Runaways The Complete Collection Vol 3 by various contributors

Rating: WARTY!

I have to give this a negative review overall, but portions of it I shall be reviewing separately and positively. This review is for the complete volume four collection which to me was not a worthy read. The art work was bordering on Japanese style in some portions: over-sized eyes and so on, of which I am not a fan, and even when it wasn't drawn that way, it was less than thrilling. The stories in the first half of the volume were not entertaining to me. It picked up in the second half, but I'll review those separately since I read them separately prior to getting my hands on this volume.

This takes place during the time of a super hero civil war which was recently and very excellently captured in the third of the Captain America series, which this volume references several times. The main Marvel heroes don't really feature here, though, but the young Avengers, with whom I was not at all impressed, played a lead role. One problem I had with this set of stories was the Skrulls. I am not a fan of this invasion by aliens. I don't know what it is, but it fails to impress me and doesn't stir my interest. I had the same problem with the first Avengers movie - the story was great right up until the alien invasion began, then for me it fell off and was not so interesting.

So while some of the individual stories later were engrossing (once the young Avengers and the Skrulls had departed them), I was not impressed with the overall package, so I cannot recommend this.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Guardians Disassembled by Bendis, Bradshaw

Rating: WORTHY!

Not very long ago I reviewed a (non-graphic) novel about the Guardians of the Galaxy and I was not impressed with it. Since I've never read a Guardians graphic novel, I was curious to see how it compared with both that and the movie. My excellent local library had several on the shelf. I chose this one because the title was such an amusing play on "Avengers Assemble!" The interesting thing about this though, was that in many ways it paralleled the earlier novel in having the team split-up at the beginning and get back together later, so it was also a really good novel to compare to the previous one. I have to say now, having finished it, that while I still had a problem or two with it, this graphic novel was light years ahead of the text novel I reviewed here.

What was missing was the humor that I had come to expect, having been first exposed to this team through the excellent Marvel movie, but that aside, writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Nick Bradshaw did a pretty decent job. The novel seemed much more focused upon violent conflict than ever it did in other forms of entertainment, but aside from that, the novel was in many ways reminiscent of the movie (or vice-versa!) so it was familiar territory and it worked pretty well for me.

The only other problem I had with it was that the creators seemed to have taken the disassembly to a rather extreme level, getting off topic (it seemed to me) towards the end of this story to the point where I wasn't even sure it was the same story, but comic books have always been rather loosely wrapped for my taste, so this didn't faze me that much, and overall I liked it. I especially liked the chance to see Captain Marvel aka Ms Marvel make a guest appearance, since this is also to be an upcoming (and long, long overdue I have to say!) female super hero movie from Marvel. The novel introduced a host of other super heroes, with only some of whom I was familiar, so this was interesting too.

Star Lord (also known by the unfortunately phallic monica of Peter Quill) and his team are disassembled on the orders of his dad, who is the despotic ruler of a stellar empire. Apparently dad wants his son back in the fold, which begs the question as to how truly evil this guy is. It seemed a bit of a stretch to me that he would bother to do this, but in order to achieve his aim, he contracts a diversity of other villains to take the team apart, selling off Rocket for scientific experimentation, bringing Peter home, turning in both Drax and Gamora over to the villainous groups who had the biggest ax to grind with each, and so on.

The rest of the novel is about their individual experiences, and about them getting back together. As I mentioned, there was a lot more fighting in this than I was accustomed to from the movie and a lot less interesting inter-character interactions. In the movie, the action scenes were fun, but mainly because they were interspersed with sections which explored character idiosyncrasies and which allowed the viewer to really get to know and empathize with the characters. It made me really invest in them. The graphic novel - not so much, although I imagine you would be more invested had you been following the comic book series.

Princess Knight Vol 1 by Osamu Tezuka

Rating: WARTY!

This is the second of two different "Princess Knight" graphic novels I checked out of the library. I had never encountered this particular sub-genre before so it was odd I picked two out on the same trip. Sadly, neither of them was very impressive, so I guess I'm done with Princess Knight stories!

This one is actually titled Princess Knight and is the one, I believe, which gave rise to the genre, although the original Japanese title said no such thing. Ribbon no Kishi means 'Knight of Ribbons'. That title made less sense, however, since no ribbons were involved in this story! It's a gender-bending story which I typically love, but this one irritated me from the off. The story here wasn't very good and was larded-up with everything (I believe I may even have seen a kitchen sink in there somewhere).

The premise is that angels add a heart to genderless kids right before they're born, determining their gender, which immediately disrespects everyone who isn't bog-standard binary. That was cruel. I thought they might be using this 'gender assignment' as a target to take down, but that wasn't what happened. Note that while this particular candidate (referred to consistently as Princess Sapphire) was issued both a male and a female heart at birth by a mischievous "angel" unoriginally named "Tink" (Tinku), yet despite this, genderism was rife throughout this novel, with the princess side of Sapphire constantly being put in its place. At one point near the end, Sapphire is engaged in a sword fight when the 'boy' heart is ripped out, and immediately the remaining 'she' feels weak and useless, and cannot fight the dastardly villain. That was the last straw for me.

Note that this was written in the mid 1950's, so it was in some ways ground-breaking for its time, but it was still a traditional view. It wasn't like the rest of the story was that great either, and even after 350 pages, it was nowhere near resolution. The reader was invited to the conclusion in volume two! No thanks! I'd already read far too much to want to read another volume of this. I began liking it because the artwork - black and white line drawings - was charming and elegant, and the writing was fun for the most part, but it just dragged on and on without going anywhere and without doing anything with this great premise. Despite having both hearts, Sapphire was feminine no matter what guise he/she was in, and it was absurd to pretend that there was this big doubt about whether sapphire was male or female.

The prince who falls in love with her is categorically unable to recognize her when he sees her without a blonde wig. So much for the depth of his love! For me the story betrayed males, females, and everyone in between and beyond. That's not the only thing which is confused: despite the setting being medieval Europe, the currency is dollars! Another one of many annoyances. So overall, I can't recommend this. While I loved the artwork, the genderism - the very thing I had imagined a novel like this would completely negate - was nauseating.

White Sand by Brandon Sanderson, Rik Hoskin, Mercy Thompson, Julius Gopez, Ross Campbell

Rating: WARTY!

The problem with reading an advance review copy of a graphic novel is that you can never be quite sure if what you're looking at on your tablet is what you would see had you bought the comic in print form. In this case, the drawings were poor and the colors muddy and posterized, as if they had been de-rezzed for the ARC. This made for a comic which was more appalling than appealing, but I decided to give this the benefit of the doubt and read on. For me the story is what matters most, even in a comic. Unfortunately the story, which began with a great potential to draw me in, failed to keep stirring my interest as it progressed.

The drawing also lacked good dynamics, as it happens. The character portrayals looked wooden and decidedly odd in many frames, notably the ones where the characters were moving. The frames themselves were deliberately skewed - no square corners anywhere. Sometimes this can work well, but in this case it felt like it had been done not because it suited the presentation for the page, but because the creators of the comic thought it looked super cool or something! That's never a good idea.

The weak presentation was owned-up to on many pages because we had little arrows showing us where to read next instead of being able to determine that from a soundly-designed page. To me, this was just annoying. The skewing and sharp angles worked against the idea of a culture which magically controlled the silky, snaking flow of sand. Some images were purposefully sliced through with a frame border even when it wasn't entirely necessary to split the image. This felt amateur and pretentious to me. On the other side of this coin there was some unintentional humor, such as on the bottom frame of page 139, where an unfortunate juxtaposition of characters made it look like the sand master was feeling-up his friend! LOL!/p>

The story began an a fairly engaging manner despite some grammatical gaffs, such as when one character said, "This council may do as we please" as opposed to "This council may do as it pleases," but on the other hand, this was a character's speech, so perhaps the character just had bad grammar?! Anyway, I was drawn into the story to begin with, but a lot of it made no sense. It's set on a planet called Taldain, which appears not to rotate, since one side appears always to have sunlight, whereas the other, known as "Darkside" evidently has none.

I can't imagine a planet like this being habitable, since the one side would be baked to a crisp and the other frozen. Perhaps an existence might be eked out on the dusk/dawn border between the two extremes, but this wasn't what happened here. There was no logic to the character's skin colors, either. The people who were apparently never exposed to sunlight, coming from the dark side, were inexplicably dark skinned, whereas the pale faces came from the perennially sunlit side. This made no sense!

The pale skinned people we meet first are supposedly "Sand Masters" pretentiously referred to as "mastrells" for reasons I could not fathom. This same pretension was employed by using made-up words for some things, yet not for others. These made-up words necessitated an asterisk and a common English word at the bottom of the frame. This struck me as idiotic. Just call it a water bottle for goodness sakes! The sand masters are supposed to be able to make sand do their bidding, but how this came to be and to what end it was manipulated was entirely unexplained. All I ever saw it used for was as a weapon and as a means to avoid climbing stairs. It had the potential to be something awesome, but it was a fail for me because it seemed so pointlessly squandered.

Note that this is a part of Brandon Sanderson's "Cosmere" universe, with which I am completely unfamiliar. Perhaps if I were, I would have had more out of this story, but given that I am not, a little help from the writers would have been appreciated. It was not forthcoming. I routinely skip prologs and introductions, but I went back this time and read the introduction, and it failed to shed even a photon of useful light, being more of a rambling self-promotion than a candle in the Darkside.

That just goes to prove my case that prologs, prefaces, introductions, and so on are a complete waste of my reading time. Anyway, when the sand masters are all-but wiped-out by some barbaric tribe, this one son of the master mastrell is one of the few survivors. He thinks he can be the new lord because he's the son of the old one (good luck with that!), even though he has had no proper training and history for such a position. He throws his lot in with the Darksiders who are traveling the light side for reasons which were as a muddy as the art work. I can't recommend this comic at all.

Pop Gun War Vol 1 Gift by Farel Dalrymple

Rating: WARTY!

Frankly this comic book was a complete mess. I read the whole thing through and had no idea what the author was trying to relate! The story began with some young kid picking angel wings out of the trash and discovering he can fly with them, but he does nothing, goes nowhere, learns nothing, and delivers nothing. And I have no idea what the title has to do with the story!

If this is "more about a feeling you, the reader, get from the story", then what I got was disappointed. Very. I'm sure the author knew what he was putting into the page, but it failed to come out on the reader's side for me! The artwork was black and white (99% of it anyway), very heavy on the black, and the story jumped around so much and was so light on text that I was lost most of the time trying to figure out what the heck the story was doing. While I am always glad to have a chance to read cutting edge advance review copies of graphic novels, some of them just are, quite evidently, not for me, no matter how interesting they sound from the blurb. I can't in good faith recommend this one, although I wish the writer/artist good fortunate with their career.

Love Volume 3: The Lion by Frédéric Brrémaud, Federico Bertolucci

Rating: WARTY!

(Note that this was an advance review copy)

I've been following this series since it began, and after the first two volumes (The Tiger and The Fox, I found I didn't like this third one. The art work was poor in comparison with the previous two volumes (although decent by your average run-of-the-mill comic books standards) and the story was nothing but one long run of violent and bloody encounters between lions and their prey, and between lions and other lions.

It was not interesting to me, and there really was very little respite from it, especially given that the art work offered nothign truly appealing to look forward to. This doesn't accurately even reflect the life of a lion, which is actually much more along the lines of lying around all day, day after day, and once in a while going on a hunt, and of course, once in a while mating and defending territory. It's really pretty boring, and why people think lions are majestic and kings of the jungle is a complete mystery to me.

On a technical note, I had a problem with this advance review copy on the iPad in Bluefire reader - it would not open at all and locked-up the app! I was able to open and read it on Adobe Digital Editions on my desktop computer. I think this had the potential to tell a really engaging story, but somewhere the lions lost the scent and meandered off. I can't recommend it.

Black Magick Vol 1 Awakening by Greg Rucka, Nicola Scott

Rating: WORTHY!

(Note that this was an advance review copy)

This is one of the most engaging comics I've read in some time. It's black (magic) and white - or more accurately, gray-scale, but this took nothing from it and may actually have been a far better choice of "color". The drawing was excellent!

The story is of Rowan Black, a detective with the Portsmouth Police Department, and someone who is my idea of a strong female character. Not that she goes around beating people up - that's not what I mean. She's strong in that she's self-possessed, confident, can handle her own life, doesn't need a guy to validate her, is loyal to her friends, but not afraid to upset them if police work interferes with her social life. Honestly, I really liked this character. I'd also like to see her in a regular novel. I'd like to see her on the movie screen, too. And I could see Tatiana Maslany playing her!

Her social life? Well apart from a drink after work with her fellow detectives, she's a witch and attends coven meetings - not new age pagan and Celtic throwback stuff, but real witchcraft. Here's how invested I was in this story and this is in the first few pages. I was so focused on what the characters were saying that I went through two or three pages and didn't even notice that they were naked under their skimpy robes! I guess I'm not a "real man" any more! LOL! So yes, be warned that this is an adult novel and the artist doesn't shy from nudity.

As in any homicide detective story, a corpse (or two) show-up, but in this case, the more Rowan and her partner investigate, the more it appears to Rowan that someone is targeting her. How can someone else's death be aimed at her? You'll have to read this one to find out! And those who are after her aren't at all concerned how much collateral damage they cause. I want volume 2, and I want it now, or hexes will be cast!

Lumberjanes Vol 2 by Noelle Stevenson, Shannon Watters, Brooke Allen, Maarta Laiho

Rating: WARTY!

This is one of two graphic novels I picked up from the library, and neither was very engaging. I've wanted to read The Lumberjanes for a while, so I was pleased with the chance I got courtesy of the local library, but the novel turned out to be a real disappointment. It's volume two, and I missed volume one, so I may be lacking something from not having that read under my belt, but even if I had, I think I would have still found this a disappointment. Stevenson's and Ellis's writing wasn't awful, and the artwork by Allen and Laiho (colors) wasn't bad either, but the story itself was boring to me. It's just a bunch of weird girls at a summer camp in the woods. They're not lumberjacks. They routinely are invaded by fantastical or anachronistic creatures (in this one, for example, dinosaurs and giant fireflies). They beat them off, rinse, and repeat. it was tedious and I can't recommend this. Maybe younger kids might like it, but parents might not approve of the PG-13-rated version of swearing employed by the kids. I DNF'd it about one-half to two-thirds the way through.

Graphic Classics Romeo and Juliet by Gareth Hinds

Rating: WORTHY!

I found this to be somewhat rudimentary in illustration (and bizarre in parts, and unintentionally amusing in others), but very well done overall. It's a graphic novel based on Shakespeare's famous play, as written by Francis Bacon (yeah right! LOL!). One thing which hit me was that the appearance of the text in speech balloons and descriptive text boxes, really focused my attention on Shakespeare's words - and all the classic lines are here:

• Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
• My only love sprung from my only hate
• That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet
• O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
• But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun
• Parting is such sweet sorrow
• A plague o' both your houses!
• ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man

Despite it being in fair Verona where we lay our scene, there are few Italians on view be warned! The illustrations show largely dark-skinned and moderately dark-skinned people. Juliet is predictably lighter than is Romeo the rebel. Not that Italians can't be dark-skinned of course, but I'd wager they were a lot more scarce than depicted here in the era when this play is set.

Some obscure words were defined at the bottom of the page on which they appeared, but a lot of Shakespeare's wording/meaning also went uncommented, so this struck me as a bit patchy. Fortunately I'm familiar enough with Shakespeare that this was not a problem, but it occurs to me that it might be for people who are approaching this who are new to Shakespeare - the language is not modernized at all.

The story is well-known: Romeo Montague, pining for Rosaline, a niece of Lord Capulet, goes to a party at the house of his mortal enemies, where he meets Juliet Capulet, whose parents want married off to Count Paris. When she meets Romeo, all other priorities are cast from her mind as they are from Romeo's, too, who now has no feelings for Rosaline at all. That's how fickle he is! After knowing each other for five minutes, these two declare their love and plan to marry, despite Juliet being thirteen, and her own father having just talked Paris into waiting for another two years at least. Yes, Romeo and Juliet are morons, but that said, the play makes for a fun read, awash in Shakespeare's cheesy puns.

It goes wrong, of course. Juliet is to take a potion which will give her an affectation of death. When she has been interred in the family vault, the padre will send Romeo to her and the two of them can run away together. Well, Romeo doesn't get the message and the padre is delayed reaching the church. Romeo thinks Juliet is dead and takes a potion he'd had prepared when he first heard of her 'death'. He dies, and When Juliet wakes up, she stabs herself with his dagger. Thus endeth the lesson. I recommend this for anyone who is interested in the Shakespeare lite version of this play.

Manga Classics Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Crystal Chan, Stacy King, Nokman Poon

Rating: WORTHY!

I've never read Great Expectations, and in a way I still haven't, since this is a necessarily expurgated graphic novel version, but I have to admit after reading this, I'm interested in the original - so this one did its job! I'd never been interested before, until this version came along. It was well-written (edited! The original story adaptation was by by Crystal S Chan, the English translation by Stacy King) and nicely drawn. The illustrations by Nokman Poon were black & white line drawings.

One thing I don't get about some manga is the backwards format. Yes, I get it that if we're taking a novel originally written for Japanese audiences, blanking out the speech balloons and so on, and filling then with English text, then it necessarily runs backwards, but when it's created for an English market it makes no sense. In this case this was a translation, but it was still odd, because at the back - where it begins - the header for chapter one appeared on the left, and the text 'following' it appeared on the right - completely contrary to the instructions that had appeared on the pages immediately before! After that, though, it followed the reverse format faithfully.

The story follows Pip, who despite being an apprentice for a blacksmith, has a chance to taste the high life at the manor of Miss Haversham, a twisted woman who wears her wedding dress - every day - so as not to forget how much she hates the man who left her at the altar having taken her money instead of her hand. She's raising her adopted daughter to hate men too - and to take revenge on them for the hurt Miss Haversham has suffered. Estella appears to be learning the lesson well.

Pip become involved with escaped convict Magwitch and helps to smuggle him out of the country. Later, he finds himself the beneficiary of a stipend which pays for him to get a higher education. He becomes friends with a guy he earlier did not hit it off with (so to speak) and learns to be a real gentlemen, but there are undercurrents pulling very which way in Pip's life and he has no handle on them. All is revealed over the course of the story, and he is surprised by how much his life is entwined with the lives of others whom he had no idea he was connected.

I really liked this, and I recommend it for people like me, who had no interest in the original novel, or were maybe nervous about taking it on.

The Complete Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Leah Moore, John Reppion

Rating: WORTHY!

Originally published in 2005, this was adapted by Leah Moore and John Reppion, a writing team which has also adapted Dracula and at least one Sherlock Holmes story. I wondered what it means to title it "complete" if it's adapted in some way, but I don't know what adaptations were made. An interview in the back of the graphic novel suggests that there was some excision going on, but short of comparing this with the original novel, I can't say what or how much. The novel is complete in the sense that it incorporates Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (including the "lost" - at least until 1974 - chapter: "The Wasp in the Wig".

The original title for the first novel was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The novel is illustrated by Érica Awano, with colors by PC Siqueira, Ale Starling, and Jezreel Rojales. What a collection of fascinating names! The artwork here is very traditional, reminiscent of some of the original work, apart from a brief caesura between the two stories, which is illustrated in relatively drab colors and a different style. The colors are also appropriately muted in the main body of each story, each frame in a rigid box, old-style, and Alice is depicted in the now traditional blue frock with a white pinafore and Mary Janes on her feet. The dress seems to have originated in 1903 in Macmillan's "Little Folks" edition of the story.

The story follows the original faithfully, and appears to keep the important bits while dispensing with the chaff, but its been a while since I read the original (or rather, listened to). This compared favorably to Lewis Helfland's version, which I also read and liked back in September 2014. This version, however is much more traditional in style, so I'd recommend it for anyone who wants to read a graphic novel version, but also wants to feel like they're returning to the roots of the original.

I Hate Fairyland Vol 1 by Skottie Young, Jean-Francois Beaulieu

Rating: WORTHY!

This graphic novel was just nuts. I am so glad I managed to get an advance review copy! This is over-the-top done right. This little girl gets sucked into fairyland one night and to get out, she has to go on a quest to find this key. Well she's not particularly good at following instructions, so she ends up spending 27 years there, and she's not happy. Although she has the body of a young girl, she has the mind of a woman in her mid thirties and she's pissed-off, so she goes on a rampage with a short-handled, heavy duty halberd. Now where she came by that, I have no idea, but she's soon taking out trolls, and giants and fairies, and whatever she wants. It's hilarious. After she takes down a whole village of zombie fauns, she wise-cracks about Faun of the Dead.

The writer and illustrator was Scottie Young, although someone else did the coloring. The whole thing was absurd and hilarious and very entertaining. This was a kick-ass female character in the commonly-employed sense the word. That's not a sense that I typically employ it for, but it does have its uses!

I loved how wicked and irreverent the comic was, particularly how wicked the humor was. Let's face it, fairyland had it coming. I recommend this one.

Golem by LRNZ aka Lorenzo Ceccotti

Rating: WORTHY!

This graphic novel, which is an advance review copy that I was very grateful to have had the chance to read, started out quite stunningly. After a brief message from the president of Italy, proudly listing the advances technology has brought to the Italian people - advances which, which superficially wonderful, nevertheless carried with them a vague undercurrent of threat - the scene changed to the countryside and the artwork was stunning. Truly captivating. This imagery comes in the dreams of Steno Critone, the young main character who has slept badly. He wakes after another first person PoV dream of this man being shot. His day begins with a commercial bombardment where some sort of AI, watching his every move, can remind him he's low on toothpaste and push a new toothbrush on him. The news greets him with more acts of terrorism. Wait, terrorism? In this ideal society? What's gone wrong? I'm sure we're about to find out!

The truly scary thing is that this society is exactly where ours is heading, even to the detail of too many personal vehicles on the streets causing bumper to bumper traffic. Not that vehicles even have bumpers any more. Table tops show video, Amazonian reminders that you're out of product A or low on item B, pop up routinely. Information overload is dire. I loved the detail of the ambulance personal saying, "You can't die here sir," and no one even pays any attention.

One thing which hasn't changed is bullying. The trope of Steno being bullied in the classroom and no one doing anything about it is a tired one. Luckily for Steno, his friend Rosabella Filagone speaks up for him. Shortly after this is when it all goes to hell. The terrorists kidnap Rosabella and her father and Steno is pulled along with them, but are they terrorists, or are they simply a group of people who have realized that society is out of control and the wrong people are in charge? Steno joins with them, but shows a surprising lack of concern over the fate and welfare of his mother, Edea. This group behaves as though they've rejected technology yet they use it more, and in more advanced versions, than people back in society do. This is where the story became very confusing!

I felt it lost a little from the middle towards the end. It wasn't quite as engrossing, and a bit confusing at times, but the overall story came through and made sense. I can see this kind of thing happening - not quite as fantastical as is illustrated here, but definitely down that same slippery slope in many ways. I felt that the last half of the story expended an awful lot of pages saying very little - a lot of minimalist pages, and black pages. I feel for the trees! But that said, I enjoyed this romp and found it to be a worthy read. The artwork especially was captivating, and I recommend it.

Paper Girls Vol 1 Brian K Vaughan, Cliff Chiang, Matt Wilson

Rating: WORTHY!

Well this was a fun romp and definitely something I'd like to continue reading. It proves you can write a story with the word 'paper' in the title and not make a complete johngreen of yourself. I can't say much about the art because this was an advance review copy and it looked like the artwork had been 'de-rezzed' to make the file size smaller. This made for quick page turning, but it was hard to see exactly how the final art will look. In very general terms, it looked fine, though. It was reminiscent of older comics, not in the fact that it was pointillist (it wasn't, thankfully!), but in the general style, and this was fine because this was set in the late eighties, and there are a lot of eighties references, be warned.

It has four intriguing, amusing, and interesting female teens all of whom deliver newspapers in the neighborhood. Three of them hang out together and the fourth joins them and gets to know them over the course of the early morning delivery, but there's a heck of a lot more going on here than delivering papers.

It's the morning after Halloween, so there are some costumed people still around (although why they would still be around at that hour of the morning is a bit of a mystery). The girls have a run-in with some of them - in fact that's how they all meet - and then they split-up to finish their rounds quickly. This is when trouble starts as one pair contacts the other pair over a walkie-talkie (no cell phones back then, remember!), and when they meet up, it turns out some weird dudes in ninja costumes have stolen their other walkie-talkie.

The feistiest of the girls, Mackenzie, aka Mac, vows to take it back. Tiffany and KJ are on-board immediately, and the new girl, Erin, follows along. They end up in a basement where there is a machine which Mac erroneously compares with an Apollo space capsule. It's actually more like a Mercury capsule, but she doesn't know enough to know that. Some sort of power or force comes out of the capsule and the girls immediately beat a retreat.

Here's where it goes to hell. Now there are pterosaurs flying around, which I note some reviewers misidentified as dinosaurs. They're not. They were no more dinosaurs than the aquatic reptiles from that era were dinosaurs). The thing is that these pterosaurs were carrying armored "pilots" who seemed to be zapping everyone they found with sticks reminiscent of the weapons from the Stargate movie. With so many disappearing, people think it's the rapture! The new guys in the armor seem to be at war with the ninja dudes and the girls are, in the words of Stealers Wheel, "Stuck in the middle with news." (That might not be what they sang!).

And that's all the spoilers you're going to get! Yeah, I know, I'm a mean old cuss, but I loved this story! There's feistiness, weirdness, time-travel, maybe parallel worlds, and it all starts with some girls delivering newspapers. I love that it's so different and, within context, believable. These girls don't do out of character stuff, and they don't act completely at random. They're totally believable in everything they do and say, and the story flows so naturally. My only complaint about this story is that, in the words of Queen, "I want it all and I want it now!" When's the next volume due out?! Sadly Queen doesn't get a mention in this graphic novel - and neither do any other bands, which is a bit odd, but no worries! I hold out hopes for some musical references in later volumes, and in the meantime, I recommend this as a worthy read!

Klaw The First Cycle by Antoine Ozanam, Joël Jurion, Yoann Guillé

Rating: WARTY!

This was an odd graphic novel and while I thought it was a good idea, I had too many issues with it and gave up reading it about two thirds the way through. This is what happens when I break my vow to never read any fiction with the word 'cycle' in the title! On another note, there are multiple stories titled "Klaw", believe it or not, and this isn't connected with any of the others as far as I know, so if you're looking for this particular one, make sure you get the creator's names memorized so you get the right book!

I was grateful for the chance of an early look at an advance review copy, especially one which had so much potential and with an amazing cover image, and while I recognize it was written for a younger age group than mine, I had some real problems with it nonetheless. One problem I didn't have was the artwork: it was beautifully done. Joël Jurion's drawing was decent - nothing spectacular, but nothing off-putting either, so that was a good start, but Yoann Guillé's coloring was magical. The plotting/writing left something to be desired however and that's a problem for me.

Angel Tomassini has a chronic bullying problem, but it's fantastical to the point of being ridiculous. He's chased in full view of everyone in the school and no one - not one single person, students or staff - does a thing about it. It's hardly surprising then, given how much fantasy we're already in, that he can turn into a huge tiger. He's not only bullied by the trope bullies, he's also bullied by the boyfriend of a girl he likes - a girl he was foolish enough to text. Her boyfriend Kurt saw the text and starts bullying him in full view of everyone at the pool, including the girlfriend upon whom Angel crushes. Again, no one does a thing about it, not even to raise a voice in protest, not even the girl in question. I sincerely hoped at this point that Angel was not going to end up with this lame, selectively blind, jerk of a girl, but that hope was forlorn.

The story gets interesting when Kurt is killed - by something with claws - even though it's obvious who's done it. It gets dumb again when the cops haul Angel down to the station without benefit of counsel or even his parents. Seriously? Angel is the son of a guy who owns the biggest fish wholesale business in the country. Yep, his dad sleeps with the fishes, and he also has major league mob connections, so Angel is freed pretty quickly. This begs the question as to why he's so freely bullied by all and sundry. Either he's a kid with ties to the mob and people are therefore in some fear of messing with him, or he's viewed as a no-import little guy who everyone (including some cops) feels free to bully. It doesn't work both ways. And Angel has to be truly stupid to have never figured out that his dad is shady at best.

As if this isn't improbable enough, Lisa, the girl who Angel is crushing on, and the now ex-girlfriend of dead Kurt, calls Angel up out of the blue and invites him to attend the same dinner she had planned on going to with Kurt. Seriously? But it gets worse. The next day at school she greets him by name, hugs him and kisses him on the cheek. More seriously? But it gets worse! This girl knows he has mob connections and despises them, yet she still asks him out and then later dumps him because of his mob connections! Even more seriously?! This girl has psychological problems, and none of these characters make any sense. Not that any of this bothers shallow Angel who is about as one-dimensional as you can get and still manage to exist in three dimensions. Supposedly Lisa was threatened in order to force her to go out with Angel, but if that was the case, how come she was so enthusiastic about it? How come she doesn't feel threatened when she summarily dumps him? Again, it makes no sense.

The story became too ridiculous for me when Angel starts donning a super-hero costume to fight crime. On the one hand he supposedly loves his father, but on the other, he's committed to putting him out of business. Okay, I'll give that the benefit of the doubt, but why does he need a super hero costume? He's already disguised as a tiger! I'm sorry, but I can't go with this. I wish the creators all the best because I like to support foreign efforts. This was a lot of work, but it didn't seem to me like it was well thought-through.

Faith Vol 1 by Jody Houser, Francis Portela, Margerite Sauvage

Rating: WORTHY!

This is what happens when you put a bunch of women in charge: you get a great super hero comic! (Note that only two out of three of the above are female, lest I get any complaints!) Talking of which, my only complaint - it was too short for me! I got an advance review copy which was more like a sampler - just two episodes plus and really intriguing third episode consisting of line drawings with no coloring or speech bubbles, which was interesting to see - like looking at a skeleton before the flesh and organs are added. Very cool for anyone who's interested in how these things are put together (which I am as it happens), but I don't imagine it will appear like that in the published version, so get it from Net Galley while it's...not! I have to say that both the writing and the artwork were excellent. Nicely drawn, beautifully colored. I am really thankful I got a chance to review this.

This superhero goes by the name of Zephyr, and she borrows somewhat from Superman. In this case she's disguised with eyeglasses and a wig and looking rather frumpy. Definitely a better disguise than Clark Kent has. And she actually comes off rather better than he does base don his last movie outing as of this writing. Those of us in the know are looking forward to Wonder Woman busting loose next year. Does Zephyr work for a newspaper? Well not in this day and age! She works for some sort of a webzine, although it's a bit vague as to what, exactly they do. Nothing very exciting as judged by Summer's comments about it. She really blossoms, though, when she takes off the wig and eyeglasses and launches herself into the sky (she commutes to work from Van Nuys, which isn't so nice since her neighbors are noisy).

So what's with the 'Faith'? It's her real name: Faith Herbert. She's known as a "psiot" - someone who is psionically gifted. I have no idea what that means since it isn't really explained. I assume it means she has some sort of psychic control over her environment. Bullets don't bounce off her, but they do bounce off her psychic shield, which she can project rather like Sue Storm does, for example.

Faith/Summer was working with a team of heroes, but something happened between her and a more traditionally proportioned masculine hero to whom she was evidently about to be married. She moved away, and people who have seen her fly the skies locally are wondering what happened. I mention 'traditionally-proportioned' because Faith is not. Rather than your standard female egg-timer hourglass figure for super heroes, Faith looks more like the egg, and she's all the more charming for it. The best thing about it is that no one makes any apology for her being a big bodied woman. It's who she is and how she is and that's all there is to it. I was delighted to see this for a change, and especially in a super hero comic book.

The blurb mentioned aliens. We see little of them here. But that's not important. What is important is that there's a new and realistic hero in town and I want to read more about her! I recommend this one.

Orphan Black: Helsinki by Graeme Manson, John Fawcett, Heli Kennedy, Denton J Tipton

Rating: WORTHY!

I loved the TV show, so I was interested when it became possible to see an advance review copy of a graphic novel version. This is not a clone (yes, I went there!) of the TV series. It's a different perspective, set in Europe in 2001, which I appreciate very much. US readers in particular need to understand that there is actually a world outside the US border which is at least as important as what's inside - for example, Canada, where this entire series originated! And Europe, where this comic is set, but which doesn't feel like Europe - more on this anon. This focus on the US (or in this case what the creators took to calling "Generica") doesn't help a series supposedly set in Europe.

The question you have to ask, when something like this happens (extras for a movie, a prequel or a fractional sequel (1.5 or something) for a novel series, a graphic novel addition to a successful TV series) is: what's the point? What was it that you forgot to put into your grand opus which requires you to cobble on bits and pieces, Heath Robinson style, to make it what it ought to have been when you first released it? This is why I don't, for the most part, like novel series. This is particularly the case with young-adult trilogies, because every volume is an admission that the author is running off at the mouth and larding up their story by including every note they took, and piece of research they did, rather than cutting to the chase and getting a tight story told. They're great for Big Publishing™ though, aren't they? You have my word that I will never write a YA dystopian trilogy!

Back on topic! There are now two comic book series (and note that Orphan Black was created by screenwriter Graeme Manson and John Fawcett, so these people have been in on it from the start). The first of these is The Clone Club, which I have not read. It had five issues covering the main characters in order: Sarah, Helena, Alison, Cosima, Rachel. The one under review is the second series, Helsinki. There was no cover or contributor information in my ARC, and the first section had no title, but the others were subtitled: Three by the Sea, Clones Anonymous, and Like Rats in a Cage. The fiery finale was the next section, but it wasn't included in the ARC I read.

In this particular case, the assumption is that the TV show is the whole story, so where is the need for an "extra"? Well obviously, it's in the fact that the cloning in Orphan Black was not solely a US phenomenon - it was much wider than that. This was evident from the TV show, but the entire focus there, pretty much, was on what went down in the US. We saw very little of what was happening elsewhere in the world. This is where this series is supposed to step up, which begs the question: does it?

I'm not convinced that it does, but I became convinced that it was a worthy read. Call me an addict if you like, but I love the TV series and so I have to confess a bias towards the conics. As other reviewers have pointed out though, it does try to do too much too quickly and ends up not really doing very much.

Unlike in the TV show, we never really get to know any of these characters in the comic. They come at us thick and fast and start multiplying like Harry Potters at the start of volume seven, until we have a plethora of them without knowing really anything about any one of the new girls. Set before the TV series begins, the story follows one of these young clones as she begins uncovering several others, and then they're in complete disarray about what to do next. It's not pretty. In fact, it's a mess, and sometimes hard to follow.

I think the TV series would have been better served had this graphic series devoted each issue to following important players from the TV series, but confined to those outside the US. If Veera is important, let's have a comic about her. So far so good, since the first section was glued to her. The problem is that when she starts contacting others, we haven't really been introduced to them, and so we don't bond with them as we did with her. They're not really people; they're cookie cutters which move back and forth in front of the light casting shadows with little or no substance.

Other than Rachel (and one other!), none of the main characters: Sarah Manning, Elizabeth Childs, Alison Hendrix, Cosima Niehaus, Katja Obinger, or even Felix Dawkins appears in this graphic novel. The other one who does, Helena, is, along with Felix and Alison, one of my three most favored characters in this show, but we see her only fleetingly and disturbingly here. There are several European clones mentioned in the show, but we meet very few of them on TV. This comic introduces many of those , which was a highlight for me despite the sketchiness of the introductions: Veera Suominen, the main subject of this series, Niki Lintula, Justyna Buzek, Sofia Jensen, Faye and Femke ("twins"!), Jade, and Ania Kaminska are all featured in comic series 2. Others, such as Danielle Fournier, Aryanna Giordano, and Janika Zingler are not here.

The artwork was so-so, I'm sorry to report. There was no cover on my copy, but the cover I've seen advertising this novel was gorgeous. The interior artwork? Not so much! It's fine in a workmanlike style, but nothing to write home about. All-too-often, it's patchy: in some images, the characters looked very much like Tatiana Maslany, the central actor in the TV show. I was particularly impressed by Rachel Duncan, who was very much the one from TV, which I loved, but the others seemed to vary even within the same character. In some frames they looked just like the TV version, in others quite different. The characters here were younger, of course: they were of high school age and just beginning to learn of their peculiar place in the world, but the representations of them we saw in the art was not the best it could have been. It was okay and that's it.

I guess what bothered me most about this story was the feeling of hopelessness which pervaded it. Yes, these were teens and dis-empowered accordingly, but they were hi-tech savvy, and mobile. They had no problem taking the reins when they needed to, so it felt like a betrayal of the story when we got to the point where they had ample evidence of the cloning, but never went public with it. The excuse we're given is the September, 2001 terrorist attack on New York City - that this so preoccupied the news that their own story would have been buried. This is where my comment above - about "The US" not being the same set as "The World" - is relevant.

Yes, 9/11 made a massive impact on the world, but not everywhere is as self-obsessed as is the US. It happened in the US, not in Europe and while there was concern, even horror, and sympathy and focus on it everywhere, to suggest that it obliterated everything else and became the sole preoccupation of the Europeans in the same way as it did the US, to the point where this cloning issue would have been completely buried, is grossly unfair to Europeans, and in particular to European teen women who are startling in their ability to demonstrate and draw attention to a cause.

Take, Femen, for example, or Free The Nipple and the related Les TumulTueuses, or Pussy Riot. Even the Russians are not shy about it! 'Europeans' does not equate to 'Euro Peons' and more than it equates to 'Euro Paens'! This is a locale where we have seen teen girls make spectacular protests which have received wide publicity (maybe not in the US!). To suggest that they couldn't get this publicized is really an insult. Obviously if you need to keep it secret, as a writer, then you need a better excuse!

All that said, I'm still going to rate this a worthy read because I really liked finding out more. In general terms, I enjoyed it even as threadbare as it was. What Helsinki really needs is a novel, not a graphic novel, to put some real meat on the bones of this story. But until then, and if you love Orphan Black as I do, I think this worth your time.

Foiled by Jane Yolen, Mike Cavallaro

Rating: WORTHY!

This is the first volume in a joyous and nicely illustrated (by Mike Cavallaro) series. It's a small format graphic novel about a middle-grade girl named Aliera Carstairs who is the chosen one - chosen, that is, by the faerie world to protect them against the troll world, led by the Dark Lord. She meets a new guy in school named Avery castle, and despite the fact that he's hot-looking, he seems really uninterested in anyone but Aliera, although he doesn't say no to a kiss and a hug form whichever female wants to lay one on him.

Aliera is attracted to him but really not that interested. She'd rather go to her fencing lessons or enjoy an RPG with her cousin, who is sickly, but perky. This doesn't prevent her from accepting when Avery asks her out on a date - so it would seem. The venue is Grand Central Terminal, form which you rightly assume that Aliera lives in NYC. She;s late in arriving and wondering whether Avery is also late or has stood her up (her opinion of boys is lower than most). She has her fencing kit with her having just come from practice, and she puts on her fencing mask to protect her from a particularly bothersome bird (evidently the same bird which has been stalking her throughout the novel - something she would have noticed had she been more observant.

With the mask in place, color-blind Aliera, who sees more shades of grey than EL James, is suddenly aware of a second world superimposed over the first - a world of brilliant, rich color, which is focused entirely on fantastical creatures the like of which she'd only ever heard of in the more bizarre fairy tales. It turns out that Alierea is a defender of the Seelie - a faerie world which has chosen her as its champion. She can fight the bad guys with her épée, the one her mom scrounged up from a yard sale. That faceted blob of chromium infused aluminium oxide which Aliera had supposed was fake turns out to be, it would seem, a real ruby.

I really liked this story which I came to by way of volume two - so you can read them out of order without losing too much. I loved the story, I loved how feisty, relentless, and resourceful Aliera was, and I enjoyed the whole presentation. i recommend this and its sequel.

Curses Foiled Again by Jane Yolen, Mike Cavallaro

Rating: WORTHY!

This is a joyous and nicely illustrated (by Mike Cavallaro), small format graphic novel about a middle-grade girl who is the chosen one - chosen, that is, by the faerie world to protect them against the troll world, led by the Dark Lord. Yes, it's trope, but this is different enough and irreverent enough that I loved it. It's Seelie versus Unseelie here, and this is number 2 in the 'Foiled" series. While I am not a fan of series, this one might be one of the few exceptions I make, because I would like to read more of these adventures. I loved the way the chapters were titled after various fencing postures and strikes/defenses.

Foiled is a play on the fact that feisty and self-motivated main character Aliera Carstairs can fence something fierce, especially now she has a light saber. Actually it's a light foil. And the light is on the hilt, not the blade. So an anti-light foil is what she carries. Or something like that. Sorry, anti-light weapon! Never call it a foil! And especially don't refer to it as silver foil! (I added that bit!). Anyway, moving right along, in this adventure, she's trolled by a troll named Avery (he watches her like a clock?) who in daylight looks like a middle grader (or maybe a young, young adult), but in the dark, turns into a rather large troll-type dude with lower tusks rather like the Orcs in the upcoming Warcraft movie, and just like them, he turns out to be a good guy, who acknowledges that he's bound to Aliera, who he calls his liege lord.

Aliera doesn't trust him as far as she can throw him in his troll form, which is to say not at all. She rejects his every overture despite the fact that he seems desperate to impart important information to her. In the end they form a grudging (on her part) alliance to solve an problem, and she learns to trust him. A bit. I loved that she was so independent and not the least but fluffy instadore as we see far too often in stories like this. She was a strong character with a unique voice, who was self-sufficient and a go-getter and I was in love with her, disgusting as that is. Yes, I admit it. So seelie me!

This wasn't apparent to me form this volume, but evidently the main character is colorblind in our world and only sees color in the faerie world. Maybe I'm just slow, because now I think back on it, it seems obvious, but I'd thought this had nothing to do with the character's PoV! I thought it was simply an art trick to make our world look a drab gray, while the faeries looked almost psychedelic - which was a nice effect. Apparently not! Anyway, the immediate problem (in this volume) was nicely resolved with a sweet and satisfying ending, but the story remains open enough that more adventures could come, so it was a really good read with lots of promise and warmth and amusing bits and pieces. I recommend this as a worthy read.

Tank Girl Carioca by Mike McMahon, Alan Martin

Rating: WORTHY!

This was an amusingly irreverent graphic novel with decent, if rudimentary artwork, and indecent text. It has a nice look to it from the coloring. Tank Girl, aka Rebecca Buck, is the feisty, criminal owner of a tank. She was originally invented by artist Jamie Hewlett who illustrated the first Tank Girl comic. TG lives in a post-apocalyptic Australia, although the novel has a much more Brit feel than it does Aussie due to author Alan Martin's origins. TG's boyfriend is a mutant kangaroo named Booga. In this volume, she has three other girls in her "gang", which are Jet Girl (who flies a Harrier jump jet and who at one point early in the series was certifiably insane, although in this volume she seems like the only one who isn't insane), and Boat Girl. In this edition there's also a foul mouthed critter of indeterminate species who is randomly dismissed as a lemming (a bitter lemming, in fact!) and a rat, both of which are rudely dismissed by the critter himself.

In this story, Tank Girl and Booga are at a game show and they get a chance to compete. They get all the questions right, including the last prize-winning one, but the show's host, who has taken a distinct dislike to them, lies about the answer and they lose everything. TG, who cares less that she lost than she does about the host's whispered insults aimed at her, decides that nothing less than hanging, drawing, and quartering will deliver adequate justice for this. She concocts an elaborate Heath Robinson plan to achieve her aim, but afterwards, she's overcome by remorse, and starts her own religion, named after the Carioca bar she frequents. Her changed life is doomed to failure, though, as you might guess.

I thought this story was hilarious. It reminds me of the ridiculous ideas I came up with as a kid and the even more ridiculous ones I came up with as a teenager. If you like Monty Python you might like this one, but don't expect a soup to nuts story or even logic! I recommend this.