I found the story line hard to follow unlike the first Serenity graphic novel. There could have been just a bit more background information as to why the crew stole a piece of hi-tech equipment at the beginning of the novel. The plot just didn't hold together well. ( )

Segunda parte (primera parte comentada aquí) de la serie de Serenity, que se enmarca temporalmente antes de la serie y de la película. A pesar de que la calidad de los dibujos me sorprende negativamente, la historia está muy bien hecha y muy entretenida. Digna sucesora de la serie para los que nos quedamos con ganas de más. ( )

A good follow-up to the last installment. The most amusing illustration in the book was definitely River's little fantasy about what she would do with all of the money made on the last job. Like the book previous, this serves well as another 'episode' within the series. The ending was satisfactory, if not 'fantastic' or mindblowing. All in all it felt rather bittersweet, as to my knowledge there are no further installments within the series.

Amusing side note - the intro by Baldwin was laugh out loud funny. ( )

Okay, so I went to the library to pick up a few dvds for a few days I had scheduled off work, and I just had to pick up new installments of Serenity and Buddha while I was there. As far as I could tell, this was the next Serenity graphic novel, so I picked it up. Started reading it on the bus and finished it before they called my name in the doctor's waiting room.

This story starts in the middle of action, and it was confusing to try to figure out just when this story was. The back of the book establishes that it was written after Those Left Behind, but it clearly takes place before it. Later, after I'd finished reading, I looked up a timeline on the internet and found that indeed, it took place after the TV series, but before Left Behind. Ok. Glad that's clear.

Although the credits claim the same artist illustrated Better Days as Those Left Behind, I had a totally different experience with the artwork this time. Maybe I got used to his style, maybe he hit his stride, I don't know. This time faces were the familiar faces that I loved, this time pages were sumptuous when they needed to be, gory when they needed to be, many individual expressions were so spot-on perfect that I had to stop and stare at them awhile to fully appreciate them. There was one action sequence where I'm still a little murky on what exactly happened and how, but I'm willing to let that slide.

As for the writing -- well, I defy any lover of these characters (and really, who else would be reading these?) not to delight in the crew's fantasies of what they would do if they were dirty filthy rich. The crew interactions in this scene capture much of what was best about the series.

Anyway. I'm not going to go on and on. I thoroughly enjoyed this. ( )

Like my favorite dinner-table game, "What would *you* do if you won the Powerball?," "Serenity- Better Days" allows us Browncoats another tantalizing glimpse onboard Serenity and at what each crewmember sees in their "mo' money" fantasies (or what they'll allow the other crewmembers to see of said fantasies.)

Again, the Whedon-Verse maxim of "Joss is Boss" is proven correct here- strong voice writing and oh, gorrammit, I laughed *hard* at the full-page artistic depiction of River's fantasy- no spoken dialogue could do this justice, just as no CGI on TV or film could be as apt- apparently River and Delirium (of Neil Gaiman's Endless) share some character-DNA! ( )