Orc Stain #4 – Review

By: James Stokoe (writer, artists, colorist & letters)

The Story: The forces of the Orctzar close in on our hero, One-Eye.

What’s Good: Orc Stain is such a clever book and I always find myself having a little trouble explaining its awesomeness.  It is NOT a book that exists on the strength of its narrative a la Criminal or The Walking Dead.  It is not a book that exists by building up to epic crossovers as do most superhero comics.  With this title, the excellence comes from the little things that are present in every issue.  The really impressive thing is that when you have a book written and drawn by one guy, you would expect excellence in one area and weakness in another, but Stokoe hits a lot of high notes in many different areas and the excellence is not wearing off now that we’re 4 issues in.

The design of the orc world is very cool.  All of their technology is based on using weird animals designed for the purpose or mechanical means.  So, in this issue the orcs show us wires being strung for the “talky” device so that regional chiefs can check in with the Orctzar.  “What could that be?  How could it operate?” I asked.  Well, it is a network of telephone-looking wires strung around the country side, but at each end is an orc who has wires tied to his arms, legs, fingers, toes, knees and he flails around in some sort of full body sign language which is transmitted to the orc at the other end of the line where a specially trained orc interprets the “dance”.  Very clever!

The dialog and turns of phrase in Orc Stain will have you rolling on the floor with laughter from time to time.  For example, at one point the honorific “Gronch-Master of the Deep” is placed on the Orctzar.  In this world, “gronche” is the word for an orc’s junk.  The book is consistently funny in a very irreverent and vulgar way that I love!

And the art is just brilliant.  All of the panels have these weird devices I’ve talked about so there is an Easter Egg hunt aspect to everything, but you also have just an incredible amount of detailed line-work with psychedelic coloring.  I love it!

To top things off, Stokoe has developed a story to go along with this.  It is simple, but I’m eager to see how One-Eye gets out of the mess he is in and learn more about why he is so different from the other orcs.

What’s Not So Good: Nothing.

Conclusion: You need to be reading this.  Stokoe is really brilliant in this book.

Grade: A-

- Dean Stell