Artesia Volume 2: Afield - The Second Book Of Dooms

Artesia

by Mark Smylie

Artesia leads an army out of the Highlands to aid the Middle Kingdoms against the resurgent Empire of Thessid-Gola. As Artesia and her captains seek to join the northern army led by the High King's marshal, the Grand Duke Owen Lis Red, they are confronted with the myriad dangers and distractions of life on campaign. They encounter the Thessid enemy for the first time, meet and hire mercenaries from distant lands, and learn of the Empire's terrifying allies, the Isliklids, who heretically claim descent from Islik the Divine King. And through it all, Artesia is plagued by dreams and haunted by ghosts, as she ponders the choices she has made, and those she hasn't…

Genres: Comics, Fantasy, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Comics Manga, Womens

192 pages, Paperback

First published August 18, 2003

About the author

While The Barrow marks his first published prose novel, Mark Smylie has worked as a writer, illustrator, editor, and publisher for over a decade.

His epic military fantasy comic book, Artesia, was first published by Sirius Entertainment in 1999, and then later by Archaia, a publishing company that he founded. He was nominated for the Russ Manning Award for Best Newcomer in 1999, and for an Eisner Award for Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition in 2001. His illustrations have appeared in works from Wizards of the Coast (for Dungeons & Dragons), White Wolf (for Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse), Brigand Publishing (for Avlis), Kobold Quarterly, and collectible card games from AEG (L5R and Warlords). He contributed a short story to the Eisner-Award winning Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard anthology; designed and illustrated a roleplaying game based on Artesia that won the Origins Award for Role-Playing Game of 2006, three Indie RPG Awards, and was nominated for six ENnies; and contributed an essay on Artesia and religion to Graven Images: Religion in Comic Books & Graphic Novels, published by Continuum International Publishing.

Reviews

[47Time · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing and artwork are consistent, so if you liked the first volume, you will like this one too. It has a major battle at the end where the strategist in Artesia comes to light. The mythology and scores of names make it difficult to follow the underlying details of this rich universe, but you can still get a kick out of the brutality in this world.

Artesia marches her army south to help the king of the Middle Kingdom with the fight against the Thessids. Artesia's Highlands were at war with the Middle Kingdom, but they are forced to put their differences away, given their common enemy. Still, there are those who want her dead by any means, even to the point of hiding a woman with magic so she can get close to Artesia with a poisoned dagger. Fortunately, the attempt is thwarted by Artesia's men.

Artesia binds some Thessid prisoners of war to her by magic, thus breaking their bonds with the empire and upsetting some of the people in her camp. The battle with the Thessids is long and hard, given their numbers and powerful magic that includes spirits and resurrected warriors. Artesia's side wins, but at a great cost. She sends captured Thessid ambassadors back to their emperor with word that they face a united army that will not bow to him.

[Lou Anders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mark Smylie's Artesia graphic novels are excellent military fantasy, perfect for fans of George RR Martin, Steven Erikson, Glen Cook, or Joe Abercrombie. This is a rich, complex, challenging story, as detailed as Mark's artwork, that pushes the boundaries of narrative in comics. The world-building and invented culture is on a par with the best of prose fantasy. And Artesia is a tremendous heroine. Not light reading, but highly recommended.

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

AMazing art! My favorite character of all time. I truly hope this becomes a series of movies! This is adult content! Artesia is very faithful to her path, an amazing priestess, queen, and witch! Artesia worships her Gods with her body with passion and pride!

[Lord Battle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic. The low fantasy setting of the first book is expanded in the proper way, slowly. As we follow Artesia out of her home country with a large number of mixed troops the format of the comic changes. The heavy handed lore from vol. 1 is replaced with a striking turn towards visual storytelling. Sparse dialogue bubbles contrast large swaths of beautiful illustrations of soldiers in format, in camp, imprisoned, and in battle. My favorite example of using the comic format to express the reality bending interaction with the gods is done by illustrating them in the normally sterile white boarders.

Again Artesia is a beautiful companion with the Adventurer Conqueror King table top setting, but also a fantastic alternative fantasy comic period.

Love it. Also, I wrote this on a 10min break. No time for gammer / typo checks. 😎

[MerryMeerkat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Artesia Volume 2  
5 Stars, Buy it
 
Self Purchase, digital copy, re-read review
 
Overall, just as good as the first one. However, its just as confusing and overwhelming with how much detail goes into it. It’s a bit too much military type stuff, but still Artesia is an amazing character and I feel like almost everyone could enjoy parts of it. Again, I think it’s adults only because there is graphic sex and graphic violence. However it’s not done in an unneccessary way. Highly recommend this series.

In the first volume there weren’t really that many obvious sex scenes though I remember vividly there are some. In the first issue of the second volume there is a sex scene and it’s really well done.  As in the first volume, the art continues to be spectacular and the writing is fantastic despite all of the military jabbering confuses me a lot.  Issue two in this volume left me really confused as it was all military stuff and I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. Issue 3 and 4 are more military moving and 5 and six we are back in the swing of fighting again. And at the end of issue 6, Artesia finally declares herself queen.
 

[Greymalkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finally started getting into the story around the end of this edition. There are just so many names and characters that it takes me twice as long to read these because I keep flipping back and forth to remind myself who people are. I also felt that the "Artesia can do anything" superheroine aspect that put me off in the first book was handled much better in this one. I don't mind larger than life characters, but I feel like dramatic tension is lost if there's nothing that can stop them. This book introduced some elements that felt like a good challenge for her character.

Look forward to seeing what happens in the third book.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

An epic-scale story set in graphic novel format, Artesia was an unexpected delight. I enjoyed the illustrative style and the writing was truly brilliant in places. This collection contains everything from lords and castles, to epic-scale battles to goddesses who seem to walk the earth.

At the center of all this is a fierce yet sensual military leader who also happens to have killer her previous king and who is his most obvious successor, but who is hesitant to take the crown because of the dangers of being perceived as his usurper and a ruler in her own right.

I enjoyed this volume a lot more than expected, and looking forward to tracking down the other volumes.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Someone else summed this up as "lots of graphic sex and violence" and that's pretty much all I remember about this second book in the Artesia series, too. The world and premise have a lot of potential but it seems in this second volume that the author doesn't know what to do with it, and it might just be wasted on some fantasy wank. The art is still gorgeous though. Reminiscent of Barry Windsor Smith, I think.

[Lady Entropy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm sold to this series. The main character finally stops having a lower armour that looks stupid, it's less of a "good story" and more of a good world with interesting characters, going very close to our world but leaving a question that is around the "What if some parts of our world hadn't fully converted to christianism". The result is some really awesome female characters, running the gamut from whore, to queen, to palatial spy. Love it.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better than the first volume, this story expands on the initial concepts and broadens the war, while involving ghosts, gods and monsters both in battle and in conversation. The horrible armor is eventually replaced by something that would actually be safe to wear, and the main character stops acting wishy-washy about major plot decisions, so that's a tremendous help.
The dialogue could still be better, but the map finally made a bit more sense, as did the story overall.

[Chris Tower · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one is better than the first one, but this is simply due to growing accustomed to the story. The comic format is not best suited to epic fantasy with this much history and complexity without even more aids, glossaries, and guides. Still, the art is gorgeous and the story engaging enough to propel me into the third volume.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

My spouse is into comic books and because I am not the caped superhero type, got this for me to try. This is a graphic novel with great art. The non-primary characters and wars are a little bit difficult to keep track but the lead female character has very interesting and unique dimensions.

[RogueHireling · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulously deep story and history. Beautifully art, incredible story, war, sex, betrayal. Hardly gets better than this.