Fallen Heroes review

You may have heard of this already. Originally a novel by Barry Nugent of Geek Syndicate fame, this is an all new comic adaptation by Burke and Hare author Martin Conaghan.

The comic itself has had a slightly convoluted history that we won’t go into here- but if you want to know, keep checking the blog, as we’ll be running interviews with both Barry and Martin over the weekend. </ commercial break>

But onto the comic. First off- lovely cover, and I appreciated the short text intro in the inside, too.
The strip itself starts with a bang- dropping the reader into the middle of an incredibly strange situation with no explanation at all of what’s happening to this characters. If you’re wondering- this is a Good Thing. Both the character and the book itself are instantly interesting as the reader asks the obvious question: what the hell is going on?

We’re then introduced to another character, and this one could not be more different- the high-octane Mission:Impossible style action that fills the rest of the book is great fun. Conaghan writes the characters well and with minimal dialogue.
I’m also a sucker for silent comics- to me (if I may get pretentious for a moment) they are the purest form of the medium, so I was delighted by the many silent passages in this issue.

While the writing it tight, the art is variable. True, it never drops below what I would consider to be a professional standard, but there are a few panels where I felt the artist, Steve Penfold, didn’t quite get where he was reaching for- but the fact that he reached at all is commendation enough. And I have to say that conveying action scenes in a dynamic and kinetic way is a very difficult thing, but Penfold manages to do so here with no trouble at all. And the art being in that slightly loose style I adore helps things along too.

All in all, this is a very good first issue, and I cannot imagine anyone reading this and not wanting to pick up the next one.

So, y’know, read it!


You can buy Fallen Heroes at any branch of Waterstones. It's also available on Amazon in both paperback and on the kindle and it's also available on the apple ibooks store