Review – 'Ash & Thorn Volume One: Recipe for Disaster'-Unlikely Ladies to the Rescue

Mariah McCourt (Author), Soo Lee (Artist), Jill Thompson (Artist)

What if instead of having a young heir and destined child we had an old lady?

Meet Lottie Thorn. She is about 80 years old, very strong for her age, the artistic type who likes to bake and is close to the community.

However, her sacred mystical lineage will turn up inevitably, in the form of a guardian or trainer: Lady Peruvia Ashlington-Voss. As fun as it is to bash demons’ head with cookery implements, I feel that these two should have had a bit of a more interesting back and forth. They are just too prim and quiet when drinking tea, if you get my drift. Their heavy silences could have been a bit more illustrated with words.

Add a young artistic type that can do spells and a blue imp called Pickle and you’ re all set.

The recipes included in this book are pretty good. And the monster has all the right number of eyes and evil blobs. Another plus point was Jill Thompson, the reason why I was intrigued enough to pick this comic in the first place. Jill gives her rendition of the characters a unique feel, and I can only wish for more of her illustrations.

The paperback collects issues #1-5 of the series, and has extras such as the recipes used to defeat the monster.