Creator Gil Murillo has crafted the beginning of an incredibly intriguing and original tale with the opening issue of Heirs of Ashuradō.

Obedient student Tetsu is due to graduate from his class, having excellent academically. Yet his step sister Rini – who never felt as if she belonged in the village – has run away and gone missing – and, with no one else seemingly bothered about her disappearance, Tetsu can’t help but wonder. Spurred into action, Tetsu uncovers something much bigger than he expected…

Murillo’s black and white, watercolour artwork is a beautiful fit for the animals – anthropomorphic, alien and otherwise – depicted throughout the tale. It’s a real work of art from beginning to end, with gorgeously detailed panels throughout. The pseudo-Ancient Japanese setting paired with anthropomorphic characters reminded me somewhat of Stan Sakai’s brilliant Usage Yojimbo; here, however, there’s a sci-fi undercurrent to the proceedings and the illustration is much more detailed and errs towards more realistic, rather than cartoony, depictions of characters and settings.

The manga-style reading order did baffle me at first – I’m easily confused, especially as I get older – but I soon settled into the right-to-left panel arrangements.

You can check out Heirs of Ashuradō for yourself, for free, on tinypowerscomics.com. Should you wish to pick up a print copy of the beautifully illustrated comic, you can do so pretty inexpensively via the same link.

It’s also worth noting that Murillo has sketched out much of the lore of the world and its characters; so much so that a tabletop strategy card game is planned, featuring many characters yet to appear in the narrative. Murillo has told me himself that he’s “started on the 2nd chapter of Heirs of Ashurado,” which means that, “we’ll begin to learn more of the world outside the village – and meet some new characters!”

Heirs of Ashuradō is a great glimpse into an alien world and its society, albeit one that resembles feudal Japan in many ways. It’s well worth checking out; I can highly recommend it.

Many thanks to Gil Murillo for drawing my attention to – and providing a digital copy of – Heirs of Ashuradō.

Gil also wanted me to mention that “Tiny Power Comics also produces an Indie Comic Anthology that is always accepting submissions – we are currently curating for our 4th book!”

Regarding Heirs of Ashuradō, Gil has asked me to stress that “Readers can keep up on Facebook & Twitter, GilMurillo.blogspot.com – and of course our home at TinyPowerComics.com!”