Under Kingdom

by Christof Bogacs (Writer), Marie Enger (Illustrator)

School can be hard, and making friends can be even harder. Taking your mother’s place as the guardian of a secret subterranean kingdom of monsters just might be impossible!

After the sudden disappearance of his mom, high school freshman, Shay, is thrust into a secret world of monsters that exists underneath his small West-Virginian town. With the help of his shapeshifting aunt Sa’Belle, he must search for his mother while doing what he can to safeguard the citizens of the ‘Under Kingdom’ and try to maintain his normal high school life. If that wasn’t enough, Shay’s no fighter but the Under Kingdom demands he take arms to protect his friends and family. Shay struggles to balance school, his new crush, and training to become a warrior. When an army of Dwarves declare war on the Under Kingdom, he will need to find a way to balance who he is with protecting all of monster-kind from war.

An epic adventure set in a colorful world full of mischievous sock-stealing imps, adorable dragons, rowdy orcs, and an endless variety of other strange creatures. Join Shay, Sa’belle, and friends in this heartwarming tale where kindness is proven more powerful than violence.

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

104 pages, Paperback

Published April 18, 2023

Reviews

[Emily Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.8 ⭐️ Kinda feels like a spooky Cartoon Network show.

I did enjoy the vibes of this and overall if you’re looking for a spooky Halloween read that’s lgbt friendly I would recommend it. It’s just not something I would read more than once.

The art style felt a little haphazard and rushed at times which would have worked if it wasn’t so busy (a lot of imagery going on at once and made it hard to distinguish some things.) I also was not keen on the text font, it was pretty hard to read at times and a tad migraine inducing.

The story follows Shay who takes his mothers place as a warden to the underworld where the monsters live. It was spooky and fast paced.

Something I wasn’t keen on was that at times it did fall into some areas of antisemitic tropes like the treasure loving dwarfs.

Rep// Male MC is queer / achillean. There’s no complete relationship but delves into a crush on his friend that I assume will be explored further in Vol. 2. There’s also a lot of pride imagery like flags which was cool to see. It’s a very lgbtq friendly comic.

TW’s listed below, please skip if you don’t want vague spoilers.






Tw//CW// bullying (brief), missing parent, manipulation, vaguely antisemitic tropes with dwarfs, mentions of suggested violence (not anything extreme.) stigma against types of creatures.

[Dan · Rating 1 out of 5]

The artwork which looks like it was drawn by an angry child is what killed this for me.

[Elizabeth Aguilar · Rating 2 out of 5]

The art style reminded of a Cartoon Network show. I found the pacing to be too fast. The initial motivation of finding Shay's mother seemed to have been pushed to the background as the goal of proving Shay's place as the new Under Warren became a priority. I liked that this story touched a little on how his secrets affected his regular life, but it felt very fast. I had a hard time keeping up how long it had been since Shay's mother had gone missing. While it fits the SAYL theme, I think it does lean towards a more niche audience and has less mass appeal.

[Gabriele | QueerBookdom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Representation: queer white protagonist, queer secondary character of colour, non-binary tertiary character.

Content Warning: violence.

[Sarah Meerkat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Being generous with a 3. Story ends on a cliffhanger with it being unknown if their will be a next volume and as it is his mom isn't saved and the relationship Shay did have essentially fell a part at the end which made me sad. No Bueno

[Aurora · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s fine. Ends on a cliffhanger despite no warning this was part 1 in a series. The art was interesting, but the scene transitions were often jarring. The story was predictable. Honestly I probably should rate it 2 stars, but I did like the vibes, so that gives it an extra star.

[Fred · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cute story - but the digest size made the art too small. A full page would have opened the panels up and made it easier to follow the story and see the details that there.

[Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

So this human kid named Shay has this whole 'chosen one' thing going on so after his mom, the previous chosen one, goes missing he needs to go to the land of monsters and be their saviour. Most of the appeal of this book is seeing all these goofy creatures interact. We've got OOZES. We've got DRAGONS. We've got.. IMPS! The imps were my favourite, so weird and cute and given what the backmatter says they're based on parrots- intelligent, mischievous, kind of goofy! I wish we got to see more of the world before going right into the chief conflict of this book (the politics bureaucracy of this monster world). The story itself doesn't hold the weight I want it to, it feels very by-the-books for a fantasy coming-of-age chosen one thing. But I loved the visual style, very Saturday-morning-weird-cartoons feel of it that matched the tone the series was going for.

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Under Kingdom is slight, but mostly satisfying. We meet Shay, whose mom is the conduit between humanity and the "Under Kingdom" filled with monsters of various kinds. Naturally, said mom is lost, so Shay has to take up her mantle. This involves lots of learning about monster society, learning how to battle, and discovering that (surprise!) maybe battling wasn't necessary after all.

There's a fair bit of creativity in the world-building, though the cramped artwork makes any of it hard to follow. Mostly though, Under Kingdom feels like the sketchy outline for an animated Netflix series. Not necessarily a knock against the book, just a comment on the fact that we've seen this before, several times.

[Simon · Rating 2 out of 5]

i think i'm not the main demographic for this book. it's a good graphic movel for 10 year olds, but i kept getting sleepy trying to finish it. i go back and forth with loving and hating the artstyle, sometimes the use of angles and sillouettes tickles my brain, but sometimes i straight up don't know what i'm looking at (the composition is clutured). if inwere to rate this for a kid i'd give it a 4/5, but just as-is i'd give it a 2.5/5.
i'm sure the people that worked on this went on to do much better stuff.

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

The art in this was really rough. like couldn't tell what was happening at times rough. It's about a teenager who finds out his mother looked after all the monsters in the Under Kingdom after she goes missing. The kid has to figure out how to do things his way while dealing with the monsters. The story is pretty basic YA stuff with some light LGBTQ subplots.

[Lauren · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unfortunately, I just really didn’t like this. The art style was so dark it was difficult to see and the plot happened so fast and so many characters were introduced I couldn’t tell what was happening. I assume this is a series because of the ending but I didn’t know that going into it. I’m just not sure who I could even recommend this too which is why it’s getting such a low rating from me.

[Sesana · Rating 1 out of 5]

This didn't work for me. I hated the art, both aesthetically and because it's so muddy that it can be hard to read. The story is a really paint by numbers thing about a kid who suddenly inherits power and will do it his way, without anything to elevate or differentiate it.

[Mariah · Rating 2 out of 5]

idea 4/5
execution 2/5
presentation 2/5

there’s way too much going on visually that makes it hard to follow the story. the story itself was really choppy, i thought i was skipping pages but no… just gaps in the story line lol

[Vy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kinda fun, but mostly really fast paced, enough to make relating and caring about characters kind of difficult.

The presentation of each monster with stats was a good idea, I just wish the whole thing could have let us discover this underworld just a bit slower.

[K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved this, and my daughter did also! A fun adventure story with terrific writing, clever dialogue, and fantastic art that suits the setting so well.

[Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic and Fun YA graphic novel

Read the graphic novel In two sittings and thoroughly enjoyed it. Excellent humour and just a fun read all round. Well worth checking out.

[Mii]

That wasn't the end, right?

[Fiore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chaotic, loving the art but hard to follow action and developments that came too quick to really feel earned.

[JustAButterfly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cool world, but it was short and lacked depth in its story in pretty much every aspect.

[Coraline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute little story. Feel like Ed is probably gay for Shay

[Tara · Rating 3 out of 5]

The adventure story was fun, but the art style didn't appeal to me.

[Castro · Rating 4 out of 5]

*4.5 stars

[Adam Sequoyah · Rating 3 out of 5]

MPA ratings: G (TV-Y7 is better, for mild violence)

[PinkVanilla · Rating 2 out of 5]

So much wasted potential