In Review: Brawler Vol. 1

Description: Coming to us from Time Bomb Comics is Brawler, which is an anthology comic feature up and coming UK comic book creators. The inspiration for Brawler is the short-lived but fondly remembered Warrior black and white anthology published in the early 80’s, and featured a roster of unique characters and concepts from some up and coming creators.

The Stories

Brawler is a mixed bag of stories, which has something for pretty much everyone. Whether you are a fan of pulp stories, science fiction, or horror. This first volume of the comic gives a good mix of stories. For my money, the best stories are, ’28AR’ by Richmond Clements with art from Nigel Dobbyn. This story sees a group of soldiers led by Thor the god of thunder. The action in this story is thick and fast and we get ice giants.

My favorite story from this opening issue is the second story titled ‘Major Rakhana’. Written by Steve Tanner. This story sees a group of Grenideers sent to a remote island where they meet Rakhana, who is a female warrior with a penchant for dispatching some rather upright looking alligators. Set in the 1800s the story gives us a strong female lead who is hated by Alligators who apparently have a matriarchal society, which is much like it was in the 1800s as well.

Another story I really enjoyed was ‘Amnesia Agents’, which is written by Jason Cobley with art from James Gray. The story focuses on two agents who travel in time to make sure that certain people our remembered. In this case, it was a soldier from the first world war. For me, this story gave us some pretty fun characters, but it also gave us a rather unique method of time travel.

The Artwork

The artwork in the book is rather hit and miss and very much a case of what you like and what you don’t. At the end of the day its all subjective and dependant on personal taste. I particularly liked the work done by Nigel Dobbyn in ’28AR’, but I wasn’t keen on the very rough line work, which was done by Grace Toscano in the science fiction based story ‘Banshee Space Exorcist’, which has a rather scratchy look to it. So it really is a hit and miss affair. I’d say half and half in terms of art styles that I enjoyed as opposed to those that I didn’t. That said though all the artists did a pretty good job of visually telling the story, which is perhaps the most important element when it comes to comics.

Overall

Brawler is definitely worth the money if you are a bit bored of the traditional diet of superheroes and are wanting something a bit different with a good mix of stories and art styles. I’ll definitely be getting the second issue when it drops so I can follow the stories that I liked.