Belle: Beast Hunter

           
                                                             

                                                                                

      As a comic fan I've stumbled onto a lot of stuff through lots and in the case of Belle I won it with a bunch of other comics through a joker's wild drawing held by my local comic book shop. The cover alone was enough to get my attention so as soon as I got home I pulled it out of the stack and started reading it. I don't think I've ever read a Zenescope title before, but I can tell you I will now. Once the world gets back to normal I have a huge list of stuff I want to read including the rest of this story. This is based on a universe called the Grimm Universe which is interesting in itself. Looking through some of their titles you're going to lose your mind because it doesn't seem like it should work but if it's anything like Belle, I'm in. This was a lot of fun, but most importantly, it's a horror comic and I love those.

      I have a love hate relationship with indie comics. For every five or six good ones, there's ten to fifteen bad ones which isn't really the fault of the publisher because sometimes the ideas are good, but the delivery or the story often feels clunky. Belle does go into a little bit of background, but not too much. You know who Belle is, who her mother is, and why she does what she does. Her mother was a monster hunter who was killed on a mission and we see the family suffer a bit because of it. You don't get too much in the way of back story which is fine with me. Sometimes first issues just beat you up with information on who the character is, why the character does the things they do. I'm the kind of guy who likes things to evolve slowly. There are some who prefere to know everything up front and that's fine, but sometimes when you have an arc that allows you to get to know the character and you also begin to see what motivates them.

        As a first issue there's an interesting premise. You see Belle hunting these minotaurs, but why? Where did they come from. It's a great setup that ends on a great cliff hanger. Sure, there may not be enough here to excite most comic fans, but it's building something which requres patience. The how and the why's are all going to come and that's exciting to me. Belle: Beast Hunter #1 is a horror comic that doesn't reinvent the wheel. You get a character who is based on Belle from Beauty and The Beast, but oddly it works even if you do sometimes get some Batwoman vibes from her. The artwork work is amazing adds a great deal of depth to the story. It's that cover that hooks you in though. Amazing stuff and sometimes, it's a cover that gets you interested in the comic.

Belle #1 - Zenescope

January 2018