Review by Frank Plowright

The land of Sunderaine is split into a light side and a dark side, separated by a slim strip of land known as The Scar, an area of perpetual warfare between the minions of the dark and the guardians of the light. The one permanent resident is known as D’Orc, and prophesies believed by both sides name him as the one who’ll bring about the end of the world. He’s certainly got a death shield egging him on, and after the first chapter he’s also accompanied by the ghostly head of a chicken. And you think you’ve got problems!

Brett Bean ensures we like D’Orc from the start. He’d prefer to be left to his own devices, but has grown up an orphan on a world that wants him dead, and has picked up more than a few survival tricks along the way. Perhaps the most valuable is an innate kindly nature, ensuring he makes friends rather than alienates people. However, there are some who’ll never be friendly, and their fate is assured.

What begins a stock fantasy world given some originality by virtue of the separation develops via Bean’s considerable visual imagination. The characters he feeds in are by name alone the standard stock fantasy standbys, but Bean’s wild cartooning delivers dwarves to fear and a slavering three-headed dog like you’ve never seen. Don’t become too fond of anyone not accompanying D’Orc, though, as the likelyhood is they won’t be around for long, no matter how incredible they look.

Mixing fantasy with graphic horror, The Book of Certain Doom is a lot of fun, but the feeling is of Bean needing to broaden his stories a little, and the final chapter’s different form of storytelling does that. Moving forward, then, the omens are good.