Mini Reviews | Comics Edition #9

Last weekend the TBR and Beyond facebook group hosted a Graphic Novel Weekend Read-A-Thon. And while I had a super busy weekend I did manage to read 3 graphic novels. I love reading these quick reads and had gotten a couple for my birthday. After this read-a-thon I only have a couple more GN’s on my TBR, so I guess I can buy some more haha. Let’s take a look at which ones I read this past weekend.

Shades of Magic Vol. 1: The Steel Prince – V.E. Schwab & Adrea Olimpieri

This comic book series is a prequel series to the original Shades of Magic trilogy. I personally really love the Shades of Magic series so I was super excited for this one. We follow Maxim Maresh, in the original trilogy we know him as the King of Red London and Rhy’s dad. In this prequel series he is still a prince and he wants to prove him self. Maxim is known as the Steel Prince because of his magical affinity with steel, something I thought was really cool.

The Maresh family are people of color, this representation was already made explicit in the original trilogy but I liked actually seeing it this time around. I enjoyed the art style but I have to admit it wasn’t my favorite ever. Especially after Melanie had this wonderful vision in her review, please go and read that!

The story was pretty engaging but also went quite fast. I like a bit of a slower paced story where the author takes her time with character development and some of the storylines. There is a little competition in one of the issues and I would’ve loved if that was stretch out a bit more. It was one of my favorite parts, as I adore magical competitions and it was over in no time at all unfortunately. I did really like the overall plot and can’t wait to read more about Maxim.

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Vol. 1: The Crucible – Roberto Aguirre – Sacasa & Robert Hack

Aaah one of my favorite tv shows at the moment! Part 2 of the tv show was released last Friday and I have watched the first 3 episodes. I’m on a family weekend trip so I can’t watch the rest yet but absolutely loved those first couple of episodes. After watching the first part of the show fall 2018 I fell in love with Sabrina and wanted to get the graphic novel right away. It was quite hard to get my hands on it and I ended up with the tv show tie in cover. Since I’m such a big fan of the show, I don’t mind that luckily!

I was very curious to see if the tv show makers followed the graphic novel story or if it was like Riverdale were they follow to very different storylines. While the storyline is different from the tv show there were a lot of similar elements. I liked the deviation as this made for some plot twists I didn’t see coming but enjoyed very much! Especially the ending had me super close to ordering the next volume right away! I flew through the story and will definitely be continuing this series.

The story takes place in the ’60s and the art style fits that time perfectly. Its not my favorite art style but it goes perfectly with the story. The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina are definitely chilling and this is quite a dark story and the art style really enhances that creepy feeling. I think the creators did a great job on this!

Afar – Leila Del Luca & Kit Seaton

I came across Afar a while ago and immediately put it on my wishlist. The cover looked gorgeous in my opinion and I read a chapter sampler that intrigued me right away. I think I got that chapter sampler in a book box.

Last summer Candyce and I went to Amsterdam for a sale at the American Book Store and that’s were I found Afar for a really small price. And last weekend it was finally time to pick it up.

The art style is beautifully done. I loved the colors that were used. There are Arab and African influences and I really enjoyed seeing those. This is definitely a diverse graphic novel, probably the most diverse one I have read so far!

The story idea was super interesting and was the reason I loved the sampler so much. Boetema, one of our main characters can astrally project to other worlds when she’s asleep. This is such a cool idea, but unfortunately this was a smaller part of the story than I would’ve liked it to be. The rest of the story takes place at a world very similar to ours, and Boetema’s brother Inotu plays the biggest role there.

I wasn’t as interested in Inotu’s story as Boetema’s. Because this is only a standalone, both stories weren’t as developed as I would’ve liked and were lacking a bit. I simply wanted more story! There was hardly any character development, and when there was some development it went super fast. I just didn’t really care for Boetema or Inotu. Although I did get very annoyed with their parents! Overall this was enjoyable but it could’ve been so much more.

These were the three most recent graphic novels I read and while they weren’t new favorites I did find 2 series I will definitely be continuing. Have you read any of these? Or do you plan on reading them? Let me know in the comments!

One thought on “Mini Reviews | Comics Edition #9

  1. Oh I LOVED The Crucible! I need to reread that comic soon. Especially where season two of Sabrina just came out 🙂 And I need to get my hands on the VE Schwab comics asap!! The artwork looks amazing!

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