Free Comic Book Day 2021- White Ash

 By Mark Rodriguez

Here's another interesting book we found at Free Comic Book Day. It looks like a cool adventure type book and also features the preview of another story called The Game. Let's check them out.

The story opens with a woman named Kaitlyn Morrigan adjusting her lipstick (after several failed attempts) while remembering a horrific event that happened two months ago. She tells herself she survived, and once she beat that, there should be nothing left to be afraid of. 

Elsewhere, two men named Rawlings and Thane watch over a girl practicing her archery on horseback and ponder about the last two months. Rawlings asks Thane is he's sure Lilian 'hasn't contacted the boy'. Thane responds that she is under heavy surveillance and hasn't left the grounds unattended. Rawlings says both men have known each other for almost eleven hundred years, so he shouldn't presume to know anything, but he wonders if this is too much for him. He mentions he also had a son once. Thane tells him he's right to not to presume to know anything.

At a tavern, two men drink it up and mention it's been two months and wonder how much more time their friend Aleck needs. Cob tells Orman that the boy isn't like them and needs to find his own way. Orman says the boy has a duty and responsibilities. Cob says they'll talk to him tomorrow, but for today they'll drink.

Kaitlyn goes to talk to Aleck, who is under a car, working on it. Kaitlin says she hasn't dated all that much but has always had him, but she wants him to be there for her more often. She tells Aleck to come out from under the car, but sees that it's a kid named Kyle instead. Kyle says Aleck called in sick so he decided to see what he could do with the car. He remarks that it was worth the half hour he wasted to hear what Kaitlin said. Kaitlin storms off and says Aleck better be on Death's Door.

Elsewhere, Aleck is wandering off, thinking it's been two months since his last kiss. He says with the warmer temperatures in White Ash, and the mine being closed down since the accident, there hasn't been much to do but drink and mess around. He doesn't drink, but he has enjoyed messing around with Lilian a lot. He hasn't seen her since an event at the gas station, so he's now starting to ask himself if she used him to make her father angry, or if she was never even interested.

Aleck sees a woman in the lake and hops in. He's surprised to see that it was Lilian. Lilian said she bribed an elf named Brian to help her escape for now. She says it's been two months since they last saw each other, and if they're lucky they can see each other six or seven times a year.

Lilian shows Aleck a large fang she found and says it's from the Brood. She says that Thane has a ward around the perimeter that sends an alert when the Brood are near. In this case, she intercepted it so Aleck and herself are the only ones that know. Lilian plans to hunt down the Brood and protect the town, while Aleck was hoping she called him over for something else. Lilian says it's a warm night, so they can have some fun before they go hunting.

Just then an alarm goes off and Lilian realizes that Brian's shift has already ended. She hops on her horse and prepares to ride off, saying that his shift will be longer next time. She says if they hunt down the Brood, they won't have to wait another two months for another kiss. 

As Lilian rides off on horseback, two people see her and take note of her pointy ears. The woman says she's an elf, while the guy says she's a Vulcan. The woman says Vulcans are from a dumb made up TV show and the guy says that elves are stupid. The woman feels that all her life she felt there was something going on in White Ash. She says if elves exist then dwarves might also exist, which explains all the short guys in town. She also figures that the stories their parents used to tell them about monsters in the woods must also be true. She turns to see that a monster is feasting on her boyfriend, and she's next.

Lilian returns home and Brian is angry that she cut it so close. As she leaves, Brian gets caught by Mr. Alden.

Aleck returns home and runs into Orman and Cob. They say he's been hard to reach lately. Aleck says he's been having a rough time since his father died recently. Orman and Cob say they miss him too but they do have matters to discuss. Orman tells him there's a meeting at the lodge which he needs to attend, and he tries to push it off. Cob says they don't want to be late for work and says it's good to see Aleck again. Aleck agrees and heads off. Orman says they just wasted their time. Cob says this isn't what Gunther would have wanted. Orman agrees but Gunther isn't here anymore and they have to look out for the ones that are.

The Game

The story opens with narration about life and the question regarding if 'we are doing it right'. We question ourselves if we're with the right person, at the right job, if we could be better parents for our children and so on. We have this imaginary tally we use as we compare ourselves to others, hypothetically scoring ourselves in this game of life. But what if the score was real?

What if we were to wake one day and be confronted with a scoreboard that would change with every action we took or didn't take through life? Imagine if you're on a date and the scores come in to tell you exactly how you're doing.

A person narrates that this is what happened to Eli Tanner. He says the game is Eli's story as he will learn that what he thinks is a cruel joke will become something of consequence. He is competing in a high stakes game alongside ten other individuals for the fate of the universe. The narrator explains that the reader can play as well. The narrator offers a QR code you can scan for some prizes and to watch out for the book 'The Game' that will be out in 2022.

The Stake presents JessAmy

The story opens in a tavern in Charleston South Carolina as a man describes a horrific tale to the people there. He asks if anyone has heard of a grizzlier tale than that. Someone speaks up, not because he doesn't believe the man, but because he has seen something even worse.

The man explains he has seen something in a plantation down in Louisiana that grows indigo for dye. He says the place was hiding something sinister. The slavemasters were feeding on the blood of their own slaves.

We seen Ben Franklin in a hurry, walking past some ladies without returning their greeting. Once home, he writes a letter to his friends of the Ministry about some grave news regarding the New World and French territories. The letter reaches the Ministry of Vampire Affairs in London. Franklin limits what he can write in case the letter fell into wrong hands, but he wishes for them to send an emissary to the colonies to investigate. 

The men agree they should send someone to the New World to meet with Franklin and discover if the rumors are accurate. A woman says she doesn't have time to track down every rumor out there, and it was probably a fisherman bragging to his drunk friends. She says there must surely already be another agent in the New World that can investigate before she has to make the trip herself. The men tell her that her voyage has already been arranged. Jessamy is to see if there really is a threat, and if so, to locate it and remove it with impunity. Jessamy smirks and prepares to head out.

My Thoughts-

So we have to stories to check out here, and it wasn't until I saw the ad for The Game that I realized this was an older Free Comic Book Day issue from 2021. I had to look it up and found out it was the same year I covered the Street Fighter Back to School Special, Life is Strange and Solo Leveling. I don't offhand remember seeing it there among the other books I usually grab. Sometimes comic shops do pull out previously overstocked FCBD books from earlier years. 

The story that leads to the most discussion is White Ash. It seems to be about a small town with elves, dwarves and other creatures living among humans. There seems to be a lot that happened two months prior, but it's difficult to see how they're all linked together. So in the last two months, Aleck last saw Lilian, Aleck lost his father and Kaitlyn saw some sort of horror that she is still trying to shake from her memory. Lilian lives under the care of Rawlings and Thane, who want to keep her from seeing Aleck for some reason. It also sounds like Thane lost a son. I'm assuming maybe there was a huge Brood monster attack in which Aleck lost his father, Thane lost his son and Kaitlyn just barely survived. 

I did it find it ironic how the one random girl saw Lilian's elf ears and already assumed all the ghost stories she heard through her life were all true and monsters do exist. I mean, in this case she was right, but for all she knew Lilian could have been wearing fake elf ears. Or even fake Vulvan ears, like the girl's boyfriend says. If Star Trek exists in this story, I'm sure Comic Cons also do.

There's not much to say about the second story other than it was pretty much 'here's the premise, and here's how to buy the book'. I know they wanted to fit in more pages for the third story, but I wish we got to see the first few pages of the actual Game rather than a long ad.

The third story seems to be about vampires back in the era of Benjamin Franklin, and we get introduced to the main character Jessamy. We get the basic lead up to the overall premise, and I'm guessing we'll be in for some fun once Jessamy starts kicking ass in the New World. The artwork from this one is mostly black and white with some splashes of color where it helps. I'm assuming we'll be seeing a lot of red in this case.

There's not too much say. White Ash has an intriguing mystery. I would love to see more of The Game (I wonder if the QR code still works). I also would be curious to see more about Jessamy. From what I found out, The Stake is its own series where Jessamy helps out a modern day girl named Amy. This Jessamy story is a three parter I found that had a Kickstarter, but I can't seem to find where to get the actual book. Not even at the writer's (David Byrne) own website. If I ever run into it, I might check it out.

I did see the book in our Free Comic Book Day 2021 video, when we were at Bent Wookee Comix. I checked the video and I see we didn't pick this one up the first time around.