Stein's Profile

Paper Girls 29 seems to be trying to advance the narrative with haste - through awkward and unlikely exposition that forces a conclusion. Almost as bad is how this issue compresses what was previously an interesting perspective on culture into trite or superficial phrases. The team has taken their audience for granted, and I think that will lead this series to be quickly forgotten.

Perhaps the most offensive thing about the 2018 Nancy Drew series is how the cover art advertises intrigue and danger, while the contents are simple art with cartoonish, stereotype characters stumbling through blase challenges.

Neither the story nor the characters are engaging or believable enough to overcome the ragged, sketchy art.

Bold, loose, exciting illustrations match a story that wants to draw you in to Luna's tale of adventure. And while the story needs a level of roughness and violence, it's often over the top and distracting from the narrative.

I didn't love the art, and was bugged by small inconsistencies throughout. Like when a character is apparently kickflipping down some stairs and ... but then is holding a longboard in the next panel?! At least the story was properly weird.

The brilliance of Takeda's illustrations is often in the details, the sweeping lines, and the use of midtones to evoke a world beaten down by tyranny. In this issue the action between characters is weighed down and muddled by those features, obscuring much of what's actually happening. Add to that this reader's growing frustration with the 2-dimensionality of Maika (After 16 issues all we know is that she's irritable, quick-tempered, and generally aloof to others. Teenagers. Sheesh.) and there's not a lot keeping Monstress interesting.

Coda 6 is much needed jolt forward in a series that had slowed down almost to a crawl. Dialogue in this issue gives a little extra (and needed) depth to our conflicted heroes. Illustrations do much of the heavy lifting as the events set our heroes up for an important battle of wills.

I'm hooked. If you like smart sci fi that builds on but doesn't reply uppn classic tropes, you may be, too.

There's some great dialogue setting up Coda. From the fixations of a talking dragon corpse on page one to the short-lived, one-sided negotiations with a robber on page two, the dialogue feels natural and vibrant. Our protagonists voice-over efficiently conveys his position in the post-apocalyptic world, a mix of resignation and discomfort and stubbornness. "The old world was beautiful and bright and crazy and brave. Mostly I hated it. And then it ended." It looks great, too. Not just the art, but the words on page. They seem to carry the voice of the characters along with the action. And there is a lot of action. In one scene, a band of robbers jab hypodermics into their beastly mounts, jolting them into the fight like a boost of nitro. That's a lot what the whole book feels like. The result is violent and bloody, but in a style that's cartoon-ish enough to not *entirely* turn your stomach. This is more flavor than anything in a story that effectively walks the line between precious homage and shallow derivation to fantasy and scifi of generations past.

The first issue ended with a death of a major character, leaving one wondering how this story is going to sustain itself. But by the end of the second issue it's clear that this character was a MacGuffin, and Ram V knows exactly what he is doing. In this issue, tensions mount, local characters are eatablished, and storylines begin to interweave. We still don't have a clear protagonist - but maybe that's on purpose. Maybe Ram v wants us guessing who the reader should invest his allegiance in, independent of the author's intent. Regardless, this book is worth picking up if only to enjoy Sumit Kumar's meticulously illustrated environment and people (realized by Vittorio Astone's evocative coloring). Together, they contribute every bit as much storytelling as the words.