The First Journey of Agatha Heterodyne: Book Four: Agatha Heterodyne and the Circus Of Dreams

This is the fourth volume in the TP Girl Genius series. I read the first three books as an omnibus and absolutely fell in love with this series. It’s a wonderful blend of steampunk, fantasy, and humor.

Agatha’s airship crashes in the Wastelands during her escape from Wulfenbach castle. Her only companion is the King of Cats, Krosp. They are relieved when they stumble upon a traveling circus. However, the circus members have secrets of their own and they don’t want someone who is fleeing from Baron Wulfenbach drawing attention to them.

This series continues to be laugh out loud funny. Seriously I was laughing out loud for numerous parts of this story. Krosp, the King of Cats, cracks me up over and over again. For example he steered show more the airship to crash into land instead of water because getting wet is worse than dying in a crash!

Agatha is a hilarious character as well. I am always intrigued to see what new steampunk device she will come up with next. One of the circus members, a warrior woman named Zeetha takes Agatha under her wing. Zeetha is determined to teach Agatha that ways of a warrior (again these scenes were pretty darn funny).

My favorite character continues to be Krosp. Although I do find Baron Wulfenbach’s son Gilgamesh and his rather vicious traveling companion the pirate queen Bangaldesh DuPree to be highly entertaining as well.

The illustration is done in very bright colors which I enjoy. The illustration is a bit more cartoony than I like in my graphic novels. It also still bothers me that all of the women characters have very manly builds...they almost look like men with fake boobs and women’s heads put on top. Despite the fact that I am not completely taken with the illustration style, it does fit the zany story and quirky characters fairly well.

The graphic novel includes a “The story thus far…” at the beginning which I love. It is a brief synopsis of the story to this point and reminds of all the important story elements. This is so helpful to me because I do read so many different series (I think I am reading 80 some different series at last count).

Overall I am loving this graphic novel series. I really enjoy the steampunk elements, the humor, the adventure, the quirky characters, and the crazy King of Cats. I would definitely recommend this graphic novel series to all graphic novel fans...it is just so entertaining. I will admit I am still not a huge fan of the illustration style, but the crazy story and world definitely makes up for that. I can’t wait to see what happens next! show less

Our heroine makes an escape from the complications of politics and takes up with a traveling carnival... which has its own interesting secrets. We begin to see the depths of her potential, and why she is seen as such a prize.

I love this series. While I miss the supporting cast from the last volume, these new characters are just as much fun and quickly fleshed out.

I enjoyed reading it online, and then got it in paper form so as to be able to read it more easily. Definitely better on paper! The art is more detailed and you don't have to scroll to read it all. The plot is cheerful insanity as Agatha meets up with a travelling Heterodyne show.

This is the 4th book in the Girl Genius series. It starts right after Agatha crashes her little airship meets up with a traveling circus a 'Heterodyne show'. This one had quite a few places where I laughed out loud, mostly funny one liner's but still good ones. And once again Agatha ends up running around in her underwear!

Girl Genius is a web comic about a mad scientists who seem to be able to break the laws of physics, and it all happens in a gaslight/steampunkish universe. This is my favorite section of the story. Great art, great story and lots of fun.

"Circus of Dreams" is the fourth "Girl Genius" collection (10-13 of the comic series, and the start of the web version), starting after Agatha and the talking cat Krosp have escaped into the (highly dangerous) wilderness. It lacks some of the great frantic feel of the latter part of "Monster Engine" but still has some excellent passages.

The art is slowly improving - the exaggerated expressions still don't work sometimes (mostly on distant characters where there's not enough room) but there's less of a problem with characters looking like posed dolls. Most of the action revolves around Agatha and the traveling circus she runs into; like a the comic in general, the circus is a creative bit of fun, and the Foglios use it well.

The setting show more change requires only a slight break in stride - this is the most consistent of the Girl Genius volumes so far, and the most entertaining. show less

Love Girl Genius - I've been reading them online for quite a while, finally got the books (some of them - there's a couple volumes out that I don't have yet). The story flows nicely between volumes, but I think I can distinguish between them (as I can't for some, like Modesty Blaise). Agatha's on her own...more or less. Again, forming major relationships - Zeetha, in particular. And Lars. And Max, Dimo and Oggie. And embracing her Sparkiness - some of her devices are neat. Weapons and little clanks that fix wagons...