I only have one bad thing to say about the new comic Heathen and that is that there are only four issues out as of this writing (August 2016) so I can’t go on a massive binge. I heart this comic with every cell of my heart. Crazed raving ahead.

Heathen is about a Viking woman named Aydis who is exiled after she is caught kissing another woman. Aydis is fearless, determined, and deeply sympathetic to Brynhild, who, like Aydis, is being controlled by the laws of men. Aydis heads into the wilderness with her horse, Saga, to free Brynhild:

My mother was alone when she gave birth to me. She refused to die until my father found us.

My father raised me alone, teaching me everything that his father had taught him.

Saga was alone, his leg snared in a bear trap, when my father and I found him during a hunting trip.

And on some mountaintop, a Valkyrie waits alone.

And I intend to free her.

Of course, Aydis discovers that freeing Brynhild is only the beginning of her story. The series is fun and full of magic and adventure, but also full of feminism and respect for different expressions of love and sexuality. The first issue establishes the world, Aydis’ predicament, and the story of Brynhild. The first four issues are available digitally and there’s also a trade paperback collection of those same issues. The art is gorgeous, the characters fantastic, and the comic is truly unlike any other comic on the stands right now in terms of art, storytelling, and setting. Above all, it leaves the reader asking that most important question, “What happens next?”

– Carrie S

Aydis is a viking, a warrior, an outcast, and a self-proclaimed heathen. Aydis is friend to the talking horse Saga, rescuer of the immortal Valkyrie Brynhild, and battler of demons and fantastic monsters. Aydis is a woman. Born into a time of warfare, suffering, and subjugation of women, she is on a mission to end the oppressive reign of the god-king Odin.