Reviews

Spy Seal Volume 1: The Corten-Steel Phoenix by Rich Tommaso

tfui's review

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adventurous mysterious fast-paced

3.0

jekutree's review

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4.0

Exactly as advertised. A Spy Seal.

joshgauthier's review

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3.0

*Galley received from Image*

Objectively, I feel like this wasn't a great comic. However, it operates with enough ridiculous, self-aware flair that I found myself enjoying the experience anyway.

lordcheez's review

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3.0

Tintin-esque and fine, less charm than Herge, but fine.

rickyvigil's review

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3.0

The art is fantastic! The linework is very clean, the color palette is perfectly selected, and I love the general style Tommaso's anthropomorphized characters.
As other reviews have stated, the narrative is somewhat choppy in parts--there are a few moments in the book that I thought would be explained in later pages, but they never are--and the characters have very little depth. Still, I'm invested enough to give this series one more shot.

katiecatbooks's review

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2.0

Political. Adult. Disconnects.

Story: Our story begins with Malcolm the seal and Sylvia the bird discussing world politics and visiting an art gallery, which leads to Malcolm becoming a British spy and going on a spy adventure.

Language: Based on themes and sexual references, this is aimed at adults, despite the Tintin looking cover. Overly filled with stereotypes of all sorts and attempts at dry humour, it ends up just falling flat. The pacing is also really strange as action sequences are condensed into just a few frames, sometimes making it unclear as to what is even going on.

Characters: Each of the characters is an animal and for the most part irrelevant as to what animal. There's a huge disconnect as characters from the beginning just disappear while dozens of new ones show up for just a page or two. Also all the women look like drag queens.

I picked this up as its categorized in many places as a middle grade graphic novel, but instead it's just a poorly done adult graphic novel.

mistyfoot19's review

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3.0

Overall a pretty cute take on British spying with anthropomorphic animals instead of humans. A quick read, and overall I liked it pretty well :)
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