Martial arts obsessive Mae has been training hard to learn new techniques, and is desperate to show off what she can do. When Mae and her friends sign up for a martial arts tournament that’s open to all comers, Mae’s enthusiasm looks set to get her, and her friends, for that matter, in deep trouble.

This is a really fun comic, from indie creator M. Jacob Alvarez (who self published Mae the Master and numerous other titles via HypnoSpiral Comics). There’s a great deal of excellent humour that comes through in the script, along with nice, characterful artwork and a relentlessly fast pace, with a story that’s immediately involving.

There’s some clever little cameos in the art too; I noticed Sonya Blade and Johnny Cage from Mortal Kombat, for example; I won’t spoil all of the surprises here, but the cast have the diverse looks and exaggerated design that’ll be familiar to fans of Capcom’s Street Fighter games (as well as, of course, the aforementioned Mortal Kombat).

Though this issue does end extremely abruptly, Alvarez has assured me that, “it’s intended to be serialized like a manga series”, though of course, with this being a one person, independent production, he also admits that, “…there’s no way I can keep up a manga pace of production!”

You won’t be able to check out the debut issue of Mae the Master just yet, but it’s set to launch at the Small Press Expo (SPX) in Maryland, September 14-15th, 2024. You can check out more details on SPX here.

You can, however, check out the numerous other titles that M. Jacob Alvarez has written and illustrated at HypnoSpiral Comics.

Many thanks to M. Jacob Alvarez for sending over a digital copy of Mae the Master for review purposes.