Cover by Erik Jones
Story by Jim Zub
Interior Art by Andrew Huerta
Paizo Publishing's incredible award-winning fantasy RPG is now the ultimate fantasy comic from Dynamite Entertainment!
Valeros can rely on his sword arm and his friends, the mysterious and beautiful sorcerer Seoni and the silver-tongued quick-witted elven rogue Merisiel, but nothing can prepare him for the dangers that lurk ahead. The scattered and chaotic goblin tribes of Varisia are changing, growing in power and unifying in ways no one has ever seen before. At the heart of this strange evolution is an ancient evil looking to establish itself anew.
The iconic heroes at the core of the Pathfinder world are brought to life for the first time in a brand-new story full of charm and high adventure that will please fans and entertain new readers alike. Issue 1 clocks in at 40 pages, and includes more than 10 pages of character profiles and Pathfinder RPG game statistics, plus an EXCLUSIVE removable, playable tactical map and poster.
My opinion of the first comic was a real roller coaster. The first thing you notice about any comic is the front cover, and I decided on this one. I like it. (One of the problems of having a bunch of different covers for essentially the same product is that reviews won't be grouped. Oh, well.) Then I opened it up, and saw that the entire art was not nearly as well done. Opinion dropped. As I read, however, I started to enjoy the story, in spite of the art. Opinion increased... until I got to the end, which was just over halfway through the comic. My first thought was, wow, did I just buy a comic that is almost half advertisements? Well, no, and my opinion quickly rose again because the back half was full of gaming goodness - like (finally) a mostly player friendly writeup on Sandpoint, the included fold out map, an encounter to use with it, and more.
So my final score is a 3.25 out of 5. If you are not a fan of the RPG and just want to read this as a comic, I recommend against it - the art is very subpar and you'll be buying a lot of extra stuff you don't need, which means less value for the money. But if you are a fan of the RPG and the Golarion setting, it's a good buy in spite of the artwork.
I have to say I was on the fence about getting this, but then I saw the portion of Merisiel electing Valeros to carry their prize to Sandpoint had me giggling and wanting the comic. One of my players heard me comment that I would buy it on Tuesday and elected to use their credit from some Magic trade-ins to purchase it for me.
The art i pretty good and feels right with the story. I love seeing the iconics brought to life in this format. The portfolios in the back make it even more worthwhile. My mother enjoyed this as well and she has never been a fan of comics. I am going to have to purchase this comic every month and I haven't bought a comic in over 10 years!
I will note that I got extremely lucky that my shop got the virgin version of this comic and it was the one I got by sheer chance.
