A review by beartrapped
The Last Session Vol. 1: Roll for Initiative by Jasmine Walls

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

3.5

Notable for: fun character designs, story within story, interesting adult relationships

This was cute! Mostly picked it up for Dozer's art, and very much not disappointed on that front (although I wish they'd had them draw the sound effects, but Word Art sound effects are a pet peeve of mine), but I enjoyed the story too. Refreshing to read a comic about adult characters with a grounded premise and a character-focused narrative, and I found the D&D inset narrative to be well-integrated and natural feeling overall.

I was glad there was a real conflict with the human characters, but it felt a little underdeveloped-- I wanted to see a bit more focus on Lana's life to establish why she would react so strongly to this friendship being threatened. Because this is meant to be a multi-series, I feel like we could have spared a bit of the other character's lives for the moment to focus on that main point of tension.

Also, I'll call out that I'm personally tired of every book with queer characters including a super dry scene where someone explains a queer identity, in this case asexuality (someone literally gets handed a pamphlet! You can get no drier!).

Would read another volume though, curious to see where it would go. Also god, I love that lizard bard design so much.