So I just read the first trade of Orc Stain. Orc Stain is drawn, written, colored, and lettered by  James Stokoe. It's about an orc named One-Eye who isn't exactly as evil or malicious as the other orcs.

The art is ridiculously detailed. There are pages where you can see leaves in the far background. Each character has insane amounts of detail on them, down to the buttons on their clothes.  And this is one of those rare cases where the colors fit the artwork. There's a cool pop art palette, and it just works in a way you wouldn't expect.

The story is what got me though. It's basically taking the idea of the orcs from Lord of the Rings and asking why they are so evil and whether all of them are that evil. The way that it's presented in Orc Stain, they're that way because they've always been that way. They've never known anything different, so it's not that their evil, just used to doing horrible things.

It makes for a good ambiguous story. The characters do bad things, but since it's just their way, it doesn't come off as horrible. It also makes the world seem more unique. Stokoe doesn't stop to explain away anything. If the way the orcs get around is by filled some poor creature with air, oh well. It's so bizarre you can't help but go along with it.

Okay, I can't talk about the story without talking about the dicks. They're called gronches in the story, and they're used as trophies, status symbols, and currency. There are lots of random orc penises throughout the story. There's a two-page of an orc leader's gronch collection. I like that Stokoe didn't make it dirty. It's just matter-of-fact, kind of like some people using ears or noses as money or trophies. It's so matter-of-fact that he added a "how to make chits (chopped up pieces of gronches used as coinage)"  section at the end of the book.

The book comes out bi-monthly, so it'll be some time before the next trade comes out. I'm going to have to buy this book because it's really good.

You can check some of the pages on the official site: [link]