Faeries' Landing Volume 3

From the shelf of unread books.

Title: Faeries' Landing
Issue: Volume 3
Date: 2004
Publisher: Tokyopop
Writer: You Hyun, Tim Beedle
Artist: You Hyun
Letterer: Jeanine Han
Editor: Paul Morrissey

Faerie girl Fanta is trying to save human boy Ryang from his curse, which has doomed him to 108 failed relationships, in one of those over-ambitious plotpoints that is hoping that this series will go really, really long. While Fanta watches out for the "evil affinities" that Ryang is destined to attract, her faerie rival Medea is plotting her way back to the throne of Avalon where she has plans of becoming queen.

This had a lot going on, including lots of dialogue and jokes in tiny font, and it had trouble holding my attention. Possibly my bad for starting at Volume 3, but in spite of a decent summary to start things off, I quickly found myself pretty lost. I also had a hard time getting too hooked into the drama around Ryang's cursed lovelife. Medea's intrigues and ambitions for the throne of Avalon were a bit more interesting, but are clearly a secondary plotline. The art was lovely in places, especially when Fanta and Medea were featured. I do have a couple more volumes of this on the tbr shelf, so maybe some familiarity with the characters will help, but this felt more difficult to get into than it needed to be.

Rating: 3.5/10

Cars: The Rookie #1 Free Comic Book Day Edition

A Free Comic Book Day item from the stack of random unread comics.

Title: Cars: The Rookie
Issue: 1 (Free Comic Book Day Edition)
Date: March 2009
Publisher: Boom! Studios
Writer: Alan J. Porter, Mark Waid
Artist: Albert Carreres, Michael Avon Oeming
Colorist: Emily Kanalz
Letterer: Deron Bennett
Cover:  Allen Gladfelter
Editor: Paul Morrissey

This Disney/Pixar tie-in follows the trend of many recent movie-related comics by functioning as a prequel, covering a time period not seen in the films. In this case, the focus is on Lightning McQueen's racing career before the events of the first Cars film. And in this case, it works pretty well.

Using an interview as a framing device, and with Lightning McQueen going full-on unreliable narrator, the reader hears the story of McQueen's qualifying races in McQueen's own words, while the artwork tells the actual story.

This was fun, and kept nicely to the flavor of the movies. McQueen's voice was spot-on as the boastful rookie racing sensation, and the action was amusing.

Writer Alan J. Porter's short editorial expounding on his love of motorsports and its influence on the comic was a nice touch.

Backup story featuring The Incredibles by Mark Waid and Michael Avon Oeming was a fun glimpse, but cut off before things really got interesting.

Rating: 7/10

123 Sesame Street #1

The fourth in my short series of reviews from my son's collection.

Title: 123 Sesame Street #1
Date: 2013
Publisher: Kidzoic / Ape Entertainment
Writer: Jason M. Burns, Jay Fosgitt, Patrick Storck, Paul Morrissey
Artist: Scott Ball, Amy Mebberson, Jay Fosgitt, James Silvani, Scott Underwood, Ryan Davis, Misseri Studio
Colorist: Dustin Evans
Letterer: Deron Bennett, Jay Fosgitt
Editor: Jason M. Burns, Aaron Sparrow
Cover:Amy Mebberson

This opens with a very clever feature: A guide for kids on how to read comics, presented by Elmo with guest appearances by some of his friends. It works pretty well, and is gets the job done in one page.

The main story in this issue comes next, and it's the story that was previously printed in Kidzoic's 2013 Free Comic Book Day offering, which I reviewed here. Liked it then and still like it. The story features Super Grover teaching Super Elmo a lesson in heroism, and how to be a hero without needing flashy powers. It's a well told story with humor and heart.

The remaining stories take the theme of imagination that was introduced in the Super Elmo segment and run with it, exploring it from several different angles and in several art styles. It is all very cute and they do a nice job of playing the different variations on the theme. The mix of lengths of stories is also good for reading out loud since there are plenty of stopping points if you want to read less than the whole comic.

This was a good start to the series. It kept to the flavor of Sesame Street and did a nice job of expanding on the story that had previously been published.

The copy I bought for the Kiddo is the Newbury Comics retailer cover variant for this issue.

Rating: 7.5/10