Sloane Leong

Prism Stalker is a lush, psychedelic, alien, and complex series that deals with colonialism, complicity with oppression, and identity. It's honestly unlike any other comic/graphic novel I've ever read. When an indentured refugee, Vep, is taken by a private military firm to help colonize a new world, the strange psychic life and telekinetic energy will cause Vep to test the limits of her self as she struggles with what it means to be part of this military firm. On one hand, this story is show more about psychic battles with rad and alien creatures and on the other hand this is very much a story about the individual struggle of identity and consciousness, not dissimilar from say the work of Le Guin. Prism Stalker is a must read if you love thought-provoking comics/sci-fi. For fans of Le Guin and/or Jeff Vandermeer. show less

There are some real stand-out entries in this anthology of short stories that mix traditional adaptations of Hawaiian and Filipino folktales with some more contemporary or artistic approaches. There are some clunkers in the bunch that clunk really, really hard too, but I enjoyed it overall.

My biggest problems with the book are editorial ones. First, I think it would have been better to group the stories by region so the reader could start to get a feel for the area and how the folktales are show more connected. Instead, they mostly alternated Philippines after Hawaii after Philippines throughout, and didn't even mark the region on the individual stories so I had to constantly flip back to the table of contents to verify where the tale originated. Second, despite the cover claiming this work covers Oceania, all but one story was labeled either Hawaii or Philippines, and that story is labeled Fiji in the table of contents though the story itself says it is set in Tahiti, and I ain't an expert, but I'm pretty sure Fiji and Tahiti are not the same thing. And despite New Zealand being mentioned on the back cover, none of the stories I saw seemed to be set there. Third, one of the main points of this work is to give English readers exposure to these cultures, but two of the stories are presented untranslated -- one presented like an activity to work out yourself with what appears to be a very incomplete translation key, and which, based on the goofy and unappealing art of the story, I had little motivation to follow through on. Finally, the printing in my copy wasn't squared up properly, cutting off the bottom half of all the page numbers and some of the footnotes.

There is some good stuff here, but I wish more care had been given to it. show less

A diverse group of high school girls, all with various family and personal problems, flounder around for the first 100 pages or so before being drawn together into a basketball team that flounders around for another 200 or so pages. Teamwork, friendship, personal breakthroughs, rah, rah, rah.

There are many good elements here, in what wants to be a low-key, slice-of-life teen drama, but the story was in need of focus and tighter editing. And a professional colorist.

The coloring was atrocious show more and distracting if not actively working against the story. It's basically a two-color system -- so everything on a given page is, say, either blue or green -- but the color register changes randomly every few pages so now suddenly everything is purple or salmon, then orange and indigo, etc. I could see doing this if the color schemes related to games vs. practice vs. home life or distinguished focus on the different characters, but, no, none of that. A consistent color scheme throughout the book would have been helpful in a story that revolves around a sporting team that wears uniforms and plays against teams that should be wearing different colored uniforms. (Sometimes, the two teams' uniforms are colored the same on the same page!) Also, some of the characters look very similar and confusion might have been minimized had they been given consistent hair colors or skin tones.

For a more humorous and better colored take on a women's basketball team, try The Avant-Guards, Vol. 1. show less

A whole lot of angst and drama (self-esteem, self-harm, substance abuse, body image, family problems, growing pains, teacher-student relationship, DRAGGED OUT FRIENDSHIP DRAMA OH MY GOD) accompanied by some beautiful color direction.

The colors are like gluing a million different sticky notes together. I loved it!

One thing though who under the age of 60 is calling anyone “heifer?” That’s grandma language right there, and it’s used repeatedly.

This story tries to tackle a lot, but it show more doesn’t try to solve it either. Life’s like that sometimes, everything can’t be tied up with a bow. show less