Monster World, Monstress, Nonplayer

Monster World 1-4

Regret Buying: No.  This was worth picking up for Carlos Meglia’s art.  It’s exaggerated in a way that calls Humberto Ramos to mind, but with a style all its own.  

Like Ramos, he’s great at drawing kids.  He’s got a penchant for huge feet and huge mouths.  And his monsters are wonderfully unique.

He’s also the only artist I know who draws out arm hair as discrete rectangles.  After all these years, I still don’t know if I like it or not. But it’s the most distinctive thing about his art.

Part of me likes it, part of me thinks they look like maggots.  Ew.

Sadly, Meglia also shares Ramos’ occasional struggle with coherent story telling.  All the style can obscure the substance, making it hard to tell what’s going on.

On this page, there’s just too much going on, especially on the bottom half.  The tight zoom in on the faces in the first and third panels, overlapped by a zoomed out shot of the pair, bisected by a tower of text - It’s really hard for the eye to follow.  The coloring doesn’t help either. There are no hints for what to focus on, so the whole page blurs into a mishmash.

But overall, I had a blast looking at Meglia’s art.  His depiction of the kid crew is top notch, they have so much attitude and personality.

Would Buy Again: No.  Scott Lobdell’s story is pretty weak.  It’s an excuse for Meglia to draw kids and monsters, which I respect, but there’s not much else to it.  

Would Read Again: Yes.  I’d flip through this again to look at the art.  BTW, Meglia passed away in 2008. Sadness.

Rating: Fine.  The crap story drags down the awesome art.

Monstress 1

Regret Buying: No.  THE ART!!! Sana Takeda is phenomenal.  This is gorgeous, gorgeous work. I mean, look at this!!

Would Buy Again: No.  My wife tells me that Marjorie Liu is a popular novel writer, and that she does good work.  That may be, but Monstress is a mess of fantasy elements that failed to hold me attention on any level.  I didn’t care about the characters or the enigmatic references to past events. I needed something, anything to give me a reason to keep buying, and it just didn’t deliver.  Not even the art was sufficient - If I wanted to see that, a quick Google search would scratch that it.

Would Read Again: No.  Words get in the way of the pictures.  

Rating: Boring.  I’m only keeping this one around because my wife asked me to.  

Nonplayer 1-2

This one reminds me a lot of Alex+Ada.  It’s set in a future world where the illegal use of AI threatens to upend society’s status quo.  This time, the AI is emerging in Warriors of Jarvath, an immersive MMO in the vein of Ready Player One.  The NPCs are gaining sentience.  

That’s the backdrop for the main character, Dana Stevens.  She’s the Wade Watts of the story, an everyday person who spends a lot of time in the game world.  

That’s about all we get, since the title’s only had two issues published in seven years.  Nate Simpson, the creator, does this on his free time, so I’m not holding my breath. (Though it’s currently on its second film option, so we may be seeing it in other media in the future.)

It’s on my pull list, so I’ll keep getting it if it comes out.  Otherwise, it joins the pile of promising comics that never got off the ground.

Ending with some of Simpson’s art.  If he’s going this only in his off hours, I can see why it takes so long.  It’s stunning. (And has the same clean lines as Jonathan Luna in Alex+Ada.)

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine