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Graphic Novel Review: Monstress, Volume 4 by Marjorie Liu, illustrated by Sana Takeda

Monstress, Volume 4: The Chosen by Marjorie Liu, illustrated by Sana Takeda

Image Comics, 2019

ISBN-13: 978-1534313361

Available: Paperback, Kindle, comiXology

 

Maika Halfwolf and Corvin D’Oro of the Dusk Court travel in search of the young Arcanic Kippa, who was kidnapped at the end of the third volume. Meanwhile, a forced marriage between the Dawn and Dusk Courts is being conducted, with Maika’s childhood friend Tuya marrying  Moriko Halfwolf’s ruthless twin sister and Maika’s aunt.

During their search, Maika and Corvin are abducted by Yvette Lo Lim and a mysterious man bearing the same eye symbol on his chest as Maika’s,  claiming to be her father. They are members of the newly formed Blood Court, a group led by Maika’s father, who is also known as the Lord Doctor. Maika wakes up in unfamiliar surroundings, with a prosthetic arm the Lord Doctor attached to Maika without Maika’s consent. He and the rest of the Blood Court try to convince Maika to join their cause. The Lord Doctor offers to tell her more about her childhood, as well as about Zinn, the Monstrum sharing Maika’s body, and his experience as Zinn’s former host. However, after learning of his terrible experimentations and the cannibal murders he committed that earned him the nickname “The Ghoul Killer”, she isn’t sure that she wants the answers she has been searching for after all.

Meanwhile, Kippa escapes her captors and discovers some of her own past. Her own Arcanic abilities are emerging. When she jumps into a pit running away from the abductors who are taking her to the Lord Doctor, she comes face to face with creatures that emerge from the shadows. Before they can attack her, a Dracul that resembles a giant three-eyed dragon stops them, recognizing her abilities and has conversation with Kippa about loss, slavery, and of the nature of the Monstrum.

Volume 4 collects issues 19 through 24.

Monstress is one of the few comics where I collect individual issues, and one where I find something new when I have gone back to revisit the series. The story is deep and intriguing, and it is easy to miss something in the first reading. Liu is a great storyteller, and this is one of the most intricate plots in a comic series I have ever read. Takeda’s intricate artwork is gorgeous, with character designs and creatures that are both beautiful and terrifying. There are plenty of reasons why Monstress won multiple Eisner Awards and nominated for this year’s Stoker Award Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel category.

Contains: forced marriage, sexual content

Highly recommended

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Posted on April 18, 2020 by , Reply

Graphic Novel Review: Bone Parish, Volume 2 by Cullen Bunn, illustrated by Jonas Scharf

Bone Parish, Volume 2 by Cullen Bunn, illustrated by Jonas Scharf

BOOM! Studios, 2019

ISBN-13: 978-1684154258

Available: Paperback, Kindle, comiXology

 

Bone Parish, Volume 2 follows the Winters family, a New Orleans crime family that created a hallucinogenic drug made from the ashes of the dead. Anyone who takes the drug, called “The Ash”, lives the memories of the deceased. The second volume opens with Grace Winters and the rest of the family attending the funeral of Wade Winters, the youngest sibling, who was killed by a rival cartel. After the funeral, Grace approaches a shadowy figure in attendance who did not approach the other mourners. He is not unfamiliar to her. After all, Andre is her deceased husband. She used the last of her late husband’s ashes for him to be able to attend his son’s funeral.

Throughout the story, Grace starts seeing herself take on Andre’s physical traits, such as seeing his reflection in a mirror where her own should be, and her eyes begin to take on the eerie purple glow that his did when he appeared to her. Her own transformation isn’t the only one occurring with the use of Ash. Other cartels are employing their own people to attempt creating their own strains of the drug, but the results are not the same as the Winters’ product. The “test cases”, typically any drug addict they pick up off the street, are attacked by the memories of the dead who want to go on living. The physical side effects the users experience can only be described as Cronenbergian. While all of this is occurring, Wade’s death has created new rifts. Grace pushes daughter Brigitte to keep creating “The Ash”, especially considering other drug families are trying to create their own strains. Brae constantly berates Grace, Brigitte, and Leon about Wade’s death, the latter of whom he believes is at fault, and about the family business. He is less than prudent and levelheaded when he meets a mysterious woman painted with a Día de Muertos skull, and gets in bed with the enemy, as well as hiring a biker gang for personal protection. Leon, despite his older brother’s tirades and everything else in play that is picking apart already tenuous familial bonds, still believes his late father’s words, that family is the only thing that matters. The question remains, just how much strain can those bonds handle before they are torn apart?

As with the first volume of this series, I am not surprised that Bone Parish, Volume 2 has been nominated for a Stoker Award. Bunn has become one of my favourite writers in the horror genre. He weaves a good yarn, and the artists who are paired with him create fantastic visuals. Scharf’s artwork adds significantly to Bunn’s story. Highly recommended.

Contains: body horror, drug use, gore, murder, sexual content

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

 

Editor’s note: Bone Parish, Volume 2 is a nominee on the final ballot for this year’s Bram Stoker Awards in the category of Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel.

Posted on April 18, 2020 by , Reply

Book Review: Lady Bits by Kate Jonez


Lady Bits by Kate Jonez

Trepidatio Publishing, 2019

ISBN-13: 978-1947654815

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

 

Lady Bits is a collection of stories with struggling female protagonists: daughters, mothers, sisters, young women with dreams, cynical and desperate older women. In addition to their other fears and strategems, almost all of them are living in poverty, without a support system. They are the invisible women and girls, inhabiting the shadows in an uncaring world. Jonez’ spare language leaves space for the reader to wander and wonder through the words.  This means that while some stories, like “Francie”,  where a runaway teenage girl is offered a potentially lucrative job, are predictable, the writing is enough to keep the reader going.  Many of the stories have an imaginative creature, such as a hobgoblin, fairy, or demon, at the center, but in an everyday environment that throws the fantastic into sharp relief. “Mountain”, in which a former diner waitress returns from college to discover the owners’ new baby is a nightmare, is a gruesome example of this. Other stories have protagonists who have an unreliable grip on reality. “Fairy Lights,” in which a mother discovers the perils of partying with the fairies, and “A Thousand Stitches”, in which a young seamstress is encouraged by her colorful coworker to escape to the city, use this to advantage.

Jonez is not afraid to venture into the gruesome and squicky, as she does in “Rules for Love”, in which a woman prepares for an unusual Valentine’s Day with a helping of arsenic and body horror, and in “Envy”, in which a wealthy white woman uses her privilege in disturbing, extreme, and deadly ways. “Accidental Doors”, in which a woman who botched her business partner’s murder finds she can step through portals to the past to fix her mistakes, also gets pretty gory. When Jonez’ women decide to do evil, they aren’t worried about getting their hands bloody.

I did start to feel beaten up by the number of stories featuring murderous or uncaring mothers. “A Flicker of Light on Devil’s Night” and “The Moments Between”, in particular, felt very repetitive, and the choice to put one right next to the other was not well thought-out. Followed by the gripping, if incoherent “Poor Me– And Ted”, this is a trio of stories that nearly did me in from exhaustion.

Other stories in this collection included the colorful “All The Day You’ll Have Good Luck,” an entertaining and exasperating story about a girl who is flattered into a dangerous position by a strange young man;  “Effigy”, in which a job interview for a nanny position goes very, very wrong; “By the Book”, in which a murderous babysitter discovers patience; “Like Night and Day”, in which Marla Ann’s new neighbor turns out to be more dangerous than he seems, although not enough to keep her from inviting him in for sweet tea; “Silent Passenger”, in which a truck driver discovers a way to alleviate her pain and grief over her husband’s death; and “No Fear of Dragons”, in which the narrator encounters a girl who is not what she seems.

It’s nice to see a variety of female characters taking on different roles in the story, instead of always being passive or victims, but I also wish some of the characters had been easier to relate to. Although feelings were communicated clearly, many character motivations seemed unclear, and that made it hard to get into the flow of the story. This isn’t a collection you can just power through; it takes time to explore what’s going on in each story, and it’s difficult for me to do that and also feel the intense emotions Jonez is trying to evoke. Lady Bits is an interesting, if imperfect collection, and moving forward, I hope we’ll see more strong stories with varied female characters.

 

 

Contains: Violence, murder, rape, necrophilia, child murder, terrorism, body horror, sexual situations.

 

Editor’s note: Lady Bits was nominated to the final ballot of the 2019 Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection.

Posted on April 14, 2020 by , Reply
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