Band of Bards Comics
Monthly goal: $0.00/$100.00
Just wanted to reach out and say Thank you to all of our followers new and old. We're so glad to have you here.
50 pages
After crash-landing on an dangerous, archaic, and mystical planet, Serenity and her estranged daughter, Mackenzie, pursue an...
BrownPanda132
Dope book
Kevin admin
@BrownPanda132 Agreed, we need more folks reading it! I featured it in the app to hopefully raise awareness.
27 pages
The EPIC conclusion is here! Our hero Tilly has been bitten in half by the Hell-Tech Mech and it seems like her quest to return...
Band of Bards Comics
FROM THE STATIC is ALIVE on Kickstarter! Get two brand new covers and more by backing the campaign! 90% of profits go direct to the creative teams involved!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bandofbards/from-the-static-a-horror-anthology-from-band-of-bards?ref=dzohh8
Band of Bards Comics
FROM THE STATIC is ALIVE on Kickstarter! Get two brand new covers and more by backing the campaign! 90% of profits go direct to the creative teams involved!
28 pages
Grandma Tilly has returned from her adventure in space with the Hell-Tech Mech and is ready to sit down for her weekend of...
64 pages
After receiving the Mugendai Blade at the end of the Battle of Akagahara, Shoji has fled back to the open road. Meanwhile, the...
28 pages
65-year-old gamer Tilly Caldwell just broke her best gaming controller, but nothing’s gonna get in the way of her weekend of...
BandofBards
Thank you for such kind words!
RapidFireReviews
Thoughts…
When you think of OAPs you rarely think of them as gamers but Tilly is not your usual grandma.
And when her gaming time is interrupted she will stop at nothing to get to play again. Hilarity ensues as she must take a trip to the games store for a new controller but her ride share is no normal car. Over the course of the 3 issues we learn more about the HellTech mech and Tilly’s gaming skills are pushed to the limit, will she ever get her characters fully levelled up?
I really enjoyed this series, each issue pushes the story further and in very unexpected ways. With issue 1 we are introduced to Tilly and we get to see her first encounter with the HellTech mech. This story has a great deal of humour throughout as we see Tilly take the mech on a trip around town. We get to see the mech in action as the issue continues and as it comes to a close we are left with the question of where did it come from and how is a shady government agency in space involved??? As the series continues the plot thickens and we get the answers we are seeking as Tilly has to contend with the game servers going down and a less than peaceful protest at the Windchill games HQ. With each issue the writing and story gets better and better. While issue 1 was a great introduction for sure, issue 2 that really pushes things forward and expands the world. The humour is maintained throughout the series and there are some really funny moments throughout both visually and in the writing.
Speaking of visuals the whole thing has a really striking and unique look to it all. I really like the cartoony style of the art, it worked really well with the comedic tone of the writing. The HellTech Mech itself was great, the panels themselves looked really gooey, as if they were going to spill out of the page at any moment.
This comics series is a great breath of fresh air, in a time of gritty and deep storylines and multiversal travel this give us a simple fun time we don’t have to read between the lines or struggle with in depth timelines, we get to have a laugh as we read along with this grandma and the adventure that literally lands in her lap. There is a very tongue in cheek feel throughout and it pokes fun at gamers and game companies but in a nice way. Nothing is taken seriously at all and that's what we need sometimes, just pure fun fun fun. I would give this series an 8 out of 10
26 pages
The thrilling conclusion to Liberty’s beginning.
See how Jake Gold handles the fight of his life and saves everyone’s...
25 pages
65 pages
In the Holy United States of America, Samantha Skylin is selected to go on a mission of mercy to the walled off land of...
25 pages
Liberty is in the fight of his life in this action packed penultimate issue!
37 pages
An anthology of 8 stories to mark the third anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the world continues to try to make sense...
29 pages
Issue #3 wraps up the first story arc for Jasmeet, Danny, and Mindy.
24 pages
Jake Gold, a Jewish immigrant spending his nights brawling in a gang, is mistakenly exposed to a disastrous experiment of Thomas...
23 pages
Asta starts her freshman year at university, excited to be joining her longtime friend Lola. Asta quickly becomes isolated and...
RapidFireReviews
This was my first time reading Manga and at first it seemed to be a bit strange but I was soon drawn into the story of Asta and Lolly and the mysterious Mallory. I do like a slice of life story and this tale of friends at The Middlesmoor College & University (MCU) does a good job of giving you a glimpse into their lives. What starts off as a seemingly safe story of first days and meeting new people soon begins to show a darker side and is this all somehow linked to the events in 2008???
After my brain adjusted to the reading order I found that the story had a nice rhythm to it all. The pace and flow were right for this type of story. In chapter 1 it was very much an introduction to the characters of Asta and Lola, giving us a chance to see who these friends are and the push and pull of their friendship. Asta is the nerdy shy girl experiencing college life for the first time while Lolly is a much more party girl who has been at MCU for longer. There are some funny moments throughout the first chapter especially Asta’s night time bike ride home, while unsettling at first the reality of what is happening around her is a lot more lighthearted, it is at the end of Chapter 1 we meet Mallory.
With Chapter 2 the cat is really set amongst the pigeons as Mallory's presence seems to be causing a bit of tension between Asta and Lolly. It's Lolly that can sense what we the reader are being shown throughout the panels, there is something off with Mallory, but what is it. It is this mystery that will hook you and keep you reading as you will need to know more about her motivations and why she seems so focused on Asta. Also what happened in October 20008? Will the friendship survive Mallory’s manipulation ?
As I have said I am new to Manga and its illustration style. I liked the look of these chapters and found the style to really suit the story tones well. The story has a nice feel to it with the characters friendship and the illustration seems to match that with its almost innocent look to it in the main. But when there is a change of tone or a sense of danger the style seems to shift slightly. Lolly is drawn as more rounded and friendly while Mallory is more angular, this feels to me to represent the characters personalities. I believe this is a similar style to other Manga titles but I found it really helped with the visuals for the characters as they interacted with the world.
I am glad this was my first venue into the world of Manga reading. It eased me into the reading style nicely and I will definitely be reading more, especially of this series and others. I liked the writing style, and I am a sucker for a mystery so I need to find out who Mallory really is and what she is doing with Asta. If you want a fun read with a little bit of a mystery I would very much recommend this series to you, just pop over to Global Comix to read Chapters 1 and 2 ASAP.
I have the scripts for the next 3 chapters so I can’t wait to see where this is all going. I will continue the reviews in a very spoiler free way so there's no worries about finding stuff out before you get a chance to read it yourselves.
Reina-Setsuna
Very interesting so far! I wonder if her superhero dreams will come true...
30 pages
Have you ever wondered what happened to the 30 pieces of silver that Judas dropped when he betrayed Christ? The Westergaard...
23 pages
(FREE)
Jake Gold, a Jewish immigrant spending his nights brawling in a gang, is mistakenly exposed to a disastrous experiment of Thomas...
Aceblade
I remember reading this a few years ago. glad to see there are more issues!
29 pages
(FREE)
Have you ever wondered what happened to the 30 pieces of silver that Judas dropped when he betrayed Christ? The Westergaard...
29 pages
Following the explosive end to Appreciation Day we meet The Vulture and discover this hero's true identity. Colin is confused....
29 pages
148 pages
A horror anthology of 17 individual stories exploring the theme of horror from many different angles. Fast-paced and gorey, slow...
morpheus
I backed this on Kickstarter and it was a fun read! Though to be honest this is a pretty irregular anthology, which happens when you have a compilation from different creatives. There's some stories here that are AMAZING in every way (art, writing, lettering, etc.) and then there's others that honestly felt amateur. It made for a bit of a jarring experience to read something like “The Infant” or “A Little Piece of Me” and then reading “Beholden” which honestly had some pretty sub-standard art. The tone in the anthology was also pretty inconsistent, some of the stories did not even feel like horror (like “How the Devil gets you” or “NU-V (2U)”) and a couple seemed like they were either aimed at kids or preteens (“The Cauldron” and “When you’re not looking”). When you’ve got an anthology that has some comics that have nudity and gore and others that are for younger audiences in the mix you wonder if they didn’t put too much thought on who they were making the anthology for and what their target audience was. I’ll also say some of the writers did not do a good job writing short stories. Some of these are not even full stories but only a premise or idea for a story (like “Embrace Me” or “She Who Weeps”). A story needs to have a beginning, middle, and end, and many of these just stop at the beginning without making it worth our time or giving us a conclusion. In my opinion editorial should have done a better job keeping an eye on the creative teams and making sure this anthology was more cohesive, but given that it’s Band of Bards’ first anthology book in a catalogue that’s been mostly outstanding is pretty commendable. Highlights of this anthology were “The Infant”, “A Little Piece of Me”, “Post Traumatic Credit Scene”, “The Glow Up”, “Angler”, and “The Bodega”. Overall, this was a good read but I hope they do a better job at being consistent in the future. Thanks!
RapidFireReviews
Thoughts…
Since getting back into comics a few years ago I have found that one thing that the comic media excels at is horror. There is something about the comic format that lends itself perfectly to all the various genres of horror tales. From the Static a great representation of that, this collection has a myriad of stories all different styles of storytelling and illustration. We get creature features, psychological scares, body horror, comedic horror, and some emotional tales as well. The whole book is a really great collection of short stories with some really interesting takes on the horror genre and there are some really interesting art style choices used throughout also.
Some stories that really stood out to me were
The Cauldron, this had a great feel to the story, nice and light hearted and had a very solid visual to the whole thing. There is a one shot set in this same world and it really does a great job of capturing a real fun spirit to a horror story.
A Little Piece of Me, this story went full on body horror, this one really didn’t hold back at all. A great story with some really stand out panels, and an ending that is not for the faint of heart.
Post Traumatic Credit Scene, this story had a very twisted feel to it, definitely one on the psychological horror side while at the same time giving us some of the most gore filled moments of the book. This story also gives us one of the more thought provoking stories of the anthology, with the way trauma stays with us.
The Unfortunate Consequences of Being a Time Traveler, this was my favourite story in the book. When it hit me what the story was really about I was blown away. The story and the illustration style went really well together as well. For me this story was a whole different and very real type of scary.
This is only a small sample of the stories that are in the anthology and all the others are really great reads. I think this book will have a different impact depending on the reader, each story will hit differently and that is what is so good about this type of book, everyone will find their story within it and at the same time get to see writers, artists and letterers that they have never experienced before. Horror can be a very personal thing as what scares one person will be fine for the next person, in this volume there will be that story for you that will make a connection with you. I would give this anthology a 9 out of 10, this is a really great presentation of how horror works so well in the comics format both from a storytelling perspective and a visual one.
68 pages
In the year 2095, humanity is on the right track to recover from catastrophic climate change and to begin a new era of...
Headypidgeon4180
Congratulations on being featured! Great cover the facial expressions are solid
57 pages
This first issue sets the stage for a samurai fantasy epic that spans from desert buried cities in Mesopotamia to the court of...