Ashen: A tale of two sisters by Chase Van Weerdhuizen

A DEEPLY touching tale of love and loss, framed in a wonderfully imaginative and world of fantasy Chase Van Weerdhuizen's, Ashen; A tale of two sisters is an accomplished work of art that deserves the opportunity to reach more people. 

Writing about Ashen is a milestone for me in that it's the first comic I've written about that I don't own a physical copy of. 

That's a breakthrough of sorts to me and it's testament to how powerful Ashen is that it proved a tipping point for me in that regard. 

Van Weerdhuizen has a maturity and an emotional range that I think is lacking in mainstream comics and honestly, it's books like this that I want to take time to talk about, to share with people and show some less adventurous readers the quality comics have to offer if you'll only dig a little deeper. 

I don't know that it's possible to review this wonderful book without spoiling it, so fair warning, I'm going to go over the plot in detail here and I highly advise you stop reading now, and head straight to http://gum.co/ashen Where Van Weerdhuizen is very generously selling PDFs on a 'pay what you think it's worth' basis. 

Fair warning though, it's worth a lot, don't regret underpaying later. 

I was sold by Ashen's front page. The aesthetic speaks to me and the blurb (which appears on the front of the PDF is full of the sort of fantasy that inspires me with its talk of a goddess beyond the wall, shackled by 700 of her siblings, the keeper of flowers which can bring the dead back to life and the ordeal someone would have to face just to treat with her.

There's another prologue of sorts on the inside that pulled me further in, but it's the introduction of the hero, Adeline, which grounds us in the world of the story and starts us on our journey alongside her. 

We see from the beginning Adeline's devotion to her younger sister Marta, eschewing all other conversation on her return home to go straight to her sister's dead body which she awakens with a flower, we assume one of those mentioned on the cover. 

Their joyful reunion and embrace is warm and the first hint of Van Weerdhuizen's ability to touch his audience, a skill he will use to powerful effect as we continue the emotional journey of Ashen. 

Van Weerdhuizen's comfort in the fantasy genre is clear as the story steps forward three years to reveal a masterfully rendered landscape, a hillside, and the final resting place of a three-eyed giant, it's body turned to dust, its skeleton now nothing more than an obstacle for Adeline to clamber over. 

In death, we become part of the landscape of this world, Adeline blind to the life that was here in her fierce determination. 

In contrast to the past Adeline is now shown wearing a helm, a bird design with mail like feathers which hides and protects her head and face. 

A necessary defence on the dangerous quest she is on or perhaps a defence mechanism which keeps her at arms length from the emotional pain she has so clearly suffered and is suffering again.

Van Weerhuizen shows a sophisticated eye for composition, littering one of his pages here with close up frames to enrich the landscape Adeline journeys through and at the same time, add layers to his tale's themes; here another body, the sword that ended its life still buried in the ground beneath it; here a carrion bird flying above, watching for death, observing Adeline's march; here an idol, cast aside by someone who lost faith in their religion; here mushrooms growing by a trees as life, through nature goes on regardless of the death that happens around us every day. 

He also has a great eye for design, and Adeline's arrival at the foot of Steinar is the first of a number of examples of truly unique and innovative visual locations that litter Ashen. 

Not to suggest the writing in any way loses out here, in fact it's during the ensuing ritual that Van Weerdhuizen gives us his first hint of a moral; in considering whether she will sacrifice another finger to journey past the wall for a second time, Adeline flashes back to playing with Marta and we see her so crippled by the fear of losing her sister again, that she rejects the opportunity to play with her. 

Is Van Weerdhuizen warning us not to waste the time we have with out loved ones? 

As she journeys past the wall Adeline shrugs off her cumbersome armour concluding that it will only hinder her in the desert beyond, or perhaps a symbolic gesture that she knows she can no longer hide from her grief, she must face it head on. 

As the ghosts of the dead - rendered here as grey as the desert they seem destined to walk endlessly through - begin to appear alongside her, Adeline shivers and remembers Marta's sickness returning, remembers the physical sacrifice she has made to be here and presses on until she reaches her destination, a mound, rising from the desert, surrounded by stones, gated by a rough stone dolmen, stairs rising out of it to a crest on which we can see the shape of more idols. 

Drawing her sword, Adeline calls on 'Kassamortis Gamal, keeper of the realm of the dead' and soon finds herself faced with, and attacked by, a terrifying creature who rises out of the sand, the skinless, sinewy torso of a man, the body of a camels, the head an animals skull, and a ferocious gaping mouth open in its stomachs, a nightmare creation that does Van Weerdhuizen's imagination and design skills credit.

As she lies pinned by the beast, she remembers Marta pleading with her not to go on her quest, begging her to stay and be with her if she is indeed dying. 

This seems to motivate her and she cleaves Kassamortis Gamal's hand off screaming a bloodcurdling cry, perhaps trying to silence her memories and any mounting realisation that her quest has taken her away from the one person she was doing it for. 

Journeying on to the summit Adeline comes to a pool, sinking into it to finally come face to face with the goddess Culga Hadesa, a naked giant, chained to land that floats above her, surrounded by carrion and wearing a bird mask adorned with a skull decal and a cape of feathers, recalling Adeline's own, now discarded armour. 

Adeline pleads for a second time for the magic to save her sister's life only to be told it won't work again and that it is too late and that Marta has already 'passed beyond the wall'. 

 

Devastated, Adeline remembers the last time she saw Marta, who defeated in her efforts to convince her sister to stay, has turned her back on her sibling and said goodbye for the last time. 

Returning, heartbroken, from Culga Hadesa's domain, Adeline is visited by Marta's spirit who tells her she must let her go so they can both finally rest, embracing her and then walking away into the land of the dead. 

There is so much here, and I read Ashen twice in short order to process the ideas it presents of grief, and love, and life and death, and I was left inspired by it to reach out to people that matter to me, to spend time with my loved ones while I am lucky enough to have that chance.

This is the power comics at their best can have over us, to ask us to look inside and find something of ourselves in the journey of a protagonist, to reflect on what their own lessons might mean to us, and to leave enriched by that experience. 

Seriously, if you got to here without buying a copy of Ashen, you need to. Again, it's for sale as a PDF at http://gum.co/ashen and it's worth every penny of what I paid for it. If you want to see more of Van Weerdhuizen's work, you can find him @chasingcomics on Twitter and at his website http://chasing-comics.com.