Smelly heck, adventure fans, have I got something for you. Whether you think of yourself as a comics fan or not, I’d strongly recommend you check out the online escapades contained in Valentine, a comic for the online age set in another one entirely. It’s the tale of Valentine Renaud and his friend Oscar, caught up in Napoleon’s doomed Russian escapade of 1812…or that’s how it starts anyway. Pretty soon, things kick off in a more fantastic direction, broadening the arena of the story and bringing even more fabulous pulp and mythical goodness into the equation.

Bringing this fun and excitement to readers are writer Alex de Campi and artist Christine Larsen. I’d come across de Campi through her excellent collaboration with artist Igor Kordey, Smoke, an espionage thriller featuring an albino protagonist. Hmm, shades of Elric maybe. And the doomed Melnibonean once again comes to mind as Valentine Renaud is entrusted with carting a magical sword about by a French general. Hey, Michael Moorcock has influenced many and worse writers than de Campi — like Oscar said, “Talent borrows, genius steals.”

Valentine is a steal in more than one way. It wears its influences on its floppy white sleeve, bringing to mind everything from Three Musketeers to The Flashing Blade, and it’s done with such joy and style that the familiarity is fine. Besides, coupled with Larsen’s art the whole has a fresh feel — this is fluid artwork that delivers the goods in terms of depicting character, place, and action, which is pretty much what’s required in a comic. Plus, some of the colour work is spooky: the bad guys’ red eyes really pop out on a screen against the prevailing tones.

Fast paced and urgent, the story moves along at a rate of knots, a new twist coming along every few panels. The use of digital technology is inspired: you’re never lost as you read the story, and there are some lovely subtle touches making maximum use of the new medium’s possibilities. In which regard, you might want to note that Valentine is available on Kindle, iPhone, and phones running Android. Not only that, but de Campi has made sure it’s available in 14 languages: not bad for a one-woman (plus pals) operation. It’ll also soon be available to read online thanks to Comixology, and a dead tree edition should be with us for the autumn.

There’s not much more to say about Valentine itself, except why on Earth aren’t comics publishers producing work of this calibre already? Superhero comics are moribund for the most part, and there are some decent crime comics being published, but when was the last time you read a good piece of pulp fantasy in comic form? I’m aware of Mouse Guard, but something inside me squeaks when presented with anthropomorphic characters unless they’re in Krazy Kat.

If anything — and it’d be interesting to know what de Campi makes of the comparison — Valentine has something of the early days of Sim and Gerhard’s Cerebus about it. Not the weirdass monotheistic stuff that brought the series to a much-needed end, but the liberating fun of the aardvark’s early days. (And yes, I know that I’m kind of confusing my own argument about animal protagonists here: contradictory opinions are all part of the service.)

Valentine has already and deservedly made a name for itself, and hopefully de Campi and Larsen will make oodles of money out of their project. Help them, and yourself — pop over here to find out how and where to purchase the story. Unlike printed comics, digital ones don’t go out of print — you can start whenever you like and read as much as you like, and I urge you to do exactly that if you’re at all enamored of the camaraderie of men on horseback, swordplay, and the interplay of history and legend.