Undying Queen #1

Undying Queen #1

ARH Comix 2021

Written by Arahom Radjah

Illustrated by Daniel Pascual

Coloured by Marcus Fuentes

Lettered by Juliana Perino

Mesopotamia, 3000 BCE. It is the dawn of mankind and the age of Arkhalla, the Undying Queen of Ur. In this distant past, the lands of Sumer are ruled by Arkhalla - cursed by the demon god Asag with immortality and feeding on human blood, she rules the world with an iron grip at the price of her soul and humanity. This is her story.

It’s been a while since I’ve had the pleasure to read anything from ARH so that this came out makes me an incredibly happy camper. This is based off a novel that they published and if you love the sound of this you should definitely read it because it’s incredibly well written and really delves into this civilisation that was there before the world we know sprung up around them. If you’ve not read anything from them don’t worry this is a great jumping on point with the origin of Arkhalla the Undying so it really does this sensational job of establishing the characters and the world they live in. I love the mythology that surrounds this and seeing that regardless of how early culture was established that the Gods have played such an important role in how they live their lives.

I’m in love with the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceedingly well. The character development that we see through the narration, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter and this does a magnificent job in establishing their personalities. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages introducing the characters, the story and this world they live in we are left wanting to see so much more.

I really like how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story begin to emerge, grow and evolve. That these layers open up new avenues to be explored and these add such great depth, dimension and complexity to the story is extremely well achieved. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is fantastic.

I like the interiors here. There is a lot of shading and that’s the only real negative I got so that should tell you something right off the bat. The linework we see is clean, crisp and sharp and with their varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the detail we see throughout the work, especially in the faces and facial expressions, is extremely well rendered. I’d love to see more backgrounds being utilised because when we do they really enhance and expand the moments beautifully. I mean seeing the relief in the stone makes me want to see more of their architecture. The composition within the panels does a great job in bringing out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a talented eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a great eye for how colour works.

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Not to have a huge spoiler reveal or anything but this is a book about Vampires and how they came into the world and the first person, woman, Queen, to be turned and how she turned this to her advantage and ruled her part of the world. I love the setting, the era in which it is set and how civilisation as we know it hasn’t even been formed yet making this infinitely more interesting, at least to me. This has some intelligent, smart writing and sensational characterisation alongside some really nice interiors that turns what you think you know of the genre on its head.