Friday Favorites: Bleeding Heart by Sabrina Cotugno

Friday Favorites is a weekly meme hosted @ Wishful Endings, that spotlights a favorite author, book, series, publisher, cover, blog, etc. Basically whatever bookish thing that you love, recommend, and want to tell others about. 

A while back I saw on tumblr something really cool that had completely been sponsored on Kickstarter but was still up for grabs if anyone wanted to sponsor and get a reward in return. I've never supported a kickstarter but I really wanted this little comic so I did it. I received it in the mail a couple weeks back and I wanted to share it with all of you.

A Steampunk-spiced short comic about an injured werewolf, an amateur mad scientist, and (mostly) good intentions.

Bleeding Heart is a 28-page short paperback comic of a young man named Henry, a scientist-in-training who one night encounters an injured werewolf collapsed on his doorstep. Against the protestations of his long-suffering friend Robert, Henry decides to take the wolf inside and try to heal it.

Should he succeed, he will gain a strange new friend and a healthy sense of self worth- but not without cost. When a human lets his soul get tangled up in the spirit of the woods . . . bad things happen. 





Bleeding Heart is a short story that continues on as a web comic which hasn't started up yet of course but updates will be here at The Glass Scientists tumblr. You can also follow the comic writer and illustrator at her personal tumblr. Apparently she does the storyboard art on Gravity Falls - no wonder I like this comic so much!

The story follows along Henry Jekyll, his friend Robert, and a werewolf. By the name Henry Jekyll I could tell right away that this was a retelling of the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Henry's friend Robert is telling this story about him and his friend's encounter with a werewolf that happened 15 years ago. That event changed their lives forever.

I love how rational these two students are about a werewolf suddenly appearing at their door. They were so okay with that fact that I was okay that they were okay with it... if that makes any sense. Henry is really into science and alchemy and decides to help this werewolf whose about to die of some horrible wounds sustained in the woods. He concocts a "magic potion" according to Robert and helps the werewolf out. The werewolf ends up transforming into this person/beast creature who is supposedly hundreds of years old and Henry bonds with the werewolf. The werewolf has to leave and Henry loses a part of himself with the discovery of this mystical beast. I'm sure this leads him down towards madness.

Henry is so eager. Eager is the best word to describe him. He's this lovable person who wants to help so much and is so intelligent beyond his years. Robert is more sensible and is also the source of humor as he points out Henry's wild and crazy ideas. The werewolf is a tricky character. I think the werewolf is the catalyst to Henry's over-eagerness to become more - to become a monster. I don't know if readers will see this creature again in the web series. I don't know too much about the original story so I never know. The werewolf might become extremely important and the retelling might shake things up. There's so much possibility coming from this one comic and I'm excited to see where it goes.

Have you discovered any great comics lately?