REVIEW: Orc Stain TPB

Orc Stain, Vol 1 TPB

Written,

Drawn,

Colored,

Lettered by James Stokoe

$17.99 / 168 Pages / Full Color

Image Comics

James Stokoe's Orc Stain isn't just a subversive, psychedelic fantasy. It's also one of the most unusual and inventive crime comics of the year. Sure it looks like the kind of book Peyo might've produced had he grown up on the wrong side of the tracks, but this is much more than a handful of Smurfs ground up in rolling papers. This is orc noir. It's a story about a stoic safe-cracker trying to get by in a violent, cutthroat world where castration is currency.

That's not a metaphor. That's the reality. There's even a pictorial guide to prepping scavenged genitals for fiscal transactions in the back of the book.

You might be thinking this book isn't for you. And that could very well be true. In fact, I imagine a majority of readers would be aggressively averse to this kind of thing. And given the pitch without much context, I might've been one of them.

But I'm about to give it a 5 star review.  

Simply put, Stokoe put a lot of thought into a world of sadistic idiots who take the reverence of phallic symbols to an absurd new level. It's even a function of their *ahem* penal system. When the aptly-named safe-cracker One-Eye is accused of extortion, he and his orchood end up on the chopping block. He eventually escapes and seeks retribution from the ex-partner who framed him, cleaving that orc's privates and offering the appendage up as payment of his debt. Robbed of his "gronch" the vile Pointy-Face declares "Poxagronka", a kind of orcish jihad, on One-Eyes. This is bad news as One-Eyes has few friends in the world and Pointy-Face has plenty, all of them in low places. This leads to a great chase and with it, further exploration of Stokoe's weird, wild world. And it's all this world-building that makes the book so exceptionally entertaining. 
 

I keep mentioning that One-Eye is a safe-cracker by trade. He's a thief in the classic D&D sense, but what makes this so much more interesting than hours of gold mining in World of Warcraft is the Flinstones style approach to objects and devises. In the world of Orc Stain, machines are living organisms more often than not. You may have heard some talk about the "safe" in the first issue. It's not your typical bank vault or safety deposit box. It's actually a kind of bear with goodies inside, camped out on a mountaintop in a catatonic freeze. Sitting atop the creature's head is a bird-like creature that serves as an alarm system. And it's actually a parasite embedded in the bear's noggin. It'd be unrelentingly disgusting if it wasn't so effing bizarre. And that's just the beginning of the strange. Even soda cans are sentient. Whether they function as crucial beats in the ongoing narrative or they're simply sett-dressing hanging out in the lushly illustrated backgrounds, these otherworldly animals, vegetables, and minerals contribute to a fully realized world. It's like walking into Jabba's palace all over again for the very first time.

The art is phenomenal, with vibrant purples and greens and bittersweet reds. There's very much a psychedelic feel to the proceedings. So much so that your expect to brush your thumb against crushed velvet. That if you scuff at the panels with your fingernail you'll activate the skunky odor of aged Scratch n' sniff residue. That a black lightbulb ought to be involved. That you've just been shroomed out of your ever-loving mind.

It's an amazing achievement from a single artist. Not for everybody, but it's so refreshingly odd and clever and well-executed that I was grinning the whole way through. Imagine if Dr. Seuss did a segment of Heavy Metal, and you're not too far off.

This is a guy to watch

Story – 5 / Art – 5 / Overall – 5

(Out of 5 gronchs)

Grab it on Amazon.