Today on Truthful Reviews, since it's #ThrowbackThursday; we'll be taking a look at Red Knight #5. Written by Justin Cristelli and illustrated by JC Grande, Red Knight is a masked vigilante living and protecting the streets of Norfolk, Virginia. The book is in black and white interiors with a full color cover (which look great!) and is 30 pages long. The story is fun although it feels a bit wordy at times, but it never feels like you're not getting your money's worth. 
   
There's a lot happening in this issue, a car that transforms into a robot (like the Transformers, I know), masked vigilantes, cops fighting bad guys, action, adventure, world building and an introduction to a brand new character known as Honeycut; all for only $2.99! I always try to buy every issue of this series whenever I see them. Good stuff!

​As always... keep it Truthful!

  On Saturday May 8th at 8PM Manuel A. Carmona will be on the Yeah-Nah Wepa Show LIVE on Youtube talking about Buy Indie Comics Day. Make sure to set your alarms cause his is going to be a fun time talking about the origins of Buy Indie Comics Day, what's ahead for the initiative and our mission to push comics creators, indie comics creators to be exact! 

The Yeah-Nah Wepa Show is hosted by Dodgy & Al Mega and they talk about any and everything in a fun weekly show you do not want to miss. If you'd like to check previous episodes of the Yeah-Nah Wepa Show! to see what they're all about visit: ​https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-RJpJvXeIJjRiL2cvAa1V_s86DOcIxNn

As always... keep it Truthful! 

   Today we're reviewing one of those books that you read and immediately know you'll be following for the entire run, this book is Aftershock's Undone by Blood #1! Written by Lonnie Nadler and Zac Thompson with art by Sami Kivela and colors by Jason Wordie, this book was great from start to finish. Fantastic world building, there are many questions yet to be answered but the World that Zac and Lonnie are creating is one I enjoyed reading about. 
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   The art was absolutely beautiful, enough detail and grittiness to make the World these characters inhabit believable, be it present day or the old west era. The book is so well written that I couldn't tell if the story is fiction or based on historical facts, that's how you know the writers did their homework and their research into the eras they're depicting. This book will be at the top of my pile for the foresseable future!

​As always... keep it Truthful! 

   This time around I'll be reviewing the fun sci-fi anthology Inter Space! Published by Piddley Pix, this is a 40 page, full color ALL AGES anthology produced to raise money for charity! Inter Space is a collection of short comic stories from some of the best small press and industry professionals in the UK. Featuring the work of creators such as: Marc Laming (Star Wars, Planet Hulk, X-Men), The Etherington Bros (Long Gone Don, Baggage, The Phoenix Comic), Steve Becket (The Beano), Chris Imber (Last Sheriff), Jon Laight (Level-8 Comics), Susie Gander (Perrywinkle), Dan Harris (Attic Studios), James Lawrence (The Legend of La Mariposa), Gavin Mitchell & Emili B Owen) Grumpicorn & Pup, Tony Esmond (The Awesome Comics Podcast) Nick Prolix (Slang Pictorial) and many more! 

  This book was a treat! A bunch of great and fun stories ranging from a female Luchador named La Mariposa, a Kung Fu Kangaroo battling a Kaiju, a Unicorn and his doggy sidekick, a touching story of a kid who grows up to follow in his father's footsteps and much more! So many art styles, so many stories and each one it's own unique qualities. This is one of those books that you can read to your kids, your grandkids or you can read them just to get a good laugh and cleanse your palette from all the dark grittiness that is so common in comics nowadays; and if that wasn't enough 100% of the proceeds from the sales go to charities!

   I found this book on the digital app Comichaus which I cannot recommend highly enough, for only three pounds (around $4.25) a month you can read thousands of indie comics such as this one with hundreds more being added each month.  Do yourself a favor and sign up for a Comichaus subscription and read this book! 

​As always... keep it Truthful!

    In the spirit of Throwback Thursday we decided to share a Truthful Review from a few months ago just cause' we love the story and the creator so much! The book we're reviewing today is Half Bloom, published by Saberdog Art; Written & Illustrated by the talented Kristin Mehaffey! 

   The premise of this story is about a teenage girl having an existential crisis of sorts. Lyca feels she's not where she should be in life compared to everyone around her because you see, the World in which this story takes place is populated by monsters; and she hasn't evolved into her monster self yet even though her friends and everyone at her school are already starting to or have fully turned into monsters. Her dad is a Werewolf, her mom a Medusa and so far she's struggling with her existence looking like a normal teenage human going to school in a monster World. 

   This comic is very funny and charming, the interactions between the main character and her friends, her parents and all the characters that populate this World are pure comedy gold! The sketchy artwork gives the comic a lot of personality, I would even go as a far as saying the art style is almost another character in the story; if you get my meaning. I feel that if the comic had been illustrated in a "cleaner" line it would've taken away from the feel of the comic, especially since it's a monster story; the art and the story are a perfect marriage. I give it two demon talons up! ​I highly recommend you read Half Bloom today!!! 

​You can read Half Bloom HERE!

As always... keep it Truthful!

   Here we go with another installment of Truthful Reviews! This time we review Jordan Kroeger's The Fist #1! This book was pure, unadulterated fun from start to finish and weird in the best kind of way. The story is a Mortal Kombat-ish type story, warrior goes a battle planet and fights his way through life. 
   
   The main character is known only as "The Fist" and his wife is a spaceship, yes you read that right; his wife is a spaceship. I don't want to give too much away because I'd like for everyone to check this book out but there's a character in this book who's almost a mix of Hulk Hogan and Macho Man Randy Savage that steals the show! Also, the two combatants our protagonist faces are derivative of two huge pop culture characters but I'll let you discover who they are.   

   This book is wild and the art style fits the story perfectly! The book looks like you're reading the comic after taking a hit of hallucinogenics. Sketchy, frenetic, colorful, beautiful, unique and violent as all get out, this book holds no punches! ;)  

   

   Here we go back again with another installment of Truthful Reviews! The purpose of these reviews is to shine a light on the thousands of indie creators, books and publishers that go aboye and beyond to produce quality work for our entertainment. Some people wonder why we would shine a spotlight on another indie publisher when we have our own books to push, the answer is simple; I truly believe that we're stronger together and that there's enough for everyone to eat. With that said, let's get to our review.

    The book we're reviewing is Dragonfly and Dragonflyman #1. Published by Ahoy Comics, and up and coming comic book publisher that's making waves for all the good reasons. See what I did there? Ahoy Comics? Making waves? Anyhow, the publisher is quickly gaining a strong following and with reason. 

   The first thing I'll say about this book is that the format was a bit different than what we're used to, not good or bad; just different. There are two stories involving "the same main characters" but in different Universes. But that's not the only things that's different about this book, there's also three prose short stories as well as a "Spot The 12 Differences" on the last page; this book is worth the $3.99 price tag!

​   The story was written by Tom Peyer while the art was done by Peter Krause. One thing I'll say about Krause that I thoroughly enjoyed was that depending on what "World" the protagonists are; the art style changes. One story is done in a silver age style and the other story is done in a much darker style, amazing job by Peter Krause! The colors were done by Andy Troy. This book is reminiscent of Batman and Robin, the silver age era and the more modern era as well. Pretty solid book. I'll definitely be buying subsequent issues. 

As always... keep it Truthful!

   We took a short brake but we're back at it with Truthful Reviews! This time we're reviewing the stylish horror book Bleed Them Dry #1 published by Vault Comics! Written by Eliot Rahal with art by Dike Ruan, colors by Miguel Muerto and lettered by Andworld, this book is a great entry into Vault Comics' horror line. 

   Based in a futuristic setting, Bleed Them Dry introduces readers to a much different World where Vampires and Humans co-exist in relative peace, but things are about to change. Some vampires, or "immortals" as they're commonly referred to; are good and some are bad... just like human beings. Someone is killing vampires and Detective Harper Halloway has been assigned to solve the case, but in order to solve it she'll have to uncover a much deeper truth; the future of humanity has been edited. Also... the book ends on a nice cliffhanger. ;)  

   The writer is good at building the character's motivations, making them believable as well as establishing the World they inhabit. The art is dark and stylish, the setting looks futuristic as well as "traditional" when it has to be. The people look different and believable, the vampires look scary, the book looks great. I know artists usually don't like having their work compared to other but to try and give you an idea, the line art has a flavor similar to Pepe Larraz; and that's a good thing!

   The colors tie everything together quite nicely. I'm sure Miguel used computer colors on some parts but I'm not so sure he did everything on his computer. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he colored the book with watercolors or even high end markers and then went over them and added details on the computer. I say this because when you create art, you notice brush strokes, marker strokes and/or textures. Those details are usually far less common with computer coloring although there's some creators that manipulate computer coloring programs to make it look and "feel real". Maybe Miguel is one such creator but I'm leaning towards him using traditional media in conjunction with computer coloring, all that to say this; the colors look great! 

   Last but not least is the lettering on this book, which is very well done. There are different fonts to differentiate captions with word balloons and/or characters but it's all readable, the words are easy to understand and the lettering does what good lettering is supposed to do; allow the person to read the book effortlessly and not distract or take away from the artwork. 

   All and all, and this is coming from someone who's just starting to delve into horror comics; this book was an entertaining beginning to a much larger story and I'm going to be reading this for as long as Vault Comics publishes it.