The future. A painter whose life has fallen apart is given a new lease of life, when inspiration literally walks through the door. The mysterious, biomechanical woman’s requirements to continue providing him with his creative mojo start innocently enough. However, the price becomes too high to pay, even with the renewed level of success he enjoys as a result of relying on his muse…

Ryan X. Messcher’s economical script rather appropriately trusts artist Gabriel Fassina to deliver the visceral, visual shocks in this tale of artistic creation and the cost of inspiration in a bleak, technology-dominated future.

It’s not all surreal biomechanical body horror though; love, loss and tragedy all feature to various degrees, and Fassina does a fantastic job of capturing the despair and hopelessness, as well as more positive emotions and situations, with details both large and small throughout.

Though for me it ends on a note that felt slightly too inconclusive, the shocks that pile up as the final panel approaches left me reeling. It’s as compelling as it is horrific, and the various covers do a great job of hinting at the Muse herself being not quite right.

It’s an excellent debut for Indie publisher Page XIII Comics, and you’ll be able to pick up a copy for yourself, with various tiers offering different covers and extras, when The Muse launches on Kickstarter. Though there’s no link at present, I’ll update this review once it’s available.

Many thanks to Ryan X. Messcher for providing me with an advance digital copy of The Muse for review purposes.

Hi! I’m Jason, and I write for midlifegamergeek.com, every single day. If you’re interested in supporting original, regularly published, human created content (which has never been plagiarised or otherwise copied from the hard work of other writers), you can donate and help me to keep this site running.

Not only do I earn no income from my writing here (though I may earn small fees from affiliate links posted on my pages; as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases from these links), but it seems that my work has, at times, been stolen and re-used by lazy, morally bankrupt idiots.

There’s no pressure of course, but I’d be truly grateful for any support that you could offer – and it’s easy to do so at either of these links: Ko-Fi.com/geekmid or PayPal.

Any donations are truly appreciated – and I also appreciate you taking the time to read my articles. Remember: this whole article was by Jason Brown, and appeared on midlifegamergeek.com. Take that, Skynet!