Matías Bergara

A wonderful conclusion to a story that's kept getting better as it went, revealing an impressive amount of planning (so many minor things you never thought twice about comes back as important later, often several times) and good storytelling. Hilariously, considering it won the Eisner award for best penciller/inker, the only thing keeping this from five stars is that Bergara's artwork continues to confuse me about once every three or four pages, sometimes to the point where I'm only guessing show more at what happened. While not quite my thing, I otherwise have no problem with the artwork -- it's occasionally even quite beautiful -- but I do feel like frequently pulling the reader out of the story as I struggle to follow what's happening in the art (and on occasion not even managing to find out) is a pretty big problem. (And while this issue is probably somewhat subjective, I know my wife said she'd had the same problem when she read it.)

But honestly, this is so good I can almost forgive even that. Coda started with a simple premise: A stereotypical fantasy world has lost its magic, and a grumpy antihero ex-bard is roaming it trying to make ends meet until he can reunite with his wife. Somehow, it has retained that premise while adding layers of meaning and character growth to it as it went, and the result is a funny, touching, exciting and just plain cool story that I'd recommend to nearly any fan of the genre. And where else can you get protagonist riding a mutated unicorn who speaks exclusively in censored swear words? show less

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

The second volume of this series is, like the first, pretty good. It begins with three one-shots: one where Kara teams up with Batgirl (in the "Burnside era," though after the original creative team left and I stopped reading), one where Kara helps redeem a villain from the previous volume, and one where Kara connects with her cousin. Each of these is pretty solid; the best is definitely the middle one, a really well done show more story about Kara reaching out and helping someone who needs her, someone who was let down by everyone his whole life; Matias Bergara does a solid job fitting the Brian Ching style. I though the team-up was fine, though Supergirl seemed to be made a little dumb so that she had a reasons to need Batgirl's help. The Superman one has some good moments, but Matias Bergara's art seems rushed and the story is too obviously there to make sure you know how everything fits together.

The last three issues are one long story, "Escape from the Phantom Zone." On the one hand, I was glad Brian Ching was back, but on the other hand, I found the premise didn't play to the strengths; Supergirl, Batgirl, and Ben end up trapped in the Phantom Zone, and the setting of National City and Kara's supporting cast is largely irrelevant; Ben is there, but having him interact with Supergirl turns out to be dramatically inert. I did not think the villains were very interesting, either.

I do appreciate how Orlando paces his ongoings. Usually each issue's story ends a couple pages before the end, then there's a bit of a breather/coda, and then the issue will end with a couple pages setting up the next one. It's a simple but effective device. show less

this was excellent, and wild. high fantasy clashes with graphic post-apocalyptic backgrounds, while the narrative considers the ethical implications. meanwhile the artwork, by Uruguayan Matias Bergara, seems like a cross between Fiona Staples in Saga and Sergio Aragones in Groo the Wanderer. there are two more volumes to come in this series: i can't wait.

lovely crazy stuff. it's a high fantasy world - but after the apocalypse. magic is scarce, and everything's falling apart. the knight wants to do good, but his quest gets in the way of that, his trusty unicorn is a demon, and in truth his wife is also a bit of a problem area. he's ignoring the world as it is, but that's not always the best strategy. Bergara's artwork is great, heavily influenced by Aragones, and the knight reminds me of Saga.