Review | Lumberjanes, Vol.2: Friendship to the Max by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis and Brooke Allen

Lumberjanes, Vol.2: Friendship to the Max

by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis and Brooke Allen

My Rating: 

Jo, April, Mal, Molly, and Ripley are not your average campers and Miss Qiunzella Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet's Camp for Hardcore Lady-Types is not your average summer camp. Between the river monsters, magic, and the art of friendship bracelets, this summer is only just beginning. Join the Lumberjanes as they take on raptors and a sibling rivalry that only myths are made of.

Check out my review of Lumberjanes, Vol.1: Beware the Kitten Holy here!

I wasn't 100% sure if I was going to read the second volume of Lumberjanes, because while I enjoyed the first volume I didn't think it was anything amazing. I'm glad I did decide to carry on, though, because this volume was a lot of fun, and I definitely enjoyed it more than I enjoyed the first.

One of the big problems I had with the first volume was that I found it very hard to differentiate between the five girls, but I think the second volume did a much better job of giving each of them different personalities; I particularly loved Jo, Molly and Mal, and I like Jen a lot, too.

There are two things I really love about this series: the first is the sense of humour, which just tickles me, and the second is the amount of colour crammed into each and every page. It's so much fun to look at because there's never a boring page, even if the characters aren't doing anything particularly interesting in that scene.

I also can't fault a story that's so enthusiastic about female friendships, and how important friendship is, even if it is sometimes a little cheesy.

The only reason I didn't rate this volume any higher is simply because the plot was just a bit... odd. I didn't see it coming at all, which in many ways is a good thing, but it seemed a bit random. I dunno. I enjoyed it more than the first volume, but compared to other graphic novels out there Lumberjanes still hasn't wowed me yet. I think I'll continue with the series, though!

Review | Lumberjanes, Vol.1 by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis and Brooke Allen

Lumberjanes, Vol.1

by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis and Brooke Allen

My Rating: 

At Miss Qiunzilla Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet's camp for hard-core lady-types, things are not what they seem. Three-eyed foxes. Secret caves. Anagrams. Luckily, Jo, April, Mal, Molly, and Ripley are five rad, butt-kicking best pals determined to have an awesome summer together... And they're not gonna let a magical quest or an array of supernatural critters get in their way! The mystery keeps getting bigger, and it all begins here. 

Maybe it's just me, but lately I haven't really been wowed by anything I've read. As soon as I learned about Lumberjanes I wanted to get my hands on a copy of it; the idea of a summer camp in which a group of teenage girls fight monsters sounded right up my street, so I preordered it, and after I fell in love with Rat Queens and Ms. Marvel earlier this year I was eager to pick up another graphic novel full of ladies!

Sadly, I was a little disappointed with this one. That doesn't mean I didn't like it, because I did. More than anything I thought this was very cute; the art was cute, the characters were cute, and the sense of humour was very cute. It didn't make me laugh in the way Rat Queens does, but I'd be a big fat liar if I said it didn't coax the odd grin out of me. Plus, if I'm being honest, it was quite nice to sit back with a graphic novel where the whole world wasn't in danger.

In fact Lumberjanes, for me, felt very reminiscent of some of the fun animes I watched during my teens, such as School Rumble and Ouran High School Host Club; entertaining, lively stories that bordered on silly but managed not to go overboard by adding in dashes of tragic backstory or issues that brought the characters tumbling into our reality. Lumberjanes is no different. Yes, the humour is gloriously cheesy and there are monsters, but it's also another wonderfully diverse series including POC and LGBT* characters, and that always makes me happy.

I was just expecting something more from it. I wanted it to completely surprise me like Rat Queens did, which might well be why it didn't. I didn't find the characters as memorable as the ladies in Rat Queens; despite all of them looking completely different, I struggled to distinguish them from one another and still probably couldn't tell you even one of their names. I think a lot of this has to do with all of them sharing the same sense of humour, which was a very fun sense of humour, but it didn't make it any easier to tell them apart. I felt very much like these were characters rather than living, breathing people.

However, this is only the first volume and there's certainly a lot of potential for some great character development. Perhaps I'm just being a little hard on it!

So Lumberjanes didn't blow me away, but I did enjoy it and I will be carrying on with the series, and if you prefer your stories to be more playful than end-of-the-world epic then this is a series for you!

TBR | Graphic Novels

I read two graphic novels last year - American Vampire, Vol. 1 and Marvel 1602 - and so far this year I've read all four volumes of Saga. It's made realise two things: 1) I like graphic novels, and 2) I want to read more of them.

Here are some of the graphic novels on my TBR!

Rat Queens, Vol. 1: Sass and Sorcery

by Kurtis J. Wiebe and Roc Upchurch

Who are the Rat Queens? 

A pack of booze-guzzling, death-dealing battle maidens-for-hire, and they're in the business of killing all god's creatures for profit. 

It's also a darkly comedic sass-and-sorcery series starring Hannah the Rockabilly Elven Mage, Violet the Hipster Dwarven Fighter, Dee the Atheist Human Cleric and Betty the Hippy Smidgen Thief. This modern spin on an old school genre is a violent monster-killing epic that is like Buffy meets Tank Girl in a Lord of the Rings world on crack! 

Hellblazer, Vol. 1: Original Sins

by Jamie Delano, Rick Veitch, John Ridgway, Alfredo Alcala and Tom Mandrake

The very first Hellblazer collection ORIGINAL SINS is available in a new edition that includes John Constantine’s appearances in SWAMP THING. This is the first of a series of new HELLBLAZER editions starring Vertigo’s longest running antihero, John Constantine, England’s chain-smoking, low-rent magus.This first collection is a loosely connected series of tales of John’s early years where Constantine was at his best and at his worst, all at the same time.

Fables, Vol. 1: Legends in Exile

by Bill Willingham, Lan Medina, Steve Leialoha, Craig Hamilton and James Jean

When a savage creature known only as the Adversary conquered the fabled lands of legends and fairy tales, all of the infamous inhabitants of folklore were forced into exile. Disguised among the normal citizens of modern-day New York, these magical characters have created their own peaceful and secret society within an exclusive luxury apartment building called Fabletown. But when Snow White's party-girl sister, Rose Red, is apparently murdered, it is up to Fabletown's sheriff, a reformed and pardoned Big Bad Wolf (Bigby Wolf), to determine if the killer is Bluebeard, Rose's ex-lover and notorious wife killer, or Jack, her current live-in boyfriend and former beanstalk-climber.

Lumberjanes, Vol 1.

by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis and Brooke Allen

Friendship to the max! Jo, April, Mal, Molly and Ripley are five best pals determined to have an awesome summer together...and they’re not gonna let any insane quest or an array of supernatural critters get in their way! 

Wytches

by Scott Snyder and Jock

Across the globe, century after century, men and women were burned, drowned, hanged, tortured, imprisoned, persecuted, and murdered for witchcraft. None of them were witches. They died protecting a terrible and hidden truth: witches, real witches, are out there. They are ancient, elusive, and deadly creatures that are rarely seen and even more rarely survived. 

Are you a fan of graphic novels? Are there any you'd recommend?