In Hell We Fight! Volume 1

[cornerofmadness]

In Hell We Fight! Volume 1 by John Layman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The title grabbed me from the library's graphic novel shelf. My local comic book shop is light on Image comics so I missed this because it is right up my alley. As the title suggests we're in hell, following the afterlives of a handful of young adults. They're lead by Midori who was raised by a Yakuza leader who was also demon possessed until she stood up to him and died. She's the group's bad ass and demon hater. Xander was, based on the art, a young man of color in the southern swamps later 1800s/early 1900s who hated frogs, killed them until a frog demon drowned him and now he barfs up the water he drowned in plus stuff discarded in said water, sometimes even useful stuff. Ernie I feel sorry for who is only in hell because he was murdered by a cursed axe which sticks out of his head (and they can pull it free as many times as they need to arm themselves as another ax takes its place) and Balphie the group's dumb friend, son of a powerful demon.

They're just roaming around hell when they decide to steal an ice cream truck (for the ice cream) but inside is someone far more interesting than ice cream. With their new friend, they decide they might just storm the gates of heaven. Unfortunately for them everyone else wants that truck and the person inside it for their own power.

As expected there's plenty of fighting and mild/moderate gore. The art style fits the story (even if it's a bit gritty for my tastes.) The characters and adventures are interesting enough. The end of this volume was packed with mini stories from various anthologies. I enjoyed it enough that I'm looking forward to the next volume.



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Comments

[suzume]

Ooh, I might be checking this out at my local library! Sounds interesting.

[cornerofmadness]

That's where I got mine. I hope they get more. I liked it but I'm not sure I liked it enough to buy it

[suzume]

Ha ha ha, that sounds wonderful to me! When I looked this book up on Goodreads (or some-such), I found links to about twenty other graphic novels and what-not. It was a fun session of putting holds out for various books from the library. Oh, have you ever read any of Lucy Knisley's comics? They are pretty cute and funny.

[cornerofmadness]

yay for finding things to check out!

I think I've seen her work around but no I haven't read it (and the guys buying for mylibrary are just that GUYS, very heavy on the dark and violent comics

[suzume]

Augh. I'm not sure if it's purchase-worthy. You can probably see some sample comics on Amazon though?

[cornerofmadness]

thanks i'll check