Review by Avi Pollock
Writer: Curt Pires
Artist: Luca Casalanguida
Colorist: Mark Dale
Letterer: Micah Myers
Thanks to Image Comics for the review copies!
Although I know of his books, Lost Fantasy is the first book I’ve read by fellow Canadian Curt Pires and it won’t be the last. The book opens with blood, murder, and magic before breaking into explanation mode of the world we are seeing. Blending in real world historical events, in the Lost Fantasy world there is a world underneath our world where magic and monsters live. When the monsters from the world underneath break through to our world, hunters come forward to defend us from the breach. Eventually these hunters are sanctioned by our government to protect us and 5 houses of hunters are founded. A hundred years later the hunters are still defending us with magic and big swords.
The first issue is a bit of a set up introducing us to Henry Blackheart one of the hunters who gets called in to investigate a series of violent murders in Montana. Blackheart himself has a mysterious and still untold back story himself for how he came to be found by the original founder of the Blackheart house. This A plot feels a bit typical “been there, done that” – Murders happen, little girl found at the centre, mysterious hero called into investigate, local law enforcement somehow tied to the evil and a battle between supernatural forces, and magic occurs. And then there’s that cliffhanger ending that appears to upend everything and made me rush to read the second issue that was fortunately in my inbox.
The second issue accelerates the action and widens the story to new characters, new backstories, and new mysteries. The book opens introducing us to 2 mercenaries and quickly converge their story with the cliffhanger of the previous issue introducing new backstories that link the characters. We are also introduced to the Black Pillar, a giant sphere in the world underneath that seems to be a control centre for monitoring what is going on in our world above. Without saying too much more, the rest of the issue has more magic battles, more conflict between characters, more blood, more world building, and best of all a mind meld (called a mindwalk) that drives yet another jaw dropping cliff hanger ending.
The art is well suited to the book with clear story telling that balances the magic, the horror, and the real world scenes. The action scenes jump off the page while the world building scenes convey the broad scope of what is going on while also bringing into focus that we are only really seeing the tip of the iceberg for what is happening.
Both #1 and #2 are giant sized issues and also include backup stories for another Curt Pines book Indigo Children. The short backups are also enough to draw me into finding that series with its blend between Stranger Things, Superman’s Krypton and the Fantastic Four.
My one complaint with Lost Fantasy would be that the book feels a little too much like Something is Killing the Children in tone, visual presentation, and broad storyline. I am however confident that as the story moves forward this will be less and less true.
Overall I’d rate the 2 books at a 9/10 and am looking forward to seeing what happens next.
Lost Fantasy #1 and Lost Fantasy #2 are both now available.
Are you going to pick up the comic? Have you already? Feel free to leave a comment below or chat with us on Threads at @theconventioncollective, or Bluesky at @theconcollective.bsky.social
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