The Blessed Curse is their second release, after Fire From Heaven. Curse details the story from chapters 22 to 25 from the book of Numbers in which Balak, the desperate and egotistical king of Moab seeks the sorcerer skills of Balaam to stop his enemies the Israelites from fleeing Egypt. The story is recounted by one of his elite guards to Moses. Balaam keeps trying to curse God's people and God keeps stopping him, because they're God's people. Well, d'uh. It's a relatively simple story but it's kept interesting with short scenes and action. It's a reminder that the Old Testament documents ordinary people's encounters with an extraordinary God. Mark Carpenter does a great job with the script. Rather than a literal verse by verse recounting of the Numbers tale, it has added more characterisation but still manages to keep things moving briskly. Alan Close's artwork is colourful and well designed. His page layouts are varied and between lengthy dialogue moments and scenes of silence, he keeps things visually interesting. I found the expression on Balaam's face priceless as he reacted to his poor talking donkey after receiving a beating from his master, and the face (and voice) of God are also depicted rather uniquely. Dust could go anywhere from here and this format works, with issues available from their web-site to grab as wide an audience as possible. The last few pages of this 36 page issue are dedicated to reprinting the inspiration from Numbers, a few words from Andrew Richards at Mars Hill Bible Church and a rundown of the cast of characters. This is helpful, if like me, you forget everyone's names in the Old Testament.

You may very well get more out of this story if you're familiar with it from reading the Bible, but it's not necessary. However, I must say with sword waving angels and talking donkeys and dark arts it does remind me that the Old Testament is rich with amazing tales of amazing journeys.

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