Rose and Isabel: berzerker Valkyries fight the Civil War

Ted Mathot, a storyboard supervisor for Pixar, has created a two-part graphic novel called Rose and Isabel that he's indie-published and sells direct through his site.

I read Rose and Isabel last night and was really impressed. It's a magic-realist story about an American family during the Civil War — the sons have gone off to fight for the Union, the daughters stay home. Until the sons go missing and Rose and Isabel set off to find them — and that's when it gets weird. It emerges that the family is descended from a famous Irish warrior queen, and that Rose and Isabel have her warrior spirit, berzerker Valkyries who can best a platoon to Rebs with their longbows.

The story is poignant and often savage, and extremely well-told. The characters are likable and the drama is real. The books are also extremely handsome — not just the art, but the whole package, a really top notch piece of production work, far better than the norm for indie comics.

Mathot maintains a blog filled with minutae related to the comic — unfortunately, I couldn't find a simple "landing page" for the books that summarize them, give pricing and ordering info, etc, but you can find ordering buttons in the sidebar of the blog.

Link