I adored the first volume of Marjorie Liu’s Monstress. Sana Takeda’s art is one of the most stunning that I’ve come across in a comic. At the same time, it’s also unbelievably violent and brutal. I find this pairing somewhat evocative of the Hannibal TV series, which I also loved. (I don’t know what this says about me – that I am ok with gore, provided it’s beautifully presented?) Monstress is set an alternative, matriarchal, steampunk Asia, which is inhabited by humans, anthropomorphic animal gods […]
Going to give this series one more chance, and then I’m out.
I feel like this series is just getting more confusing the longer it goes, and I am less and less interested. It also continues to be overly bleak with no humor at all to lighten it up. The art continues to be gorgeous. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me. It’s been a couple of months (I think) between actually reading it and writing this review, but I seem to recall a pirate ship adventure, and nobody trusting Maika at all, and the monster inside […]
“Oh there ain’t no other way. Baby I was born this way.”
With graphic novels, you can unashamedly say that you bought a book based entirely on its cover. What intrigued me about the cover of Monstress was the stunningly beautiful artwork juxtaposed with the title, which clearly implied something, well, monstrous. What’s inside is a beautifully written high fantasy story that blends Eastern and Western art and deals with issues like war, racism, and slavery and also features wonderfully complex female characters. The story is centered around Maika Halfwolf an Arcanics. Arcanics are human-animal hybrids […]
Intriguing start to this manga inspired fantasy series.
Our titular monstress is seventeen year old Maika Halfwolf, and I’m still not quite sure how I feel about her, to be perfectly honest. Maika lives in a fantastical Asiatic inspired world where women rule, and the world is currently being torn apart by a war between humans and arcanics (magical beings, essentially; it’s more complicated than that). All kinds of magical shit is normal to this world: people with wings, immortality, ancient beings (literally called ancients) who look like animals but aren’t, a race […]