The Battle Of Blood And Ink by Jared Axelrod and Steve Walker is a steampunk graphic novel that takes place on a floating city called Amperstam and is an interesting read to pass the day away with. The Battle Of Blood And Ink explores the freedom of press and the risks of telling the truth in a gilded, brutal world.
The Battle Of Blood And Ink
The city of Amperstam is ruled by a despot who has taken on the title of Provost. No one gets on Amperstam, as we see in the opening scene, unless that can provide something of value to her, the Provost. This includes neutral ships just trying to land. However, Ashe tries to fight the tyranny of the Provost and her goons by putting out a broadsheet called The Lurker’s Guide. This broadsheet basically exposes the corruption at the top. Of course, this draws the Provost’s ire and a showdown between the two is inevitable.
The main character of Jared Axelrod and Steve Walker’s The Battle Of Blood And Ink, Ashe is pretty kick ass. She was raised on the streets and has basically worked her way to prominence as creator of The Lurker’s Guide. She takes zero crap and can defend herself, which leads to a cool part where someone tries to screw her over, but she sets him straight. Ashe is definitely a character that I would be willing to read more about.
The art in The Battle Of Blood And Ink is typical comic book style as far as I can tell, not being an art or graphic novel expert and all. Some bits of the action scenes came across as confusing to me and there were also a pretty decent amount of characters for 144 pages. I would say the book wasn’t as tightly focused as I would prefer, myself. Yet, The Battle Of Blood And Ink flows and is an action-packed comic. It’s not a bad choice of reading for a calm day at all. I certainly look forward to the next book if there are more to come.
Disclosure: Received for review.
Other reviews of The Battle Of Blood And Ink by Jared Axelrod and Steve Walker:
Fiction State Of Mind – “A really solid, entertaining read.”
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I remember having an interest in this one when I first heard of it, but had since completely forgotten about it. Still seems like it may be worth a shot, if not something I’ll absolutely fall for.
Sure, I would say to borrow this from the library though, it’s not exactly the sort of book you read over and over again.
The idea sounds really cool, but I’m not really into the graphic novel genre. Unless it’s mangas…
There are some really great non-manga graphic novels, like the ones by Alan Moore and Maus. I wouldn’t start with this one though.