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A review by readingrobin
Sorceline by Sylvia Douyé, Paola Antista
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
Not to be too mean about it, but this was a headache of a comic. Between the six plot threads all going on at once, the jerky, rough transitions between scenes, and the fast pace just culminate in a really disappointing, dizzying read. There also so much telling rather than showing, which on more than one occasion had me going back to certain pages just to remember where certain characters were.
And all the plot twists and turns really didn't help make the story anymore coherent. Just when I thought an issue was solved it was like BAM red herring and another red herring. It feels like these characters are always jumping to conclusions without really considering all the evidence, leading to so many false leads that it was difficult to keep up with.
A little thing that also bothered me was how the comic treated text boxes and speech bubbles as these interchangeable ways of communicating the thoughts and words of the main character. There are moments when okay, this text box contains a thought or continuing a line of dialogue from a past panel, fine. But then there are moments when other characters are replying to that text box in real time, as, from the context of the scene, it was a piece of spoken dialogue, which doesn't make sense from a formatting standpoint. It was just maddening to see and makes certain scenes all the more confusing.
It's such a shame that all of these elements turned me off a comic that has such a wonderful look to it, with imaginative creature designs and beautiful locations with ethereal uses of color.
And all the plot twists and turns really didn't help make the story anymore coherent. Just when I thought an issue was solved it was like BAM red herring and another red herring. It feels like these characters are always jumping to conclusions without really considering all the evidence, leading to so many false leads that it was difficult to keep up with.
A little thing that also bothered me was how the comic treated text boxes and speech bubbles as these interchangeable ways of communicating the thoughts and words of the main character. There are moments when okay, this text box contains a thought or continuing a line of dialogue from a past panel, fine. But then there are moments when other characters are replying to that text box in real time, as, from the context of the scene, it was a piece of spoken dialogue, which doesn't make sense from a formatting standpoint. It was just maddening to see and makes certain scenes all the more confusing.
It's such a shame that all of these elements turned me off a comic that has such a wonderful look to it, with imaginative creature designs and beautiful locations with ethereal uses of color.