The idea of the Devil being portrayed as a sympathetic character is certainly nothing new; just look at his appearances in South Park as an example. It can always be a challenge to take a concept that has been used many times in the past and put a new spin on it, but Our Friend Satan does just that and then some.
The artwork by Michael Murawski and Lukas Lalko mostly consists of large panels, some almost taking up an entire page, meaning that, save for some extended exposition dialogue, text is mostly kept to a lean amount, allowing the artwork to speak for itself. And what great artwork it is. One particular point of praise is how the book opens with dark, gothic artwork, leading you to think that you’re in for yet another grim-as-can-be nightmarish tale, before the conjured Devil appears as an aging man in his pyjamas, who just wants his followers to leave him alone so that he can watch the game, informing you that this is a series with its tongue firmly in its cheek.
As we learn from the synopsis, Our Friend Satan is a more comical take on the whole “Devil” thing; Satan isn’t really such a bad guy anymore. He’s just a disgruntled old man who wishes he still had the vigor and charm of his youth. However, it’s pretty hard to come back to glory when the Church has been spending so much time defaming Satan for the past something-thousand years.
Conjuring up images of Garth Ennis’s Chronicles of Wormwood, in which the Devil and the Pope have a love-hate relationship, here we see the man in red and the man in white taking their age old disagreements to court. And as if that wasn’t crazy enough, everyone’s favorite Great Old One, Cthulhu, is also thrown in the mix for good measure. Writer Dominik L. Marzec sure does crazy well.
Overall, the story had a very Dogma feel to it. People can be a bit hesitant about including religion or politics in their stories nowadays due to possible controversy, but the team behind Our Friend Satan does it in a tasteful and clever way. It’s a fun new story that deserves to be read and shared, and you can’t help but like the curmudgeon old Satan as he desperately tries to reclaim his former glory.
The reason why this review was relatively short was because it only covered the first 18 pages of Our Friend Satan, and I was certainly left wanting more. Contribute now to help complete the book or there’ll be Hell to pay (sorry).
What do you think of Our Friend Satan? Does it pique your interest? Don’t forget to check out the kickstarter to learn more. Let us know what you think about the concept on Twitter or in the comments!