Description:
In a time when the
Industrial Revolution has become an all-out war, Mad Science rules
the World...with mixed success. At Transylvania Polygnostic
University, Agatha Clay was a student with trouble concentrating and
rotten luck. Dedicated to her studies but unable to build anything
that actually worked, she seemed destined for a lackluster career as
a minor lab assistant. But then the University was overthrown and
Agatha was taken aboard the giant airship Castle Wulfenbach ― where
it begins to look like she might carry a spark of Mad Science after
all.
Collects:
NA
Authors: Kaja Foglio and Phil Foglio
Artists:
Phil Foglio and Mark McNabb
Published By: Studio
Foglio; Illustrated edition
Published When:
Dec 3 2013
Parental Rating: PG for comic-book violence
and a dismemberment
Review:
Color comes to Girl Genius, and the story slows down and gets even
more strange.
The art of volume one was done in an almost sepia-toned black and
white. For volume two, they have upgraded to color pages, and the
results are wow! The colors are bold and eye-popping, with vivid reds
and blues, glossy blacks and sickly greens. And of course soft pinks,
since Agatha spends a significant portion of the story in her
underwear.
(see the review of volume one here)
Mark McNabb joins the Foglios on this book and
handles the colors, and demonstrates wisdom and mastery in their
application. He bends the colors to the service of the whole story,
and even reintroduces the sepia tones of volume one, this time in a
richer and more saturated application, when the narrative switches
to historical or flashback passages.
As suggested in the title, the action in this book all takes place
within the limited confines of a giant airship, a floating blimp so
large it's a fortress city unto itself – Castle Wulfenbach. Within
that surprisingly spacious area, the story's pace slows a little at
times, and contains lots of exposition. But the absurdity and wildly
imaginative setting and characters keeps it from dragging.
The action is limited to avoiding guards, or to the flashbacks,
except for one wild sequence in an airplane, plummeting to earth
while two geniuses debate what's wrong with its designs. As in Volume
1, Agatha continues to show signs of being a budding new Spark, while
seeming reluctant to believe it herself or embrace what it means.
We also meet a larger number and wider variety of the
Jagermonsters, and especially notable is von Pinn, a fanged,
leather-clad, terrifying beauty over whom many lesser Jagermonsters
swoon. Her fierceness even earns her custom-shaped word balloons, one
of the many clever details that make this book and this whole series
such a pleasure to read.
And I have not even mentioned the powerful, heroic captive Othar
Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer, who is thrown into the mix with
little development. Surely a teaser, a new plot thread to be woven
into the tale in future volumes.
This is a beautiful, fun, imaginative book with a
rich, layered society and nuanced back-stories to all the characters.
Even more of a delight than the first one! 5 capes.
ISBN-10: 1890856304
ISBN-13:
978-1890856304
Language: English
Pages:
112 pages
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