One of the most surprising trends on the modern comic market is the presence of fairy tales. While these have always been with comics in one way or another, their resurgence in popularity has been one of the defining features of the past ten years. Conversely, while comics as a whole tend to incorporate almost every genre, fantasy is often one of the more niche choices of setting. In terms of overall popularity, fantasy does not compete in the medium when compared to superheroics or science-fiction. With both of these trends in mind, the story of Blood Queen is one of the more interesting on the market at present time. Most fairy tale stories incorporate fairy tale characters into the modern day, but some are based in a fantastical setting. Even these though lose this concept of the fantasy world pretty quickly and focus more on the fairy tale aspect. The exception to this trend as far as I have seen is in the series Blood Queen.

So far into this series the characters have interacted in a way which incorporates both genres. A lot of the story is based around stories straight out of fairy tales (though none specifically) such as poisoned drinks or poisoned fields. Behind this trend though is a strong impulse of the court setting which is so common among fantasy. Blood Queen thus feels like a fairly strong entry into both genres, with an engaging story.

If there is one drawback to the series thus far it is the rather drab artwork. While it fits the period to a degree, it also has a tendency to make a lot of the characters look the same. For someone that reads only one series per month, it might be easy to sort out the somewhat generic looking characters here, but without strong visual identifiers a lot of the characters tend to get muddled together. At the same time this is not of any great importance, as the main concept of the plot supersedes the individual banter between whoever it is that is speaking, either two witches or two knights.

This series has been one of my biggest surprises of the past year, and it is one of the few series which I look forward to coming out. While it is flawed in some minor ways, for fans of either fairy tales or fantasy (or both) this is an excellent series to get into, especially as it is still close enough to the start of the series to find the other issues.

Story: Troy Brownfield  Art: Fritz Cases
Story: 8.0 Art: 7.8 Overall: 8.0 Recommendation: Buy

Dynamite Entertainment provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review