that the main character uses the gate to travel through time. Unlike Kingdom Hearts where you use the Keyblade to open the door to transport to another world, here in this comic is like a life hack just to escape from reality, but as for that, these monsters are coming out of the door because of her.
However what I’m very intrigued is Abigail’s art, because whenever I’m reading through pages, the coloring is very satisfying that she could use so many mediums of painting. And I’m very impressed of coloring the pages and panels with watercolor, and this isn’t the first time that I’ve seen comic artists who colors with watercolor or acrylics. Even though the storytelling is crazy, to begin with, I couldn’t even catch up with all the crazy timeline, the monsters, and the Nazis. And on top of that, this comic could be a dark fantasy genre with all the occult-horror stuff filled in this story. But I like Abigail’s art more than the story, I just go through the pages to read while seeing this dope art, it’s really great and that’s actually enough for me. This comic is fantastic, weird, and very interesting to read, and that’s kind of what I’m here for, if it wasn’t weird or if the coloring changes, I’d be pissed.
Newsdesk