Rot Iron

HOTBLOOD! VOL. 2: THE VALLEY OF KINGS SEPTEMBER 8, 2026

"After a fire, you can see farther. Everything is red."

Alta California, 1880: Evander Rook–alias John Davidson–is a centaur on the run. When his trail leads to two unidentifiable corpses in the ruins of a house fire, it’s the job of US Marshal Iban Zarco to bring him in, dead or alive...but it's not that easy. As he gets closer to his quarry, what started as a routine investigation will lead Zarco to the edge of everything he’s ever known.

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Hotblood! PV: behind-the-scenes (pt. 1) 🐴 🕊️ 🔅

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! 🧨🐎🐎🧧 To celebrate the Year of the HORSE 🐎, here's an in-depth look at the making of the Hotblood! PV

Happy Year of the HORSE! 🧨🐎 Our team is celebrating by sharing some exclusive behind-the-scenes production artwork from the Hotblood! PV

I received an eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Image & summary from NetGalley.

In the red days of the West, centaurs and humans coexist. The desolation of the American West, burning bridges, true love, and ancient mythologies--find all of this and more in the pages of Hotblood! Vol.1: The Land of Promise, a re-imagining of the popular webcomic! The year is 1871 and the centaur Evander Rook finds himself at rock bottom, working for would-be robber baron Asa Langley--a human! As the unlikely pair get closer, romance and conspiracy run wild and Rook finds himself caught up in Asa’s ambitions as they are both forced to face the ghosts of their interwoven pasts.

As a long time fan of the webcomic Hotblood!, I'm so excited that it's coming to print! Enter a fascinating alternative history of the American west with centaurs, sphinxes, prophecies, and dark twists of fate. When Evander Rook signs on to work with Asa Langley, he really has no idea who he's joined forces with. Their path together is littered with secrets, violence, desire, and betrayal. The revamped version of the comic has a dreamy quality, with the story ebbing and flowing against a beautifully rendered backdrop of western scenery and ominous foreboding. I'm looking forward to volume 2!

Obviously the stocky fluffy ones come from cold climates and you might have your lean, high-stamina desert centaurs that look like Arab horses or Akhal-Tekes, but then you've got horses that were bred for specific jobs rather than specific climates. I suppose, like humans, they'd have genetic traits that show up more or less often in this or that family/region rather than having specific breeds, and tend to be more mixed in places with a lot of cultural exchange, so you'd have your draft build where you'd have a big tall buff person and your pony for someone short, and so on.

Really heavy breeds are generally a product of industrialization. Most of them were developed in the 1930s/40s and were then immediately replaced by tractors (old-timey Jutland vs modern Jutland)

And I believe miniature breeds are too (Shetland ponies small enough to be lowered down a mine shaft vs more varied/landrace-y Shetlands used for farm work)

And sporty warmbloods, of course. Destriers and war horses would likely not have been as temperamental, flashy, or hard to feed as modern sport horses.

I don't usually think of these kinds of breeds as potential centaurs, unless there's some in-universe justification for it, like if centaurs were artificially created. Heavy draft centaurs showing up on their own raises too many questions for me. It breaks my brain.

Naturally evolved centaurs would probably look like ancient or landrace breeds, like Icelandics, Arabians, Yakutians, Mongolians, Akhal-Tekes, or Mustangs

I'm glad to hear but I have no idea which one of them you're talking about<3

Just finished the new first volume of Hotblood by @rot-iron and HI HELLO I AM SO UNWELL I AM NEVER GONNA GET OVER THIS

Hotblood! is a searing neo-Western about losers, gamblers, and the rest crushed under the wheel of America’s great Industrial victory. This comic has wit, grit, and a bold visual panache that’ll leave readers parched, seeking blood and oil in the haunting vistas of Orlesky’s unforgettable hinterland.