Head Lopper

Norgal doesn’t ask questions. He just cuts off heads. But when a massive purple sea serpent swallows his ship before he even reaches shore, even the Head Lopper has to admit this job is going to be a little more complicated than usual.

So begins Head Lopper, the Diamond Gem Award-winning fantasy epic from Andrew MacLean — and one of the most singular comics of the past decade. Set in the war-scarred realm of Narschlahn, the series follows Norgal, a broad-shouldered Viking swordsman with an unnerving gift for decapitation, and his constant companion: the severed, still-sentient head of Agatha the Blue Witch. She is sharp-tongued, clever, and entirely helpless in her current state — which does nothing to stop her from critiquing every swing of his axe. Together, they form one of modern comics’ most unexpectedly charming duos: a wall of taciturn muscle and a disembodied witch’s head with attitude to burn.

Quarterly Epic, Maximum Impact

Head Lopper abandoned the monthly 22-page model from its first issue, opting instead for quarterly, over-sized installments (40–96 pages each) that give MacLean room to tell complete, immersive sagas. Each entry unspools like a mini-graphic novel — extended battle sequences sprawling across double-page spreads, richly detailed environments that reward slow reading, and quiet character beats that standard formatting would simply crush. When Image Comics picked up the series in 2015 after MacLean self-published the first two chapters, it was a gamble that paid off spectacularly. No other book on the shelf moves quite like this one.

The series has been collected into four award-winning volumes: The Island or A Plague of Beasts, The Crimson Tower, The Knights of Venora, and The Quest for Mulgrid’s Stair. In April 2026 — after a five-year hiatus — Head Lopper returned with a landmark new #1 launching Norgal and Agatha onto a casino barge for a murder mystery that MacLean calls “a train story”: confined space, rising tension, and characters forced to engage with people they’d rather bury.

The Art of Decapitation

MacLean’s art is the book’s pulse — bold, geometric, deceptively simple, and entirely singular. He distills characters to their essential shapes: Norgal’s face is often little more than a beard atop a head, yet somehow conveys grim determination, baffled annoyance, and bone-dry humor with equal clarity. The monster designs draw from the same well as Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion creatures, filtered through a modern edge that Kotaku once called “some of the best covers of 2016.”

Colorist Jordie Bellaire — who took over from Mike Spicer with volume five — layers flat pastel tones that make every figure pop against MacLean’s intricate fantasy backdrops. The Beat named her “the book’s secret weapon,” praising how her color work adds emotional texture to already expressive linework. MacLean’s wife Erin oversees lettering and design, stitching the entire package into something cohesive and unmistakably their own.

Why It Matters

Head Lopper is a rare creature in contemporary comics: a creator-owned series that answers to nobody but itself. MacLean writes it, draws it, oversees its design, and releases it on his own schedule in his chosen format — an oversized quarterly epic that bleeds off every page. The result is brutal, hilarious, and visually staggering: proof that an indie comic can still stop you cold.

This is a book you hold sideways to appreciate the full spread. It reminds you why you fell in love with comics in the first place.

Perfect for fans of Hellboy, Conan the Barbarian, and James Harren’s Ultramega.