More Comics Please! Issue #6

More Comics Please! is a space for comic book reviews: think of it like a friend telling you about their latest read! Today’s comics are The Hazards of Love, A Lightness, and Something Is Killing the Children TP, Volume 1.

Content Note: coercive labor and exploitation of immigrants, severance of body parts, surreal situations, death of a loved one, killing, missing child, violence, memory loss

Hazards of Love: Book One: Bright World is truly a comic for all fairy tale lovers! Full of twists and dangerous turns along the journey, this comic will keep you on your toes as you flip through its texture-rich pages.

What It’s About

“Amparo’s deal with the talking cat was simple: a drop of blood and Amparo’s name in order to become a better person. Their mother and abuela would never worry about them again, and they’d finally be worthy of dating straight-A student Iolanthe. But when the cat steals their body, becoming the better person they were promised, Amparo’s spirit is imprisoned in a land of terrifying, flesh-hungry creatures known as Bright World.

With cruel and manipulative masters, and a society that feeds on memories, Amparo must use their cleverness to escape, without turning into a monster like the rest. On ‘the other side,’ Iolanthe begins to suspect the new Amparo has a secret. After the cat-in-disguise vanishes, Iolanthe’s left to search for answers with a no-nonsense medium from the lesbian mafia – the only person who might know the truth about Bright World.”

What Worked for Me

✦ MAN, I loved this story! Everything that I love about fairy tales: the bizarre, the rules and rituals, the value of names and memories as currency, the danger, the fantastic– all of it is in this story! I love that this book never let me fully rest on my heels and always kept me guessing as to what would happen next. Beautifully done!

✦ I loved the character arc for this; it started out kind of hinting that it would be about one kind of arc, but it turns around and smacks you toward the end with a different one! Fabulously done, and yes, I’m trying to be vague on purpose so I don’t spoil it for you lol

✦ I really enjoyed the entire cast of characters in here. Each one was so strong on their own, and everyone had their own motivations and needs throughout. Due to the nature of the world, this led to an abundance of wonderful tension all throughout the story.

✦ I loved that Amparo’s character is the way they are. They don’t try to be something or someone they’re not, and it was such a breath of fresh air to watch them embrace themself even while adjusting to their very difficult surroundings. I loved that their nature was an inherent strength where they are and how they struggled with aspects of it without betraying who they are at heart.

✦ The way Stan Stanley illustrates expressions is delightful; I thoroughly enjoyed the sarcastic looks and exaggerated looks throughout the comic. That and the dry sense of humor from several of the characters kept this from becoming too morbid of a tale.

✦ I loved the weaving of the worlds’ stories together, too. There was a particular section in the book where the timelines all flowed across the page in parallel that I thought was really lovely.

✦ The slow burn romance was really well done!

✦ It was wonderful to see a nonbinary Latine protagonist getting to up to so many shenanigans! I loved the way Amparo wasn’t too concerned about what to label themself and that even when threatening Amparo with being eaten, the creatures made sure not to misgender them lol

✦ I loved the Mexican influences in the art! It was so alive and full of rich textures and vibrant colors and patterns. I imagine a Mexican comic reviewer could go further into detail than I can about the influence, but I definitely enjoyed the aspects I did recognize!

What Didn’t Work for Me

✦ The beginning of the book was a little slow for me, honestly. There was a lot of set up and worldbuilding in the beginning and explaining of rules that I felt kind of slowed the story down a bit, but once we got through that part, it sped up considerably!

✦ The thickness of the line art was difficult for me to process throughout the book. It made it hard for me to distinguish the focus of the panels many times; for example, there were some scenes with El Ciervo in a room where he essentially looked like abstract art on a wall rather than a character. I would have loved to have seen a little pop of color along the edge of the line art in some places that would have helped to make the figures stand out from the scene a bit more. 

I understand this was probably done deliberately as part of a stylistic choice (which makes sense if we’re talking about a world that can’t fully be understood), but as a reader, I found it frustrating and had to convince myself to keep going several times, especially at the beginning when there was so much setting up combined with this style where it all came together to take me out of the moment a lot.

Overall

I give The Hazards of Love: Book One: Bright World 4 out of 5 speech bubbles: the story is incredible and so rich with detail and intrigue, and I can’t wait for book two to come out! There are so many reasons to love this comic, and you should definitely give it a try!

How to Read It

Interested in checking it out for yourself? Here are a few ways you can get your hands on a copy!

Read This Next

If you liked this, check out Mamo TP, The Many Deaths of Laila Starr TP (also in hardcover), and Squad

A Lightness is a short and sweet comic about looking until you find yourself with elements of magic sprinkled throughout.

What It’s About

“There’s this funny thing that happens when you reveal yourself to the people you love and they accept you with their whole hearts. See, without that, I would’ve sought wholeness in other ways. Maybe I could have learned to be content. But without the burden of fear…my mind was now open to possibilities I had never dared dream before.

Follow one person’s journey to ease the Ache in their chest. They find themself chasing an elusive fluttering lightness that seems to be pulling them up into the mountains, through a fantastical landscape toward the sunrise.”

What Worked for Me

✦ This one line absolutely crushed my heart and lifted it at the same time, “But without the burden of fear… my mind was now open to possibilities I had never dared dream before.” The hope and possibility in this one sentence alone, man 🥹 I wish such freedom for us all!

✦ I loved the fact that the family was supportive of the main character’s need to go journeying and that the father even wanted to support them by traveling with them for a while to alleviate their anxiety about journeying alone.  

✦ The color palette and the lightness of the line art work so well to convey the emotions of the unnamed main character. So simple, yet so effective!

✦ Absolutely love that this was a fat character, too. As a fat person, it was really rewarding to see a fat character being associated with lightness and joy and desire. I also loved that they had body hair on them beyond just their legs, too.

✦ I like that we got a full character arc for the main character in a short comic.

✦ I like the ending version of the character and how nebulous it is. It feels a lot like a nonbinary transgender narrative for me, and I enjoy that!

✦ I loved the notion of “journeying” and how it was used in the story as an accepted way of needing to explore oneself in ways different from others. It’s a beautiful sentiment!

✦ I like that s. win searle toyed with the idea of how to portray nebulousness on the page. Using a minimalist approach in this way isn’t something I see often, and it was interesting to see how they explored the theme with it.

What Didn’t Work for Me

✦ The format for this was a little frustrating for me. There are single pages and two page spreads that form this comic, and due to the nature of PDF’s, it meant I had a nice view of the two page spreads, but the text was small and required zooming in at points, and the individual pages were smaller and wouldn’t fill the screen fully, so everything was smaller overall there, too. I think this comic would be better served as a print copy. 

✦ While I appreciate that the lightness of the lines and the minimalism of the scenes were illustrative of the theme, it felt a bit underwhelming for me at times, and I found myself wishing for a bit more substantial line weights, texture, and backgrounds.

✦ I do wish the main and side characters had been given names! Maybe it’s because I just finished another comic with an unnamed protagonist, and I’m having to use a lot of extra words to name characters without naming them, but I found it a little frustrating to not know what to call this person.

Overall

I give A Lightness 3 out of 5 speech bubbles: it was a good read with a heartfelt message.

How to Read It

Interested in checking it out for yourself? Head on over to Sarah Winifred Searle’s Itch.io shop for a digital copy of A Lightness!

Read This Next

If you liked this, check out Between Sand & Sea, When I Was Me: Moments of Gender Euphoria, and Artie and the Wolf Moon

Content note: Gore, blood, body parts, the disappearance and killing of many children, seeing and hearing things that others can’t perceive

Something Is Killing the Children TP Volume 1 is a contemplative, gory mess, and I really enjoyed it. It’s the kind of comic that ponders things you don’t want to ponder, and it’s not afraid to dive into the discomfort of children being killed in brutal and horrific ways, leaving you with nightmare fuel for a while.

What It’s About

“IT’S THE MONSTERS WHO SHOULD BE AFRAID.

When the children of Archer’s Peak—a sleepy town in the heart of America—begin to go missing, everything seems hopeless. Most children never return, but the ones that do have terrible stories—impossible details of terrifying creatures that live in the shadows. Their only hope of finding and eliminating the threat is the arrival of a mysterious stranger, one who believes the children and claims to be the only one who sees what they can see.

Her name is Erica Slaughter. She kills monsters. That is all she does, and she bears the cost because it must be done.

GLAAD Award-winning writer James Tynion IV (The Woods, Batman: Detective Comics) teams with artist Werther Dell’Edera (Briggs Land) for an all-new story about staring into the abyss.”

What Worked for Me

✦ The mystery of the book was excellent; it kept things interesting and had me turning page after page, anticipating what was happening next. 

✦ I loved the colors Miquel Muerto used for this book; it honestly sells me on the whole thing all on its own. The way Muerto switches between the dull colors of the mundane world and the startling splashes of neon red against deep ocean blue or fluorescent green in grizzly scenes with the monsters is really impactful and emphasizes the surreal feeling of the story’s premise.  

✦ The pacing was a mix for me– I think on its own, just with the story, the pacing is great. It doesn’t lose its slack anywhere for me. I was taken out of the moment a lot the first time I read through because of the difficulty I had with the lettering and inking, but the second time I read it, it was a fast paced read.

✦ The characters were interesting and engaging. I particularly like the air of mystery Erica Slaughter has, and I deeply related to how irritating she found her phone’s constant alerts to be lol I thought James Tynion IV did an excellent job of keeping her interesting while still not revealing everything upfront. 

The other characters all felt well developed to me, too. I got the sense that I had been dropped into a fully formed world with plenty of its own backstory built in. We get hints at strained relationships all heightened by the tension of the missing and killed children all around town, and it adds to the undercurrent of dread in a town that seems determined to almost carry on as usual while this nightmare of dying children goes on– sound familiar?

✦ I liked that Erica wasn’t designed to be some sex object, that she was muscular, utilitarian, strong, and intent on her job. She isn’t the kind of woman character who’s been made tough while sacrificing her care for the people she encounters, and I really appreciate that. 

✦ I liked the monsters! They were vicious and strangely shaped with a sense of being unknown and yet familiar to your nightmares. They don’t veer away from the ugliness of killing just because the victims are children.

✦ I have more thoughts about things I liked, but I don’t want to spoil them here, so come back to the comment section after you read it so we can talk about it more!

What Didn’t Work for Me

✦ The lettering was challenging for me in lots of places, which I found really frustrating. To be fair, this could be because I was reading it on my tablet, which is slightly smaller than the print size of the comic. It slowed me down and took me out of the moment when I had to zoom in on text just to get through it. This was especially irritating the first time I read it; I almost didn’t finish the first time because it was so grating. I wish they had been more generous with giving the lettering some breathing room.

✦ I still find this style of comic illustration difficult to read with such heavy inking for shadows and forms. It takes me some time to figure out what’s on the page, and it frustrates me when I’m taken out of the moment to try to process the visuals. This was another factor that nearly had me giving up on the first read through.

✦ There was a scene with a Black character inside the bar at one point, and the way Wether Dell’Edera drew his hair bothered me. I’ve seen Black artists online criticize Black hair being illustrated in this particular way, and it stuck out to me in a book that had few Black characters to begin with.

✦ I could do without the ableist language throughout the book.

Overall

I give Something Is Killing the Children TP Volume One 4 out of 5 speech bubbles: it’s really good, and you should definitely check it out if you’re into horror and don’t mind some gore.

How to Read It

Interested in checking it out for yourself? Here are a few ways you can get your hands on a copy!

Read This Next

If you liked this, check out The Low, Low Woods (content warning for sexual assault), Darlin’ and Her Other Names, and The Nice House on the Lake.

That concludes this month’s issue of More Comics Please! What did you think of today’s comics? Have you read any yourself? Are you itching to go check these out now? Let me know in the comments!

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