One of the highlight of Comic Con for me was discovering the comic book series The Black Coat, created by Ben Lichius and Francesco Francavilla. It’s a swashbuckling tale of a Zorro-like hero during The American Revolution period of the United States history, with a hefty dose of monsters and creepy villains thrown in for good measure.
If you enjoy history, and also love comic book superheroes, it’s a great series. The writing and historical aspects of it are fantastic, and the artwork (mostly black and white) seems to jump out at you from the pages.
I read the original graphic novel of the series, A Call To Arms (review here), and then caught up on the first issue of the next set of stories.
My addiction to The Black Coat has to do with a few underlying plot elements. First is the build-up towards the actual Revolutionary War that has yet to come. I’ve been told by Lichius that all of the stories are headed towards the start of the war.
“You’ll see some interesting twists and turns in the next few issues - especially for the Black Coat – and the action will be ramping up as well,” Ben told me. “I’m pretty anxious to finally get the rest of this story out to our readers. I think it’s going to be fun!”
The other storyline at work here is the development and realization by The Black Coat that an organization called The League is working with England to try and maintain a hold on the Colonies. The League isn’t just a group of men working behind the scenes…they also seem to have a supernatural element to them.
The graphic novel and the latest issue both take place in mid-1775, which is why this 52-page Standalone book is so much fun. It’s set back in 1769-70 and as usual, it’s action-packed, full of mystery and contains a few giant creatures as well.
The two stories contained in the 52 pages are Heart of Ice and First Blood. The first has our hero, Nathaniel (The Black Coat), trying to figure out why a giant bear is terrorizing the country roads. Those back at the local town are quick to blame Indians, but it’s much more than that.
The second one shows the Black Coat with a partner, who is the husband of Ursula, someone that we know from the first graphic novel and new series.
In essence, we’re getting a cool backstory here on stuff we already know. I wont spoil those for you, in case you’ve read none of them, but there are a few tidbits and explanations for things that really add to the the current time of the main stories set in 1775.
It’s almost like a Lost episode’s flashbacks. You know where the story is currently, but how did we get here?
I’m actually hoping for a future origins story, because that would be absolutely awesome.
Heart of Ice is written by Lichius, illustrated by Gabriel Hardman and lettered by Dave Rothe. In First Blood, Ben wrote and penciled the comic, while Jeremy Colwell did the inking, Joe Suitor did the colors and Chris Studabaker did the lettering.
Heart uses the same black and white storytelling medium from all the previous comics, but Blood moves on to a color format. Ben tells me that they may go to color down the road, but will likely continue the B&W for awhile.
These aren’t exactly easy-to-find comic books, so visit The Black Coat’s official website in order to find out how to purchase them. I’m going to continue pushing this series so that Ben, Francesco and his crew are able to keep telling us more and more stories.
