'Head Lopper & The Island or A Plague of Beasts' – Andrew Maclean with Mike Spicer (Image)


I'm always after more fantasy in comics, maybe I'm looking in all the wrong places (which would be about right...) but it feels like a genre that's just a little bit under-represented so when I see a fantasy comic it's coming home with me.

This is an approach that has seen me take home some absolute rubbish in my time ('Savage Avengers' doesn't quite fall in this category but it's close, more on that another time though) but has also seen me take home some of the most beautifully drawn Conan comics that I have ever seen. Thanks Dark Horse, I'm going to miss your Conan comics...
It's an approach that saw me take a chance on the first issue of 'Headlopper' back in 2015 and I had a lot of fun reading it. Me being me though (and a whole load of other reasons that I don't want to remember so won't be telling you, sorry), my intentions of collecting it came to nothing, the quarterly release schedule and my poor memory didn't help, and that was that. Until a couple of months ago when a trip to Forbidden Planet saw me do a double take when I saw three whole volumes on the shelves.
Did I buy volume 1? Well, of course I did, the review kind of gives it away. I'm not going to lie, I totally bought volume 2 as well; I'm leaving volume 3 in case anyone asks me what I want for Christmas (I'm thoughtful like that).

It's taken a while but I finally got round to pickng up 'Headlopper & The Island' as my commuter read. And what a read it has been, I won't be waiting as long to read volume 2.

The Head Lopper, Norgal, and the nagging severed head of Agatha Blue Witch arrive on the Isle of Barra to find it overrun with beasts; minions of the Sorcerer of the Black Bog. When Queen Abigail hires Norgal and Agatha to slay the Sorcerer, our heroes trek across the island relieving the horrors of their heads - and playing right into the hands of a master manipulator.

Collects issues 1 through 4.

'Headlopper and the Island' (you will have worked out by now that this review has no patience for long titles) is a hearkening back, and a loving homage, to what I suspect lies at the heart of all fantasy, a large guy looking to make fast money by hitting monsters with a big sword. Headlopper (or Norgal if you prefer) is that large guy, sporting an impressive beard and an attitude to match. Maclean's artwork and Spicers colours combine superbly to show us just how how dynamic Norgal can be in a fight and what it will always eventually mean to be one of his foes. There isn't a lot of dialogue but once you've sat through a couple of the fight scenes, you'll understand just why talking isn't necessary for large chunks of the book. It's a very smoothly driven plot with artwork that has just enough of the Mignola about it to give the reader the sense of a beautiful world where danger lurks in the shadows.

What is any swordsman without his companion on the road? In Norgal's case, you get a feeling for just how stoic a warrior he is to carry (and put up with) the constantly chattering head of Agatha the Blue Witch. There's a tale to be told there but the odds are that we will never hear it because of Agatha's own personal quest to drive Norgal mad with her inanities. To be fair, he did chop off her head... Maclean clearly knows the importance of a good partnership in any sword and sorcery tale and has moved to service his tale with a 'odd couple' partnership that I defy anyone not to get invested in.

As much as I try to be even handed with these reviews, I don't have a single bad thing to say about this first installment of 'Headlopper'. Maybe the artwork is a little teeny bit cartoonish for my tastes but I actuallly feel churlish saying that about a book that worked so hard to give me so much enjoyment. The bottom line is that if you love fantasy then you will adore 'Headlopper'. If you love stories about taciturn swordsmen drop kicking a blue head that won't stop talking, you're probably reading 'Headlopper' already. Great, isn't it?

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