Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Writer: Damon Gentry
Artist: Aaron Conley
Release Date: 13th November 2013

Sabertooth Swordman was originally a digital comic, but this hardcover version collects together the entire saga together alongside a collection of  pinups from such artists as Mike Allred and Brandon Graham.

The book is structured like some utterly insane computer game, and sees a humble farmer’s wife kidnapped by a Malevolent Mastodon Mathematician (yeah, you heard me), which leads  to the farmer being turned into a magical tiger swordsman and embarking on a quest that essentially involves him hacking and slashing his way through a variety of disturbing creatures before finally making it to the ‘big boss’.

‘Bizarre’ perhaps doesn’t begin to do this comic justice, and the insanity ramps up exponentially as our hero finds himself battling through wave after wave of ogres, plague mutants and – of course – goats.   Everything is grotesquely over-exaggerated, particularly when it comes to the violence giving the book an odd vibe that’s difficult to describe without actually reading it yourself.

The story itself is ultra-simplistic, and the dialogue is extremely limited. It’s fairly safe to say that the main selling point here is Aaron Conley’s incredibly eye-catching artwork, although for me, as impressive as it undeniably was in places, I found the art to be a bit of a double-edged sword. Conley’s illustrations are almost ridiculously detailed, which works incredibly well on some pages while turning into something of a jumbled mess on others. One of the main problems for me was the lack of colour, which only adds to the confusion once the tentacles, blood, goat horns and smoke started mingling together.

Don’t get me wrong, Conley is obviously ridiculously talented, and as stand-alone panels, this book is an absolute work of art.  But the problem comes when moving from panel to panel, when his frenzied, chaotic style makes the book almost impossibly dense and difficult to follow in places.

Overall though, as much as I appreciated the art in places and enjoyed the simplicity of the story, this just didn’t work for me. I continually found the layouts confusing, and repeatedly found myself reading and re-reading panels trying to figure out what the heck just happened.  And while I’m sure some people will absolutely love the sheer unadulterated insanity that is Sabertooth Swordsman, it’s just not my cup of tea.

Rating: 5/10.

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The writer of this piece was: Craig Neilson (aka Ceej)
Article Archive: Ceej Says