Comic Book Review: Lake Of Fire #1- Cathars, Catholics, Crusaders & Creatures

Illustrated by: Matt Smith
Written, Coloured & Lettered by: Nathan Fairbairn
Publisher: Image
Release Date: 24th August 2016



I haven’t written a ‘proper’ comic book review for a very long time now, having being put off my sometimes hobby due to an avalanche of same old, same old PC programming coming from just about every bloody comic book that I read today.

After all, how many times can you moan about Cultural Marxism programming coming from painfully emasculated PC writers before all you are doing is repeating yourself?

In my experience, not long, and so I stopped doing the weekly reviews, returning only when I found something that was worth writing about because it offered something different, either good different or bad different, just different.

All I really want is different, but in the consensus liberal comic book world of today, different is very, very rare. If you like teen girl heroes with oddly masculine characteristics then you’ll love the state of the comic book industry today, but I’m a guy in his forties, so sorry, call me weird, call me misogynist, but I just can’t relate to teen girl protagonists and their ass kicking shenanigans.

Lake Of Fire #1 isn’t about a teenage girl kicking men in the face. It’s different and that is why I’m writing about it now. So, what is it about? Without spoiling it for you (and I suggest you buy a copy of the book immediately) it’s about a group of believable people dealing with an unbelievable situation. It’s set in the time of the crusades, when the Catholic Church was getting very worried about the Cathars, a group of pacifist Christians who were actually living their lives as good Christians and thus exposing the hypocrisy of the not so Christian Catholic Church. Set amidst the backdrop of that historically fascinating time the narrative follows a group of very believable characters with recognisable human motivations, flaws and personalities. When you read the characters you get the sense that you are reading about real people, not agenda driven wish fulfilment characters that you get in so many mainstream comic books today.

The comic book alchemy in Lake Of Fire #1 is really quite simple. Take two elements of realism (convincing human characters and historical accuracy) add the third element of sci-fi fantasy, mix together, and you have created the perfect comic book magic potion that will delight, enthral and entrance the readers.

The art, by Matt Smith, has a knowing, but not annoying knowing, sense of humour to it. It’s friendly, but not too friendly, there’s danger there, lurking, like a walk in the park, everything is soft and fluffy, but then it starts to rain, it’s getting dark and oh crap, can I hear something stalking me? Everything is very clear, easy to understand, there’s no smoke and mirror messing around with the panel layouts and the individual characters are distinct and easy to distinguish from each other. The artist understands his role in this undertaking, he understands that the writing is bloody good, and so he does all that he can to enhance the story without making it all about himself and distracting from it.

That’s all I’m going to say about the book. I don’t want to spoil any of it for new readers. Look at me, read my other reviews, look at my other reviews on YouTube and you’ll see that I’m a big old bearded complaining git who spends three quarters of his time slagging off comic books. Lake Of Fire #1 is not your average comic book. It’s bloody good, loads of fun, so get onto ebay, go to your comic book shop, do what you have to do. Get the book, read it, enjoy it and you can thank me later.


Rating: 10 /10 (In a different league to the vast majority of comic books on the market today)


Never heard of Cathars? 
Click here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharism