Wayward Kindred by Allison O’Toole

Wayward Kindred
By: Allison O’Toole

Monstrous families both spooky and sweet

They say that blood is thicker than water, but you may wish it weren’t, if your mom has to drink animal blood to survive. Home is where the heart is, even if your sister lives in another city–and is a shape-changing monster. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, so how can you know who you’re supposed to be if your parents are a human and a vampire? – Goodreads

Following the previous anthology Wayward Sisters, this next Toronto Comics anthology is Wayward Kindred which expands to all kinds of creative stories stemming from kins. Much like its other anthologies, this one has probably the greatest diversity and variety in its stories bringing in different types of monsters and creatures, which without further research, stems from different country’s lores and such (mostly from memory from other things I have read or heard about). There are different art styles and different forms of execution for its stories.

Consisting of 17 stories in this graphic novel anthology with a diverse group of writers and illustrationists, there’s a lot to love and probably the anthology so far that has a lot of stories that stand out in comparison to previous anthologies released. With that said, while I won’t be reviewing all the stories in the anthology, here’s a quick rundown of the ones that stood out to me and a little capsule review in no particular order.

Long-Distance Sisters: This story circles around an older sister that only finds the courage to tell her younger sister about her differences. The younger sister promises to be there for here and in the end, as the older sister has to go away and their communication becomes less, the siblings love is still there. This one shines absolutely from the poignant story that it tells between these two sisters and just through simple words and illustrations, the connection between the two exceeds their differences or distance.

The Egret Widow: Beautiful illustrations pair this story where an aunt recounts the story of her past to her niece while taking her Egret form to fight the serpents to protect the land. Whether its the illustration or the story itself, there’s a lot to love about it. Almost reminds me of the Fantasy Chinese Dramas where it involves people taking forms of other beings as their spirit.

The God of Roadside Memorials: A lovely art style shows off this story about mourning the death of a loved one from a roadside accident as the god takes them away. This story has no dialogue and just its illustrations that tell the story from one panel to the next.

Grain Mother: While I’m not exactly sure what the story is for this one, it rides a parallel between a story shown at the bottom of the page in a blue strip of comic panels and the more dark camp setting on the top. It looks like some kind of lost children or something but while I can’t quite piece the two together as the blue portion doesn’t really have any dialogue, the kids and the interaction at the top definitely shows something a little more and was pretty enjoyable to read overall. Plus, I think the whole parallel story is pretty unique.

Black, White, And Walks With The Night: As a vampire halfling approaches her sixteen year old birthday, her family holds a party that invites her prep school friends, her home friends and her vampire family. As she fears putting the two separate parts of life together and how they wouldn’t get along, she also needs to think about whether she has the vampire element in her that should awaken on her sixteenth birthday but she soon realizes that both parts make up her as a person and a vampire. The art style here is really nice and the colors are very vibrant. Plus, the story takes a fun and positive angle.

That’s something like the Top 5 of this anthology for Wayward Kindred. To be fair, I swapped stuff around quite a bit to get that list since every story has its own merit and most of them were pretty fun and unique. Some had some oddity to it but the whole execution with how the comic is shown is pretty unique like From The Ground Up. Demons from the New Dimension and Cursed Uncle Teoscar is more comedic and light-hearted overall. Then there’s a cute friendship from Words between a creature and a little kid. Last one to mention which almost is like a different type of belief in creatures and spirits (maybe?) is Common Grounds and Various Teas which was pretty cool also.

The point is that there’s a lot to discover with this anthology. While most anthologies will have better and worse stories, this one overall was ranging from good to awesome, nothing that really felt off or didn’t seem to work or anything, which is always great.

Other graphic novels reviewed from Toronto Comics:

Yonge At Heart (Toronto Comics #4)
Osgoode as Gold (Toronto Comics #5)

Tranquil Dreams Podcast #9 What’s Up 2021 Week 16

Welcome to the next episode of Tranquil Dreams Podcast! Its time to go back to a weekly recap for the What’s Up segment as I discuss what I’ve been currently reading, playing, watching and binging. This past week had a few film rewatches and a discussion of my love for Netflix guilty pleasure TV as well as my thoughts on some Chinese TV series that I wrapped up: A Murderous Affair in Horizon Tower and The Sword and the Brocade. Some of the few things that I discussed in this episode along with a touch on the lesser categories this week in reading and playing. 

Hope you enjoy!

Related Links

Enola Holmes – Film Review
Anna and the Apocalypse – Film Review
The Circle (Season 1) – TV Binge
Too Hot To Handle (Season 1) – TV Binge

Music in the Episode:
There It Is by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4519-there-it-is
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Listen to the Show:
Anchor
Spotify
Google Podcasts
Breaker
RadioPublic

What’s Up 2020: Week 48

Another week flew by! Only a few weeks until the end of 2020! Busy times, right? Things are doing alright the past week as everything was fairly balanced. Some new, some old! More details in each of the sections below!

READING

Currently reading: Wayward Kindred

Reading took a little bit of a back seat as I was getting back into some gaming, mostly because of the Xbox Game Pass acquisition. I did start up Wayward Kindred and its a graphic novel so should be done soon. Still the standards that I expect of it.

PLAYING

• Wandersong

Currently playing: Gnog

Seeing as I already hinted on gaming in the section above, I might as well jump straight to the chase. Right after acquisition of the Xbox Game Pass, I realized that Wandersong was one of the games leaving on December 1st so scrambled to get it started. While I didn’t end up finishing the game, it was still a rather fun experience. I don’t think it had much more to offer from where I was but seeing as I didn’t finish the game, I won’t be reviewing it just to keep things fair. Still, its a fun musical platformer. Pretty basic overall with controls but a little getting used to for the music elements with the controller’s right stick especially in one of the later puzzles.

I also started up another incredibly fun and feel-good puzzle game called Gnog that I picked up during the Autumn Steam Sale. Its worth all the $2 (or something) that it cost me and so much more. The design is so colorful and the puzzles are pretty fun. I have one more level to go and some hidden achievements to hopefully unlock to 100% the game. Its so enjoyable that I actually do want to redo the levels.

WATCHING

• To All The Boys P.S. I Still Love You (2020 rewatch, Review)
• The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two (2020)
• Halloween (2018)

Not super exciting on the movie front. The next week should be better as a lot more Christmas/holiday movies have been released. I did a quick rewatch of To All the Boys 2. The new watches go to newly released sequel The Christmas Chronicles: Part 2 which was pretty fun overall. That’s definitely the highlight for this week. Now, if someone could sell some of those elf plushes, I’d buy them.

The second movie is 2018’s Halloween which I’ve heard some good stuff. Honestly, I have some mixed feelings about it although its better than some of the sequels already made. I’ll talk about it later in a double feature or something in more details.

BINGING

• Professional Single (2020)
• Detective Chinatown (2020)
• Sugar Rush Christmas (Season 2, 2020)

Currently binging: Our Song S2, Meeting Mr. Right S3, You Are So Sweet, Sing or Spin S2, Detective College S3, Everybody Stand By S2, The Wolf, Forget You Remember Love

I’ve been on a quest to catch up on some TV that I missed. I might have mentioned it in the Adventures post or last week’s What’s Up. I checked out Detective Chinatown which was 8 episodes long so very quick to binge on iQiYi site. Sugar Rush Christmas’s second season also came out and its more of the same but was pretty fun as always and of course, my highlight for last week is the highlight this week as that was a super fun series. With that said, I’m changing my TV binge strategy since there’s too much backlog so I’m going to work on these TV binge in priority and work my way backwards.

Nothing new in the variety shows department however in the quest for catching up on TV drama, I started up Forget You Remember Love which is a China remake of 2005 Taiwanese series Prince Turns To Frog. I can’t remember the original anymore but I believe its on Netflix. This year has been a whole lot of 2000s Taiwanese series remakes, it would seem. I just wonder how relevant 2000s storylines work today since for myself, its already a lot of “been there done that” just longer in length.

As a side note, I’m working on how to slot in a tentative schedule for all the TV binges that I’d like to post so hopefully see some more of those posts going up.

That’s it for this What’s Up!
What have you been watching/reading/playing/binging?

What’s Up 2020: Week 47

Welcome to another Weekly recap! Week 47 friends! Its almost the end of 2020 and winter is definitely arrived for us as we’re snowing outside as this posts goes up! Its been a decent week overall. Sorting out a few things and finding time to do some other bits and pieces of stuff. Work is still a bit wild so I’m taking it easy on the blogging front so its been fair and few for posting schedule (which let’s admit is close to non-routine at this point). Let’s check it out!

READING

Currently reading: Wayward Kindred

I haven’t actually started it but I figured I needed something to cleanse my palate from reading novels so I wanted to check out my latest graphic novel addition from TO Comics that I had backed for Kickstarter. They always publish really awesome content but they had mentioned that COVID-19 has caused some potential issues so hopefully, it won’t be the end. I haven’t gone back to check on the news regarding the TO Comics situation. Excited to start this one up.

PLAYING

• Typoman: Revised

We finished an entire game in one sitting on Saturday night which was crazy. Its been a while since we’ve done that. Typoman: Revised is a pretty fun platformer. Short and sweet for the most part. Its fairly straight-forward and plays with the use of battling with words. The words do get a little more repetitive by the end as to which to make but the final battle is about quick reflexes so that was pretty fun. I’ll get a review on Game Warp soon. Game Warp activity should be getting back soon with written reviews as our main focus and the podcast being discussion content but we are organizing schedule to make it all work out right now. Too many projects, too little time..haha!

WATCHING

• Kevin Hart: Zero F**ks Given (2020)
• Dumplin’ (2018)
• Work It (2020)
• The Princess Switch: Switched Again (2020)
• The Crossing (2018)

This week has been pretty great on the watching front. A good pile of fun stuff. Kevin Hart’s latest Netflix Comedy special is very to the times as the audience is all wearing masks plus, its overall a fun time. Some bits worked a little less but that’s normal in any stand-up comedy show. I had a lot of laugh out loud moments so for me, that’s already pretty good.

On the movie front, there were some meh movies but I’ll talk about Princess Switch’s sequel for next month’s Christmas rundown. The movies that I’ve been watching on repeat a lot in the background or whatnot is Dumplin’ and The Crossing. Dumplin’ is a feel-good movie through and through and The Crossing is this indie Chinese film that is done so well. Every time I watch it, I see these subtle details that make it even better. Really awesome stuff! If anything, its made me really focus on hunting down some indie Chinese cinema. There seems to be a lot of hidden gems and some upcoming talent to discover.

BINGING

Currently binging: Meeting Mr. Right S3, You Are So Sweet, Professional Single, Walk Into Your Memory, Our Song S2, Sing or Spin S2, Detective College S3, Everybody Stand By S2, The Wolf, Nothing But Thirty

Everything I’m watching is fairly decent although I’m debating whether to finish Walk Into Your Memory right now as its starting to lose its appeal halfway through. Professional Single and You Are So Sweet are my faves as its really just sweet romances overall but Professional Single is ending soon so I figured I’d share that one since the pairing is really cute.

As for new series, I started up a ton of new things, the only two that will stay right now is The Wolf which was a surprise drop that came with a lot of news which is why it caught my attention. Plus, its the first series of Sean Xiao released after the dumb news stuff that happened in February 2020 which I believe might still be stirring up another wave of stupid, but hey, I support the guy since I don’t think the situation is his fault. This series has high potential to be those revenge and love stories which I might find frustrating. Right now, its still okay. We will see since Sean Xiao hasn’t even showed up yet. I’m hoping his existence will help since I’m really not enjoying the main actress’s acting style. Some issues but nothing detrimental just yet since its only 6 episodes in.

With that said, I decided to finally start Nothing But Thirty because that was the breakout series this year about three ladies in their 30s experiencing different things. It churned up a lot of talk and its been recommended to me so I figured that I’d check it out. I’ll report back when I get further whether I think its worth all the chat.

That’s it for this week’s recap!
What have you been watching/playing/reading/binging?

Book Review: Archie, Volume 6 by Mark Waid

Archie, Volume 6
By: Mark Waid & Audrey Mok (Illustrator)

After the events of Volume 5, this next volume sees the last book that is written by Mark Waid in this revamp of the Archie’s comics as a more graphic novel style. Volume 6 sees everyone trying to sort themselves out in time for homecoming whether its Archie trying to find a date, Veronica and Betty finding a friendship together or the Blossom siblings dealing with their family issues, things all coincide into the homecoming having a major event that shakes everyone up.

The art style and the change in its direction of the Archie comics has definitely been the highlight of this revamped story. It works on many levels and for fans like myself, who grew up with the much more comic-looking version, these books have been a joy to have matured with my own tastes. Suffice to say that this volume takes a much more drastic and dramatic end game with homecoming having a lock-down with a gun man ready with his own family issues to do some pay back. Its a much darker turn of events that somehow has its space because this version is more of a graphic novel and allows for something with that sort of flair and danger elements and changes the game from the more lighthearted and somehow binds the tone of Archie and the series Riverdale into the darker area.

However, this volume did bring in a lot of other elements. Somehow, its focus on Archie seems to have faded a little in the midst of the set-up of the whole situation making it fall a little short of the normal good pacing that it would have but giving it more on the other characters as well. It is nice to see that all the characters have their spotlight in the midst of this story as everyone scrambles to do what they need to do for the dance. In the world of high school students, it does feel like the little things like finding a date that will come through while letting the characters remain true to their nature. This time, all the characters do have their individuality especially as Betty and Veronica find themselves and their friendship while getting over Archie and as Archie tries to find a date, his usual clumsiness gets in the way with everything. There’s still a lightheartedness to the story throughout up until the big final dramatic bit.

There’s a lot to love with what Mark Waid has achieved in this volume (and the previous 5) which does have so much of a different feeling while still managing to use these wonderful characters from the original Archie comics and breathing new life to them. Of course, Archie by Mark Waid may be done but the revitalization continues in Archie by Nick Spencer and its all up in the air how that will be as the art style seems to also have changed.

What’s Up 2020: Week 3

Week 3 of 2020 has come to an end and its been something of a weather bomb. Luckily, we didn’t lose any power so things proceeded as it should..mostly. I’m having some other issues that is somewhat hindering some writing and whatnot so its been a slower week than usual. Not to mention, the desire to sit in front of the computer has been a little less as Chinese New Year preparations started as well. Let’s see what’s going on!

READING

• Archie, Vol.6

Currently reading: Buried In My Past

After a few reading rushes, I decided to take a little break and read a graphic novel. The reboot Archie comics set like a graphic novel and with a somewhat darker story (still not quite as dark as the TV series) has been one that feels like a refreshing update to the characters, making the more modernized. There’s a lot to like about it as it is helmed by Mark Waid. Volume 6 is the last one that will be helmed by Mark Wait for these Archic comics but will be handed over to someone else for the next one. Review for this one coming up!

PLAYING

• Glass Masquerade (review)

Currently playing: Overcooked 2, The Pedestrian

Wrapped up the base game of Glass Masquerade on the weekend and have been debating getting the DLCs but its been kind of getting in the way of the actual gaming that I need to do to record the next Game Warp podcast. You can check out the review for Glass Masquerade as that’s already done. Its a bit short but the game isn’t too complex either.

The husband and I are still working on Overcooked 2. We usually stretch it out quite a bit as we only play on the weekends. I think we’re more than halfway done at this point. At the same time, I started up The Pedestrian which is an indie puzzle game that I had backed on Kickstarter 2 or 3 years ago which is finally getting released on January 29. As backers, we got the game in advance, which is great. I’ll be playing that and hopefully getting a review out for next week or something.

WATCHING

• Short Term 12 (2013)
• Mike Birbiglia: Thank God For Jokes (2017)
• Leslie Jones: Time Machine (2020)
• Deep Blue Sea 2 (2018)
• Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

Its been a tad stressful at work so I’ve been honestly just busy with that and not watching a ton of movies as they don’t work in companion to work as much, especially first time viewings. With that said, I like to watch/listen to stand-up comedies. I can’t say the two I chose were really my cup of tea but they had some good bits. While Short Term 12 got added into viewing list as it left Netflix Canada and that review is coming up in a double feature. Other than that, Deep Blue Sea 2 literally just got added to Netflix and of course, I had to see how bad it was. I’m not being negative but the original is one of my favorites so its best to keep the expectations low and it became as a monstrous weekend as we also caught up with Godzilla: King of the Monsters which is a kick-ass movie. It was so awesome!

BINGING

• The Circle (Season 1, 2019)

Currently binging: Who’s the Murderer 5, Ashes of Love

The Circle’s 3 week competition finally ended. I’m working on the TV binge for it as its an interesting little social media competition to talk about, both as a structure, the contestant choices as well as the mechancis as well as the concept of this being a social experiment which all has elements to talk about. Let’s just say that I wouldn’t be opposed to another season of these. TV is fairly calm right now as I’m trying to do some wrapping up on different things and Who’s the Murderer 5 is currently ongoing so only updating an episode a week and Ashes of Love is over 60 episodes and I’m pretty much halfway and things are getting really good, so I’m focusing on that.

However, focus will be cut short when Eternal Love’s sequel, Three Lives Three Worlds: Pillow Book (also titled recently Eternal Love of Dream), starts up next week and well, Handsome Siblings got acquired by Netflix and is releasing new episodes on weekly basis. All very exciting things!!

That’s it for this What’s Up for Week 3!
What have you been reading/watching/playing/binging?

Blog Tour:The Serpent-Bearer and the Prince of Stars by C.S. Johnson (Review/Giveaway)

The Serpent-Bearer and the Prince of Stars
By: C.S. Johnson

Publication Date: November 7, 2018
Genre: Manga Style/Graphic Novel
Length: 30 pages

SYNOPSIS

A tiresome task.

A deceptive dragon.

A prince that changes everything.

Ophiuchus is a celebrated warrior of the Celestial Kingdom and a warrior among the Stars. He has been always been a dutiful servant of the Prince of Stars. So when the prince asks him to watch over the crafty serpent, Naga, Ophiuchus agrees. But as time passes and discouragement—both from Naga and others—Ophiuchus wonders if the Prince of Stars was right in asking him to take on the burdens of his task.

Will Ophiuchus honor his duty, or give into his heart’s weariness?

Add to Goodreads

REVIEW

The Serpent-Bearer and the Prince of Stars is a fantasy graphic novel set in the world of the zodiacs. This story is about Ophiuchus who doesn’t only have the feud of the rest of the zodiacs against him for one reason or another but also the Prince of Stars has burdened him with the task of monitoring Naga, a deceptive serpent who constantly is in disagreement with him. Naga is representative of the evil in the world or perhaps on a lesser note, simply a disapproving negative thoughts that become a burden over time. Through the 30 pages or so of this graphic novel, the story brings together the obvious comparison of the story’s literal burden to the heavier mental burdens surrounding a person and whether and how to let it go. That message alone is the worthy of a lot of value as it instills the positives and has Ophiuchus, struggling to let go of the burden and even embrace the positives and freedom.

With that said, to be able to deliver fairly engaging characters, especially Ophiuchus and Naga as well as The Prince of Stars all give this fantasy a nice depth and development. Its only 30 pages so both the pacing and the execution are tight. It has a lot of other characters, the rest of the zodiac notably, but they only pop in with their random thoughts and opinions. Its gives their character context and all it really does need to do.

Simple as it is, quick as the story flows by, the animation is nice but not quite at its full potential. The writing style also still has a bit of improvement to flow some dialogue better. Its not exactly manga but the fantasy elements do give it that extra perk. It also lacks a little to be a full-on graphic novel, perhaps its the art style or the story style itself. It sits in the middle. It would be nice to see C.S. Johnson take on more of these while trying to commit to either or of the styles. Still, the ideas and creative aren’t to be dismissed and it will be interesting to see what works are in the horizon.

Score: 3.5 (3 on Goodreads)

Purchase Link
Amazon

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

C. S. Johnson is the award-winning, genre-hopping author of several novels, including young adult sci-fi and fantasy adventures such as the Starlight Chronicles, the Once Upon a Princess saga, and the Divine Space Pirates trilogy. With a gift for sarcasm and an apologetic heart, she currently lives in Atlanta with her family. Find out more at http://www.csjohnson.me

Website
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GIVEAWAY

Win a Print Copy of The Serpent-Bearer and the Prince of Stars
Follow the link HERE

Blog Tour Organized by:

R&R Book Tours

What’s Up – Week 28: Fantasia Films Take Over!

Fantasia Festival has started at the tail end of the week. Other than the TV binge, everything else will progress slowly for the next three weeks as movies flourish. With that said, let’s see whats up!!

READING

• The Serpent-Bearer and the Prince of Stars by C.S. Johnson

Currently reading: Within by Clare C. Marshall

Light reading is definitely in the picture. As I finished up The Serpent-Bearer graphic novel, the review only goes up later with the blog tour. After Montreal Comiccon, I decided its high time to get around to last year’s book purchases and make it to this year’s sometime this year preferably. Within is the first one to read, mostly because its a lighter book to carry around as I venture around long treks to the festival with my Chromebook.

PLAYING

Currently playing: Linelight

Currently hooked on Linelight, a minimalist indie puzzle game that I picked up during the Steam Summer sale. It definitely lives up to expectations and has an amazing soundtrack. I’m still in the first world of puzzles so its going to be a while until I finish it but its a nice gaming dose everyday.

WATCHING

• The Hate U Give
• Creed 2

Fantasia Festival movies

• Little Monsters (review)
• Vivarium (review)
• Extreme Job (review)
• 1BR
• The Wonderland (review)
• Paradise Hills (review)

With Fantasia about, its hard to not pick one of the movies that I’ve seen at the festival and hope that it circulates soon to a big screen or digital or something or another. I can’t say that I’ve seen anything too horrible this week however my first movie at Fantasia definitely had the best balance, execution and pacing out of the all the movies in the first 4 days of the festival. Almost all the reviews should be up so you can check out the links above in case you missed any of them. I can’t not give a mention to The Hate U Give which was an amazing movie (and makes me want to read the book) while Creed 2 was a disappointment. As for Fantasia, other than Little Monsters winning my heart, Paradise Hills was also pretty neat with some fantastic ideas especially for the sci-fi fantasy fans out there.

BINGING

• “Your Highness” The Class Monitor

Currently binging: Love Signal 2, River Flows to You, Go Go Squid!, The Coming One III

Your Highness Class Monitor ended early in the week. I have some thoughts about this one and it had a lot to do with a change in perspective in how I felt about the characters and a bit of disjointedness in the series. I have a huge delay in TV binge right now that I’m working hard to catch up on but I might get this one done before, if I find time. However, in the currently binging is mostly new shows as I start River Flows to You and Go Go Squid!, the latter definitely winning my heart so far.

That’s it for this week’s What’s Up!
What’s are you reading/watching/playing/binging?

Fables, Vol. 2 Animal Farm by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham & Steve Leialoha

Check out the Fables, Volume 1 review HERE.

Fables, Volume 2: Animal Farm
by: Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham (artist) & Steve Leialoha (artist)

Ever since they were driven from their homelands by the Adversary, the non-human Fables have been living on the Farm—a vast property in upstate New York that keeps them hidden from the prying eyes of the mundane world. But now, after hundreds of years of isolation, the Farm is seething with revolution, fanned by the inflammatory rhetoric of Goldilocks and the Three Little Pigs. And when Snow White and her sister Rose Red stumble upon their plan to liberate the Homelands, the commissars of the Farm are ready to silence them—by any means necessary! – Goodreads

Its been almost exactly 2 years since I reviewed Fables Volume 1. Volume 2 takes place a little while after the first volume’s events as Red Rose gets her community service sentence for the previous book’s events to go on a trip with her sister Snow White to the Farm to check on what’s going on there. Its when the revolution happens and Snow White gets caught up in the situation as things go from bad to worse. The story here is a lot of fun. It reminisces a twist on not only further fairy tale characters from Goldilocks and the Three Bears to Three Little Pigs and makes them more vulgar than innocent but also a take on Animal Farm, hence the title of volume 2 with the revolution of the animals to want more and to overturn the Adversary which looms over them. It dives deeper into the Fables world with just this revolution alone.

Retaining much of its art style and story writing, Volume 2 still has a lot of its charm. I can’t say that its quite as fun as the first dive into Volume 1. I can’t quite grasp what felt like it didn’t live up to it. Maybe its because I really like the Bigsby Wolf character and this volume mostly revolved around Snow White. However, to be fair, it gave us a better look at this female protagonist and she is much different from other Snow Whites that has been brought to life in fairy tale spinoffs and movies and TV series. It always fascinates me how these fairy tale characters can have so many faces and how Snow White is always used. Regardless, she is a decent choice. In some ways though, the goal here was to give a backstory on the bond between the sisters, Snow White and Red Rose while also giving a little deeper look at Red Rose.

There’s not a whole lot to say about Volume 2. I still think the best part is the art style and the dialogue and the story that it tells. Pity that The Wolf Among Us Season 2 won’t be happening on video games but at least there’s still more volumes of Fables to read (hopefully) soon, once I get a chance to pick up the next one.

Archie, Vol 4 by Mark Waid & Pete Woods (illustration)

You can see the reviews for previous volumes:

Archie Vol. 1
Archie, Vol. 2
Archie, Vol. 3

Archie, Vol. 4
by: Mark Waid & Pete Woods (illustration)

The fourth volume of the Archie series features the headline-making comic event ‘Over The Edge,’ where the lives of Archie and his friends are forever changed. – Goodreads

The foreword of this volume starts about this book having a pivotal moment that happens. With that said, it seems to be something to look forward. At this point, its already done a lot right. Every volume has crafted these characters that we love but modernized them and given it the graphic novel treatment. The art has been fantastic and each issue also brings out a different story for each of the characters.

Volume 4 is a pretty solid volume. We go through Veronica coming back from boarding school and having to find back her rhythm with Archie in their relationship while still having resistance from her father. Betty tries to move on and starts to have a bond with Dilton. At the same time, Archie and Reggie’s feud gets worse. Archie and Jughead both are really quirky characters and still inject humor but there is a more than usual switch of tone here as we barrel to the ending which gives us a rather heartbreaking moment. The way the story sets up about how each character finds out about the situation is a really clever move. Its gives this life to Riverdale. There is a real change in pace also because there is essentially more drama going on as well. At the same time, the different issues here have focus on a wider range of characters and not just the four main ones like for Dilton for example. Its a nice way to change the angle every once in a while.

Up to this point and building from the first three volumes, it was time to give the story a real push in a new direction for its characters. Something really life-changing and I appreciated every bit of it. It captures a lot of those spontaneous decisions a teenager (or honestly possibly anyone) can make that end up having unexpected consequences outside of your own realm of control. That sets up the stage for some growing up for everyone in Volume 5 and I am looking forward to see how it moves from this ending.

I have Volume 5 so I’ll be jumping into that right away!
Have you read any of the Archie Comics?