"Elodie hates unicorns. For nearly a year, she's dedicated her life to killing them all for trampling her husband."
Yep, that's genuinely how the description for this series starts, and if that doesn't make you instantly want to read it like it did when I first read it... hopefully the rest of this review might convince you.
By the Horns might be one of the most imaginative, unique and creative comics I've ever read. The world-building is simply astounding in terms of its scale, but not in an overwhelming way, don't worry.
As Elodie in her companions (old and new) undertake their quest, they come across seemingly endless amounts of places and characters. It's really cool how immediately expansive the world feels, but it never loses sight or focus of the main characters, and the emotional stakes of the story. It does get and feel very wild at times, but then equally it's also surprisingly emotionally grounded in the characters, especially when it comes to the conflict that arises relating to the surface layer premise, mentioned in the first sentence of the description for the book, which I also started this review with.
Alongside Elodie, there's her "half wolf/half deer steed, Sajen" and "a floating-eyeball guide named Evelyn", and so many other fun and exciting characters and companions they come across throughout the story, which I won't spoil so you can discover them for yourself.
It's all so, so fun. The art, coloring and lettering is so bright, vibrant, expressive and generally colorful which makes the whole thing so exciting and entertaining to follow. The whole aesthetic of the book from the design of this trade to everything else is such a delight, it's a great well made book not just creatively like I've talked about but also production quality wise.
All and all I'd definitely recommend checking this out if you haven't already!
If you want more of Joe's comic thoughts and reviews, you can find him on Twitter @JoeLovesComics and on the League of Comic Geeks also @JoeLovesComics.
You can also find his podcast on Twitter @JoeTalksComics, which you can listen to through Anchor, where you can find links to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify, or you can click those hyperlinks directly.
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