Jayson > Recent Status Updates

Notes:
(1) It's very "The Alchemist"—travelling rough,
Building XP by experience and stuff.
- Coming back home all improved and mature.
- Point's not to run but to push and endure.
(2) The artwork's okay, no impressive designs,
The story's just mid, it's the message that shines.
- Dealing with trouble, you maybe feel cursed.
- Perspective is key: that things could be worse.

Notes:
(1) Real background-bright, strong color set,
All juxtaposed with silhouettes.
- It's basic art, but clean and clever,
Just perfect for this shape endeavor.
- Groovy '60s/'70s look.
(2) An easy-breezy children's book,
Goes super-fast but nails the point.
- No foolish fluff nor out of joint.
- Seems random, though it's focused fine:
The silhouettes keep theme in line.

Notes:
(1) An arms race—bit "Sneetches," bit Hatfield/McCoy.
- A Cold War perspective, re: perilous toys.
- It's not about butter, that's simply the grounds,
For other-side-pride and how silly it sounds.
(2) A kinda deep ending, a warning for all:
Mutual destruction's as small as a ball.
- No game ball, that is, for warring's no game,
Albeit it's treated as one in the same.

Notes:
(1) I've read so many Dr. Seuss books—nearly all of them—that it's downright SHOCKING to read one that doesn't rhyme!
- For a long moment, I was totally discombobulated!
- Hence, not rhyming this update as I've done for Seuss books hitherto.
(2) I feel the same way about this as J.K. Rowling's "The Ickabog."
- It wouldn't surprise me if this was a direct inspiration.

Notes:
(1) Looks simply luscious—all painterly goodness.
- Pulls weight, heavy lifting, dolls up the plot's woodness.
(2) Story-wise, hardly an intricate tale.
- Slideshow of spectacles, fun but gets stale.
- Real Peter Pan-y, a Neverland feel,
Albeit you age—re: birthday ideal.
- Picture book plotting, but rhyming's good stuff,
Detailed, descriptive and rarely reads rough.

Notes:
(1) In general, awful awkward, all hardly polished rhymes.
- It's fine, I guess, not laziness, though well past Seuss' prime.
- Just really clunky word choice, and inconsistent lengths.
- Seemingly so slapdash, showing scarcely any strengths.
(2) The gimmick's fun, but not quite tight, a loosey-goosey plot.
- This could be cool if finer tuned, and not so scattershot.

Notes:
(1) If you have to rhyme nonsense, then this is the way.
- It's a deep-into-detail creative display.
- No simplistic roll call, it gives you a story,
And Seussical artwork in all of its glory.
- Plus rhyming's not lazy, it's splendidly dense.
(2) Gimmick's a winner, it more than makes sense.
- Bookended nicely, wrapped in a bow.
- Albeit bit long, true whimsy in tow.

Notes:
(1) A bare-bones creature show-and-tell,
Done rapid-fire and doesn't dwell.
- Just nonsense names (for rhyming lazy),
Hardly memorable nor crazy.
- More complex though (the rhyming scheme):
No basic couplet sound regime.
(2) The artwork here's real simple stuff.
- Not bad, but bland, and rather rough.
- And certainly no counterweight,
Feels lazy too, and second-rate.

Notes:
(1) A teachable tale on being too nice,
too scared to offend (re: doormat's your vice),
and being "polite" means you bear it and smile.
- You give them an inch, they'll take more than a mile:
weighed down by squatters, your horns for their nest.
- Moral: don't stand for a freeloader fest!
(2) All-around solid, in general a lark,
albeit good fun, the end's a bit dark.

Notes:
(1) After kicking off pretty hot, this settled to a low simmer.
- I wouldn't exactly call the back end "horror" per se, except for some gross-out scenes and jump scares.
(2) The last three issues are oddly very "Game of Thrones."
- We get analogues to Craster's Keep and Slaver's Bay, the "dragons as nukes" allegory—a giant dog this time—and some real soapy melodrama.

Notes:
(1) I can't help but feel a bit disappointed that they only touched on the whole The Wicker Man/Midsommar vibe that ended the last volume.
- We've defaulted back to some good ol' zombie carnage, which is cool and all but just feels like a missed opportunity.
(2) I really enjoy how the department store protocol and slogans are pretty much the Pet City religion.

Notes:
(1) Since I stopped reading this in singles, it's been nearly a year since this series has even entered my line of sight.
- Still, it's a credit to the skill involved that I actually remember where it left off, as well as many of the major plot points.
- That said, I still skim-read the previous volume to refresh my memory... names, for example, I'd mostly forgotten.

Notes:
(1) So, not that much plot progression, it's mostly people asking questions to try and figure stuff out.
- That's the problem with splitting up your two main characters, you only have half the time and space to explain what's going on with each of them.
- Probably the biggest takeaway from this issue is the fairly shocking implication that aliens exist in this world.

Notes:
(1) So, on one level, this is your typical "Kaya" arc opener that maps out where everyone is, what they're doing, and teases what the story entails.
- What puts it over the edge for me, from 3 to 4 stars, is how interesting it is visually and creatively.
- There's a lot of cool coloring here for dreams and flashbacks, as well as creative landscape and design choices.

Notes:
(1) This is the usual between-arcs backup story where Kaya does her usual "Indiana Jones" thwarted treasure hunt act.
- Apparently, they're all based on exactly the same open-ended script—Wes Craig reveals this explicitly.
- It doesn't really change how I assess these, except to underscore my instinct that these are all about the individual art styles and punchlines.

Notes:
(1) I recognize that slave liberation is a major series theme and, more so, that glimpses we get of future Kaya are almost-exclusively set in her Khaleesi "Breaker of Chains" era. But, we've just come off a whole slave liberation arc, and I'd rather this bonus tale be more of a palate cleanser and change of pace.
- That said, this story was very Slavers Bay Daenerys.

Notes:
(1) So, this second half touches very little on the major events bubbling offstage, and focuses exclusively on using plot elements to drive a rift between Kaya and Jin.
- We get some blatant fridging, for example—IYKYK.
- It's your classic "Deathly Hallows" or "Game of Thrones" type epic adventure trope: team is inseparable, team splits up, team (hopefully) reunites.

Notes:
(1) So, the most interesting thing about this so far has been its narrative structure.
- Major stuff is happening, but it's all just bubbling in the background—to do with villains and ancillary characters.
- Conversely, the main story is essentially a side quest: the heroes set themselves the task of liberating a slave mine. Morality aside, it's essentially optional.

Notes:
(1) I don't know when I'll have the chance to bring this up, so I may as well say it now: I wish these "Kaya" trades included the cover art for each issue.
- I understand that omitting them is probably so the story reads more like a novel, with issues more like chapters instead of individual books.
- But at least provide a cover gallery as part of the bonus material.

Notes:
(1) This is a real departure from what the series has been.
- Frankly, the transition logic's been pretty murky.
- Basically, we've gone from a gaudy circus world to a sort of Dickensian winter dystopia.
(2) We also have Spring and Summer working as an investigative duo.
- Spring's dynamic with Summer is less outright adversarial than Winter, more self-aware ribbing.

Notes:
(1) In general, this succeeds in sections focused on madcap action. It's less successful attempting deep philosophy and introspection.
- I think a lot of it comes down to letting art do the heavy lifting versus trying to layer on meaning through words—and by "layer" I mean caking it on with a brick trowel.
- The story only meaningfully advances through action scenes.

Notes:
(1) It doesn't take long before this dives head-first into being a fantasy realm cat-and-mouse adventure.
- Which is fine in a very "Back to the Future, Part II" sort of way, but I think this would read a lot better as the second half of a single volume.
- By itself, you don't really have a mundane reality here to juxtapose against all the chaos energy and weirdness.

Notes:
(1) The new arc's out. So, as usual, I'm reading the latest trade as a refresher.
- One of the more ingenious things about this series is how the four sisters are each named after a season, and hence I remember them all clearly and, more importantly, their individual personalities.
- Comparably, while I broadly recall the plot, I've no clue where we are in the story.

Notes:
(1) This reminded me a lot of Liu's "Monstress."
- Super-dense writing, a powerful female protagonist, a primarily female cast in general, tentacle-y monsters, sorcery, etc.
(2) My big problem here is this isn't about B. He's merely a guest star in somebody else's story.
- Except for the very end, this would be fine without him—the lady protagonist's powerful enough.

Notes:
(1) The twist ending was almost enough for me to rate this higher, but then I remembered how over-the-top this all was, and couldn't in good conscience go higher than 3-stars.
- This is basically wall-to-wall climactic intensity—frankly, way too much and way too drawn out.
- Like a sledgehammer, it spells out (unsubtly and at length) exactly what everyone's thinking.

Notes:
(1) This issue is less focused on plot and more so illuminates prior scenes with context and mirroring.
- In issue #41, Erica lays a hand on a sleeping/hungover Jessica. Here, Cecilia lays a hand on Jessica crying herself to sleep.
- Erica and Jessica telling survivors to lie is against the rules, and likely a practice and mindset passed down and shared between them.

Notes:
(1) While well done and enjoyable, this is hamstrung by the lack of a definitive ending.
- We get a climax in the form of a Jessica/Erica showdown, but it's not exactly something to end a book with.
- Granted, this is only Part 1, but there's no real cliffhanger. It ends pretty abruptly, more like the middle of an issue than the end—frankly, I expected another scene.

Notes:
(1) A definite benefit of less rendered, "simpler" art is that stories go by so much faster.
- I can't have spent more than five minutes per issue.
- Of course, the benefit of singles is you're less prone to gloss over details.
(2) This arc really benefits from reading the trade.
- Individually, issues come off low-key and slow. Binging it, you really build momentum.

Notes:
(1) This is one of the few comic series I'm still reading and reviewing in single issues and, as has become my custom, I'm reading the latest collected trade as a refresher for the new arc.
- I think it's especially valuable with this volume, since this is merely the first of at least two parts.
- I do wish they got back to it being one complete story arc per volume.

Notes:
(1) We get a 1987 version of IDW's Pantheon.
- This Pantheon aren't gods, but interdimensional criminals.
(2) Half of the originals are out, replaced by Hob and Scratch.
- Scratch is a Game Boy villain, best known as a holy grail action figure.
- Rat King is now Rat Queen—I guess, since '87 Rat King already exists.
- Manmoth now is essentially Macho Man Randy Savage.