The Backstagers, Vol. 3: Encore

The Backstagers #3

by James Tynion IV, Sam Johns, Rian Sygh (Illustrations)

All the world's a stage . . . but what happens behind the curtain is pure magic—literally!

The Backstagers are back in (stage) blacks, for a festive collection of Valentine’s Day and Halloween stories! Join Jory and the rest of the Backstagers as they wrestle with anti-Valentine crusades, totally creepy phantoms (NOT of the opera), and the everpresent magic of the backstage world in this romantically spooky third volume of the hit series. 

Reuniting the Prism Award-winning team of writer James Tynion IV (Detective Comics, Justice League) and artist Rian Sygh, along with a variety of fan-favorite artists including Brittney Williams (Goldie Vance), Caitlin Rose Boyle (Jonesy), Katy Farina (Steven Universe), and more, these holiday tales will fill your heart with love, spooky spectres, and chocolate. Lots...and lots...of chocolate.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Fantasy, Comics, Young Adult, LGBT, Fiction, Queer

96 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2019

About the author

Prior to his first professional work, Tynion was a student of Scott Snyder's at Sarah Lawrence College. A few years later, he worked as for Vertigo as Fables editor Shelly Bond's intern. In late 2011, with DC deciding to give Batman (written by Snyder) a back up feature, Tynion was brought in by request of Snyder to script the back ups he had plotted. Tynion would later do the same with the Batman Annual #1, which was also co-plotted by Snyder. Beginning in September 2012, with DC's 0 issue month for the New 52, Tynion will be writing Talon, with art by Guillem March. In early 2013 it was announced that he'd take over writing duties for Red Hood and the Outlaws in April.

Tynion is also currently one of the writers in a rotating team in the weekly Batman Eternal series.

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

There isn't much substance in these Valentine's day and Halloween specials. They are sugary sweet and not much else. The backup stories aren't even that.

[Mir · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was really disjointed. And not just because it's a collection of unrelated shorts. Many of the stories didn't even make sense internally. They were just a bunch of really short, mostly dumb, vignettes set at Valentine's Day and Halloween. If you hadn't already read the first two volumes you'd get very little sense of the kids' personalities other than "Glasses kid has emotional problems" and "short blond one who looks five seems to be developmentally delayed." (I don't think Sasha is meant to be actually developmentally delayed, but he behaves as if he were, and things going wrong because they keep letting the dumb kid do stuff is a lazy plot device.)

Some of the stories hardly reference theater, or don't use the fantasy elements, which just seems pointless.

Very disappointing. Don't let me put you off of reading the earlier ones, though!

[destiny ♡ howling libraries · Rating 4 out of 5]

Volume 1 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Volume 2 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Volume 3 ⭐⭐⭐💫

This is more of a 3.5 star read for me, but I'm rounding up because I enjoyed the overall series so much. This volume is a collection of holiday-themed one-offs, and a couple were really good and felt like the overall series did as far as vibes and all go, but a few of them just missed the mark in a big way for me. I typically don't enjoy graphic novel collections where there are guest writers, because I get very used to those characters being portrayed by a specific artist and written by a specific writer, so I'm not surprised this was my least favorite of the 3 volumes.

That said, I still love these little gay cuties a whole lot.

✨ Representation: multiple BIPOC characters, most (possibly all?) primary characters are queer, plus-size character

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[Mafalda · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[rachel, x · Rating 3 out of 5]

#1) The Backstagers, Vol. 1: Rebels Without Applause ★★★★☆
#2) The Backstagers, Vol. 2: The Show Must Go On ★★★☆☆

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[Kristin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Assorted shorts from two holiday specials and a summer sampler. Only the first tale rises beyond a one-joke story and buying the individual issues is cheaper. Very disappointing.

[Jessica-Robyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Backstagers is such a cute series. What it lacks in substance, it makes up for with incredible art and pure sugar sweetness. It is also the perfect time of year to read the Halloween stories.

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collecting some Halloween and Valentine's Day stories, these little Backstager vignettes are fun and easy, like the rest of the series.

The meat of the volume are the two lead stories by the usual Backstagers creators, James Tynion IV and Rian Singh; these seem to have the most relevance to the characters and the biggest moral lesson to learn as a result of them, which is to be expected.

Meanwhile there are a collection of about six short stories that range from adorable to just kind of pointless, and while that's to be expected with an anthology, most of them are written by Sam Jones, so the quality is oddly disparate.

Fun for fans of the series, but not essential at all. I do hope Boom!'s enthusiasm to continue publishing Backstagers content means we'll get another mini-series sooner or later.

[R]

I thought these specials were pretty cute. I mean the stories obviously weren't as good as the first two volumes but like?? It was cute and that's honestly my favorite part about these comics.

[J MaK · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hilarious read BUT very disjointed especially with the mini-stories. This volume is more of an anthology.

[Mitchell Friedman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A holiday special. We get Halloween AND Valentine's Day. Whatever. Some of these are silly. And some of these are just a little bit awful. But the art's not bad and there is just a hint of backstory here and there. But a lightweight volume for sure and that in a lightweight series.

[rikajewellee · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5
all in all, it was cute, but nothing more
i enjoyed two stories, one more than the other, but again... nothing special
but i recommend to read the series anyway

[AJ (the.booknerd.reads) · Rating 5 out of 5]

i wish it continued the story, but the holiday specials were so cute i don't care

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick, holiday-themed dip back into the world of the Backstagers. The character's are all chatty and fun and refreshingly upbeat. The art is less cartoony than I recall previous volumes being. The main holiday issues are filled with laughs and smiles. The back-up shorts are...a mixed bag. Overall, a pleasant diversion.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know it's a collection of shorts, and I know it's been forever since I read the last ones, but this was overly disjointed and not very well grounded.

[Luke Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite the exuberance of the characters, I'm not sure if it was enough to hold some of the fluff content this collection pushed for. Although the main series ended last volume, this final Encore of The Backstagers essentially contains one-off specials and corresponding shorts based on Valentine's Day and Halloween. Like I mentioned before, there was little substance, but these adventures were still fun and buoyant (although the shorts with their guest artists didn't leave me with as much enthusiasm as the rest of the collection). Also, Rian Sygh's art is so endearing and fun. I hope he gets a lot more work in the future.

Beckett is probably my favorite character from this series. We stan our green-haired brown trans light board guy who is so hopelessly in love that it's adorable.

I appreciated all of the anime calls with the Halloween costumes and that one "weaboo" call-out.

[USOM · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the idea of this encore volume of The Backstagers, but it has to be my least favorite of the three. The idea of all these precious holiday themed issues were really cute, but I found I had to see them as more like short stories and not a connected series. At some times it felt disjointed without clear lines. I did enjoy the characters and to see them again, but it was certainly my least favorite.

[Becky (sirensongreads) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: 3.5/5

I liked the main Valentine’s Day and Halloween stories and a few of the short stories, but some others just didn’t do it for me. I guess that sums up every anthology.

Overall, this was pretty cute.

[Mariah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved how this book showed Valentines Day and Halloween. This graphic novel series is perfect for the spooky season. I also loved in the back how we got to see different storylines about the characters.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rather than continuing the story from the first two volumes, this one includes little shorts/interludes they would have happened before, during, or after the main events. Some of the shorts were better than others; some had next to no story at all.

Not really my thing, but I did laugh out loud once, so that's something.

[mikey 🫶🌞 · Rating 4 out of 5]

always a cute fun easy read! I LOVED the halloween sections where the evil was stage fright or actors not finding their light. Always very clever jokes for theatre kids. I want to buy the rest of the series but my TBR is ridiculous right now so I have to hold off for a bit lol.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some fun Valentine’s Day and Halloween short stories

[ReadWithE · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5. Cute little vignettes for fans of the other two books.

[Andhisnosestuckinabook · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely love this graphic novel series! This one has your feels for the holidays like Valentine’s Day and Halloween 🎃

[Nicole (bookwyrm) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a super cute conclusion (I think) to the Backstagers series. It it made up of short comics focusing mostly on Valentine's Day and Halloween. While none of the shorts have the same impact as the book-length comics, these were a nice addition to the series and a good way to see more of the characters.

[Ellie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was entertaining enough. It was fun seeing the characters more in the world but I wasn’t as captivated by these short stories.

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of unrelated shorts and little scenes about our cast and their Valentine's Day and Halloween adventures. As such, there's not much substance and it doesn't really further the story, but it's still fun and there's plenty of cute fluff.

[AR · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

[Elisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I sincerely enjoyed the previous books but this one wasn’t my thing. The short stories/guest writers were confusing. I couldn’t always tell which character was which in some of the short stories because they were illustrated so differently. 5/5 for the previous books but 3/5 for this one

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite up to the same level of wonderhood that the other volumes are, but it was still quite enjoyable and entertaining.