Circles: The Years Keep Rolling By

Circles #3

by Andrew French, Scott Fabianek, Steve Domanski

For everyone who never stopped wanting to know the end of the story.

This is the final volume in the Circles story. It's the novelization of the last five issues complete with illustrations, artwork from the unfinished Issue Nine, and an Introduction by Andrew French, explaining the situation.

Genres: Graphic Novels

188 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 2015

Reviews

[Altivo Overo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've had this book sitting on a bedside table for a long time now. I wanted to read it, but was afraid to do so because I knew it contained some heart-wrenchingly sad events. I finally gave in and read it, and have to say it was well worth reading. Yes, some important things, including the life of a major character, come to an end. But it's a beginning in another sense, and a story filled with love, hope, and forgiveness. I won't risk any spoilers here, but will just say that if you liked the beginning of Circles, you owe it to yourself to follow through to the conclusion.

[Joaquín Baldwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A not really furry furry comic, it's a human story, simple, touching, and well told. The art and style evolves through the issues, it improves through it and so improves the writing. Worth reading as a whole (including the last issue which is in an illustrated novel form), it's a short and strong series.

[Andres Halden · Rating 3 out of 5]

"You can be right or you can be published."

This is advice I was given years ago. Sometimes, things you like about your story don't work. Things you love that, before sending it to an editor, need to be changed. And you can change them, or you can not get your book/comic/etc published.

"Circles" started as a comic, with the entire story mapped out and (according to author notes) written in advance before the first issue even released. Now, that's great. I's a solid way to make sure your comic series is well-paced and comes to a satisfying conclusion, especially when that story is meant to be 13 issues. We'll be coming back to this point.

Now, what might happen if, say, after 8 issues, the artist can no longer continue with the series? Well, you find a different artist. What if the author/creator thinks that there's no series without the original artist? Well, you can be right or you can be published. However, no one on the publisher's/editor's side told the author that, so instead, "issues" 9-13 were published as short novel, with an occasional illustration by the artist of issues 1-8.

Finishing a comic series in a different medium (and it is a different medium, despite the illustrations) isn't the worst idea. Many other projects have done that. However, we come to one of the major issues with the novel. A note before we read a single word of prose states that the author never "saw" the characters as anthropomorphic animals, and therefore refuses to describe them as such. This would be like continuing a superhero comic as a novel and saying "you never saw them as superheroes" and refusing to describe superpowers or costumes. Without the furry salsa (sorry for the visual image there) sprinkled on top of this story, a salsa that was there before, the story comes off as simultaneously bland and distracting. There are also numerous spelling and grammatical errors.

"You can be right or you can be published," unless your editor/publisher would rather have any conclusion than no conclusion at all. I suppose if everyone in the process fails to put a foot down, no one has to cave.

Is the conclusion of the story satisfying? Absolutely, if you can slog through several more issues of Sad Gay Background Bingo. "Circles" has seemed determined to use every possible trope or cliche for the background of its LGBT cast, and I suppose it's a sign of the times that we have so much representation now that they feel cliche. The first book felt old-fashioned when I read it in 2007. This final book, set now even further in the past, feels even older.

Is the book worth reading? I feel if you had hope for "Circles" to finally finish, then you probably already own this. I read the entire second half of this particular volume in one sitting, with a glass of wine and the music that inspired the series playing in the background (the author helpfully includes the names of every song where chapter titles were cribbed from). The second half was worth the initial slog.

Would it be worth reading if I hadn't waited almost a decade to finally be able to sit down and finish one of the first furry stories I ever liked? I honestly don't know.

[Michael Miele · Rating 5 out of 5]

The final installment in the Circles series and it's a heckuva doozy. I'm in the odd position of being someone introduced to Circles after its initial popularity. So for me, the decade long wait for the ending essentially amounted to how long it took for the post office to deliver the second and third books after I read through the first. I don't have the built-up wait that a majority of fans had before experiencing this resolution. I can say that even with that caveat, I greatly enjoyed Circles. It's a series that was thoroughly recommended to me and I have to say it was well worth it. The events of the book are foreshadowed pretty heavily and I knew what I'd be in for before reading and a good few tears were shed as I grieved alongside the characters. The switch to a majority novel with comics interspersed throughout didn't bother me as much as I thought it was going to. I felt as though the tone and characters kept consistent in writing and the comics helped to punctuate the more dramatic and important moments. And just in general, I'm a big fan of emotional love stories and this delivered in spades.

[Vik-thor Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very nice finish to the Circles series, tying up all the loose ends. The ending is sad, but expected.

[Doc Kinne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Top marks! Cannot say enough about this book and this story! It is the "Tales of the City" for the next generation!