Robin Marx reviewed Valen The Outcast by Matteo Scalera
Review of 'Valen The Outcast' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
While marketed as sword & sorcery, so far this comic feels a bit closer to the grimdark sub-genre a la Joe Abercrombie (with a bit of early Berserk) rather than Robert E. Howard’s Conan.
Category quibbling aside, this series is off to a good start. The premise is simple but effective: an undead king named Valen shakes off a necromancer’s control and seeks revenge. He’s joined in this task by two slightly unreliable companions: a witch/swordswoman named Zjanna and drunkard rogue Cordovan.
The story moves at a brisk pace with no wasted verbiage or lengthy info dumps, and the world building is of the “show, don’t tell” variety. I look forward to reading future volumes and would recommend it to fans of dark fantasy.
