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The Portent: Ashes
Swedish artist Peter Bergting ( Domovoi ) brings another of his fantastic creations to Dark Horse. A wood nymph has returned alone from the realm of the dead to find her dying world overwhelmed with powerful warlocks, vengeful spirits, demons, and witches.
"The Portent is one of the best fantasy comics I've ever seen. Wonderfully atmospheric, beautiful and strange." - Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy
"The Portent is one of the best fantasy comics I've ever seen. Wonderfully atmospheric, beautiful and strange." - Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
About the author
Peter Bergting
221 books17 followersPeter is a professional artist and writer. Fluid in Swedish and English, Peter has written three young adult novels in Swedish for a major publisher (Bokförlaget Semic), two American English, graphic novels (for Image Comics and Dark Horse Comics) as well as numerous short stories. Peter is published in the US, Sweden, Norway, Spain, France, Germany, Denmark, and Italy.
His illustrations and art can be found all over the world. He has provided art and covers for authors such as J.R.R Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, Jens Lapidus, and Astrid Lindgren to name but a few. In total, he has been featured in over 500 books.
He lives in a tiny town in Sweden with his wife, two daughters and three really strange cats.
His illustrations and art can be found all over the world. He has provided art and covers for authors such as J.R.R Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, Jens Lapidus, and Astrid Lindgren to name but a few. In total, he has been featured in over 500 books.
He lives in a tiny town in Sweden with his wife, two daughters and three really strange cats.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 6, 2017
Portent is an interesting comic that has a lot in common with the BPRD or Hellboy.
Lin is a warrior and a mage and a wood nymph. She has returned from a harrowing journey to find her home destroyed. A wide cast of villains is out to stop her.
While this is nothing special and I do not know if this is worth being a series on its own. But the single issue I read wasn't bad. It was an interesting story and I did enjoy it. The artwork neither offends nor really pleases. It's merely ok. Though never bad.
Portent does do a creditable job of world building and I did like Lin's character. The relationship between Lin and Mei was a surprise. But I won't spoil any of that for you.
So a good story, decent art and some interesting characters made this a good volume to read. The decent art did not hurt. Is this a series I will stick with? I honestly do not know. I might and I might not. Still I give Peter Bergting credit for crafting a decent story that stands alone well enough.
Lin is a warrior and a mage and a wood nymph. She has returned from a harrowing journey to find her home destroyed. A wide cast of villains is out to stop her.
While this is nothing special and I do not know if this is worth being a series on its own. But the single issue I read wasn't bad. It was an interesting story and I did enjoy it. The artwork neither offends nor really pleases. It's merely ok. Though never bad.
Portent does do a creditable job of world building and I did like Lin's character. The relationship between Lin and Mei was a surprise. But I won't spoil any of that for you.
So a good story, decent art and some interesting characters made this a good volume to read. The decent art did not hurt. Is this a series I will stick with? I honestly do not know. I might and I might not. Still I give Peter Bergting credit for crafting a decent story that stands alone well enough.
July 6, 2014
Now this is more like it! The second volume in the Portent series, showing just how much better Peter Bergting has gotten as an artist and especially as a writer since his debut some seven or eight years ago.
Story:
The story starts where the first volume ended. Lin, the wood nymph, tries to find and rescue Milo, who gave up his life for her in The Portent Volume 1: Duende. When she finally comes back from the land of the dead, she finds that she has been away a long time and a new world order reigns. She finally confronts Alkuin the old demon that she fought in the first volume, but it all turn out, again, to be a scheme by the witch Kaspara.
Art:
Bergting was already a master draftsman with the first volume of The Portent, but now several years later, he is even better. The art is a bit more sketchy, which works fine, and the colouring is beautiful.
Critique:
This story has a much better pacing than the one in the first volume of the series, which felt a bit rushed, cramming too much into too few pages. I liked this story a lot, though if I had read it without having re-read the first volume, I would probably have been a bit lost. It's very clearly a continuation/ending and not so much a stand alone graphic novel, begging for there to be a complete edition somewhere in the near future.
I find it a bit strange that the Swedish publisher has chosen not to have "The Portent" featured prominently on the cover. Granted, the first volume was published by another publisher entirely, but this is so clearly the second volume and for all intents and purposes more or less demands that you have read the first volume to make heads or tails of it. So, not letting on that this is the second volume in a series already on the cover is doing the book a disservice, I think.
Story:
The story starts where the first volume ended. Lin, the wood nymph, tries to find and rescue Milo, who gave up his life for her in The Portent Volume 1: Duende. When she finally comes back from the land of the dead, she finds that she has been away a long time and a new world order reigns. She finally confronts Alkuin the old demon that she fought in the first volume, but it all turn out, again, to be a scheme by the witch Kaspara.
Art:
Bergting was already a master draftsman with the first volume of The Portent, but now several years later, he is even better. The art is a bit more sketchy, which works fine, and the colouring is beautiful.
Critique:
This story has a much better pacing than the one in the first volume of the series, which felt a bit rushed, cramming too much into too few pages. I liked this story a lot, though if I had read it without having re-read the first volume, I would probably have been a bit lost. It's very clearly a continuation/ending and not so much a stand alone graphic novel, begging for there to be a complete edition somewhere in the near future.
I find it a bit strange that the Swedish publisher has chosen not to have "The Portent" featured prominently on the cover. Granted, the first volume was published by another publisher entirely, but this is so clearly the second volume and for all intents and purposes more or less demands that you have read the first volume to make heads or tails of it. So, not letting on that this is the second volume in a series already on the cover is doing the book a disservice, I think.
September 19, 2018
Fun but somber. Reminds me of Ardcudi and Mignola.... compared to the latest Joe Golem, this is unrecognizable.
November 22, 2020
This one was really cool, cool drawings and story, I suspect something more than this as it feels like a part of a story only
August 2, 2015
I gave it an extra star because I liked the art, but this was actually a pretty bad comic. The plot twists are either predictable from a mile away ("I am looking for this man." "I haven't seen him. But I have seen a mysterious stranger cloaked in darkness!") or nonsensical ("Who is that child?" "It's you! From the past, or something... MAGIC!") While the main characters motivations are clearly stated, they're hard to empathize with, and none of her actions matter. Literally - a secondary character essentially tells her "don't worry about it," and sure enough, ends the threat without any risk or sacrifice. The dialogue oscillates between serviceable and laughable ("We are burning!" said a man on fire). All in all, I kept waiting for it to get good. About 2/3rds of the way through I realized it never would, and just powered my way through. I don't recommend it.
July 6, 2018
I liked the worldbuilding in this, but I wasn't super fond of the story and the dialogue felt weird and choppy a lot. Still an interesting read, though. More like 2.5 stars.
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March 12, 2015Jag tyckte den var bra, djup och fängslande. Dock kändes det som jag aldrig fick en början. Jag bara dök upp, som om jag bara var woops i historien utan att någon berättande något. Det var bra på sitt sätt för jag fick måla upp en egen bild av det som hänt. Har ännu inte funnit ut om jag läste del två eller ej, om någon vet tala gärna om det för mig.
June 24, 2014
6/13/14 Review tk.
6/24/14 http://www.iwantmytwodollars.com/2014...
6/24/14 http://www.iwantmytwodollars.com/2014...
July 5, 2016
I loved the drawings, but not the story itself. Well, there wasn't much of the story to be honest ://
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews