Review: Claim #1

Claim:Â A Song of Ire and Vice #1 is the opening salvo in a comic book series based on the Claim strategy card game by Deep Water Games.Â Claim #1 is a snarky, irreverent, hilarious and ultimately beautiful book that takes the idea of the card game and delivers a wickedly delightful fantasy narrative that follows two amoral, greedy and ultimately feckless mercenaries.

As an almost lifelong Dungeons and Dragons player (40 years which makes me…) I have viewed the recent increase in fantasy related books as a positive development.Â Books like Conan, Red Sonja and Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser have been around for years but that fare has always focused on high fantasy of the sword and sorcery variety.Â Newer books like Canto and Critical Role have lightened the mood somewhat in tone and look but were still sword and sorcery fantasy.Â Enter then Claim by Greg Wright (Monstrous, Wild Bullets) which takes two of the most unlikely mercenaries, a goblin named Rob Goblin and a doppelganger named Dop, and sets them down in the middle of a war for control of a kingdom.Â Â The fast talking, lascivious, and mostly harmless Rob is the front man for the group and while reading he made me burst out laughing as I envisioned him being voiced by Rob Schneider or David Spade.Â Dop is the quintessential straight man; mostly silent and able to bring some power to the table.Â However, like other hulking straightÂ men in comedy duos he has the penchant for doing the wrong thing for all the right reasons.Â Right away, you can see that Wright has assembled the building blocks of the classic comedy duo.Â As an added bonus, Wright also has an incredible talent for witty remarks, biting sarcasm, comedic timing and irreverent humor.Â The duo, Rob and Dop, find out about the impending civil war, a mercenaries dream, and embark on an adventure to find a faction and make their fortune.Â While the plot is fairly basic it is sufficient to provide a backdrop for the comedic adventures of this duo as the series unfolds.

If the book were merely, merely hah, well written and funny it would be successful.Â However, Claim #1 is beautiful to look at.Â The art and color by Mihajlo DimitrievskiÂ is just incredible and engrossing.Â His character design is perfection; delivering fantasy and comedy in equal measures while capturing you with beautifully brilliant color.Â Dmitrievski’s art is every bit the equal to Wright’s writing.Â Wright provides the vocal jokes and Dmitrievski provides the physical gags; all to great effect.Â The color is wonderful well; vibrant and saturated, Dmitrievski was not afraid to use bright colors where appropriate while painting the grotesque in vibrant putrid shades that somehow exaggerate the already exaggerated and grotesque appearance of goblins, ogres and other assorted bad guys.Â Â I kept searching for something to compare this artwork to and could not pin down a style.Â It has elements of books like Asterix The Gaul but also could be tied back to fantasy animation like The Black Cauldron.Â Whatever you want to call this style, it is beautiful and well worth the price of admission.

The book’s combination or comedy, wit and beautiful art is hugely successful and makes for a wonderful read.Â As I said, it had me laughing out loud and pleasantly entranced.Â The book stays true to its fantasy roots but its comedic element can stand up to some of the giants in comedic fantasy; namely Order of The Stick, Battlepug and, another fantasy card game, Munchkin.Â I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of fantasy, comedy, Dungeons and Dragons or beautiful art.

Writing – 4.25 of 5 Stars
Art – 4.75 of 5 Stars
Inking – 4.5 of 5 Stars
Color – 5 of 5 Stars

Overall Score – 4.6 of 5 Stars

Writing – Greg Wright
Art – Mihajlo Dimitrievski
Letters – Justin Birch
Claim Created by Scott Almes
Published by Source Point Press

Author Profile

Nemesis

Nemesis is a poet, writer and author of the upcoming novel The Long Game. He is a writer of science fiction and supernatural thrillers. Besides novels and short stories he writes for UK based ASAP Comics developing new stories for Level 8 and OPSEC. Nem is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and tries to bring those experiences into his writing.

He lives and works out of his home in Riverside, California with his wife and three children. When not writing he enjoys reviewing comic books and graphic novels for ComicCrusaders.com and living the Southern California life with his family.