A Graphic Year Ends Early

I am admitting defeat. I will not be able to complete A Graphic Year challenge. It got away from me sometime in July. I was scraping by toward the very end of the month but with my new gig and move in August, it all collapsed.

I'm still going to keep reading graphic novels because it's an excellent genre. Currently sitting on my shelf is the final installments of Fables, My Friend Dahmer, Rat Queens 1 & 2, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Legenderry, Smut Peddler 2014, Lumberjanes 1, Paige by Paige, The Wicked + the Divine 1, Leaves on the Wind, The Underwater Welder, Quantum and Woody 1, The Adventures of Apocalypse Al, Black Canary & Zatanna, TNG & Who, Archie Meets KISS, Saga 1, and several different Deadpool stories. 

Plus, with the new Archie and the classic Deadpools all coming out, there's a lot more out there for me to find and enjoy. Below I have the final reviews I was able to generate before everything got away from me.

Week 24 

This week I took on an old Baltimore Comic Con purchase, Peril at Summerland Park.

I love choose your own ending novels and this was no different. A mix of comics and full page text, Peril lets you and 2 of your friends navigate the turn of events when you check out an abandoned amusement park.

I was impressed with the amount of adventure and twists and turns that were packed into such a small book. Charging jungle animals, disappearing roller coaster tracks, paralyzingly arrows, friends, foes, and mystical critters I haven't even heard of.

There was an excellent balance of endings where everyone lives, you meet your doom, or only a few of you make it out alive. I look forward to tackling more of the series.

Week 25-30 

A friend lent me Deadpool and Cable 1-6 which I've been very curious about. While entertaining, it reminded me why I stayed away from superheroes for a long time.

The scope of each story arc was so large, its impact so great, that it felt like it should have been extended. Cable grow in his power and influence so rapidly in the first two trades that I wondered how much else there could be to tell. The further into the series, the more it became what I don't like about superhero stories. 

It became convoluted and harder to follow. Once they started bouncing through worlds following Cable's soul, it started to lose me. I feel like these stories could have been stretched longer, the characters becoming more developed rather than throw one epic storyline into each trade.

Deadpool gets to remember his past and we barely touch on what that means. I've only read a little bit of Posehn but he definitely tries to explore the importance of that. It stopped being character driven and became driven by these extreme plots which meant little because of the shallow characters. The beginning was great, the middle was OK, and the end just felt tedious.