Well I had a rather charming surprise at my new local library, they have quite a bit of manga! I'm starting to think that my local library was a bit crap for having so little (that or it was so throughly spread out between the branch libraries I never got a chance to see what they really had) and this library not only has manga but it has quite a few longer running series that I had always wanted to try and some older books like this one. I didn't think I'd have a chance to read this one any time soon since, to the best of my knowledge, Chromatic Press hasn't started selling new copies yet and I'd have to wait for those to trickle down into the libraries. I will note however that for some reason this particular book was missing some pages, I don't think I missed anything terribly important story wise, I wouldn't be reviewing it if I had, but if it seems like I did feel free to chime in in the comments!
Off*beat (volume two) by Jen Lee Quick
Summary: Tory continues to try and get closer to his neighbor and classmate Colin in order to figure out what exactly is going on in Colin's sometimes mysterious life.
The Good: In the effort of full disclosure, I'm having a bit of trouble remembering where volume one ended and volume two began which in one way is a good thing, it shows just how cleanly this story flows, but does mean this is going to be a shorter review. I'll admit that I liked this volume a bit less since it felt more like build-up, being able to read chapters from volume 3 immediately afterwards was a relief especially since it showed that Quick really does have a well plotted out story in mind. One thing I do remember liking a lot about this volume is how even though Tory is absolutely convinced that Colin is part of a secret government project the story presents it in such a way that as a reader I was never sure if he was right or completely crazy. I think that presentation was on purpose and that's something that's quite tricky to pull off correctly and I thought it gave the story an extra level of interest.
The Bad: I'm so happy I don't have to say "and then it ends forever so we have no conclusion!" since that would be a pretty big negative against the series. The third series is already being serialized in Sparkler Monthly and picks up immediately from where the second volume ends and honestly that takes care of both my biggest problem with the series and that also starts rounding out the characters a bit more which was my other large complaint about the series. People will probably disagree with me but I just found Tory and Colin a bit too flat, Colin spent the first volume barely interacting so it was hard to see what his actual personality was (other than "quiet" and "a bit sullen") and Tory is so obsessive with his stalking that it's as if that one quirk defines his entire personality. Like I said, the third volume is definitely the start of the final act so both of those problems start to fade and that leaves me with no real issues with the series at the moment.
The Art: No big changes here from the first volume, Quick continues to draw in a style that looks a little rough but grew on me over time. I also feel a bit weird critiquing it since I started out reading her later work (Witch's Quarry) so I know that all the problems I have with this work (faces are a bit too similar, backgrounds can get rather simplistic and overly reliant on screentones) are improved upon in her other works yet I hope the art for the last volume isn't too different since a radical style change would be even worse. And, in writing this review, I just realized that the CP editions have new covers and just wanted to quickly mention that I like the new ones (with new logo) better than the old TokyoPop ones, much more focused composition.
So, if you enjoyed the first volume of Off*Beat you'll enjoy this one even more and then should run over to Sparkler Monthly to read the rest. Otherwise, if you're a fan of lite-BL stories where the relationship isn't the main focus then you should give this series a shot, I was pleasently surprised to see that it was as good as I had been told anyway.
So apparently I was out of it back in February since I hadn't heard that some of TokyoPop's former employees had formed a new company, Chromatic Press, and that they had plans to do a kickstarter to try and fund the final volume in one of TokyoPop's OEL series which apparently a lot of people liked, Offbeat. I first heard about all of this when the kickstarter launched and I was torn, I don't have enough money right now to support a series I've never even read, on the other hand it sounded like something I'd like and I had realized when looking at it that the creator also was doing a webcomic I like, Witch's Quarry. So I didn't pledge, if it had looked like they needed just a few more people to get it to the goal I would have pitched in, and when I got back home and went to my local library there I found a very battered copy of the first volume just sitting on top of the comic section as if it was waiting for me. Sadly they don't have the second volume, although I might poke around at some of the other libraries near me to see if they do, but hey, one volume is totally enough for me to tell if I want to read more.
Off*beat by Jen Lee Quick
Summary: Tory is smarter than your average high schooler and instead of using his vast intellect to cure cancer or such he is currently using it to stalk his new neighbor who lives across the street. In Tory's defense, Colin does seem to live under some strange circumstances and when Tory's other neighbor manages to dig up some dirt it seems like Tory might actually be onto something.
The Good: At this point the story is still very ambiguous if there really is some great, sci-fi-ish conspiracy involving Colin or if Tory is just being way too imaginative and with the way it's set up I'm not going to be disappointed no matter which way it turns out. I have to admit it's a bit odd that I'm more amused than skeeved out over Tory stalking Colin, my normal reaction, I guess it's the way it's set up here, and because the reader knows that it's more-or-less harmless, but regardless I need to commend Quick for making me like a main character that I normally would dislike.
The Bad: The early timeskip threw me a little bit and I do wish it had been less big, it's a bit hard to accept that Tory remained obsessed about Colin for that long even though he had no leads on him and hadn't discovered anything. Thankfully I think we're also going to actually learn some stuff about Colin in the next volume (because right now he feels more flat that mysterious just due to a lack of panel time), honestly I'm glad that I didn't read this when TokyoPop was originally putting it out since the wait and possibility of never finishing the series would have killed me.
The Art: There's actually not a very big change in style between this and Witch's Quarry which surprised me a little bit but here it's already pretty solid. The backgrounds/scene setting shots are a bit basic but there were only a few times I had trouble figuring out the panel sequence. All of the characters look distinct although the girls look a bit odd, they look a bit more cartoony than the guys and I hope that they look a little more natural in the next volume.
So, giving this a recommendation, I'm dying to track down the next volume and the final one when it's released, and now I'm more curious than ever about Chromatic Press's other works, fingers crossed that they succeed and are around for a while!
And the month is starting to wrap up, I'll have one more post on Sunday (a bit of a rant about how to properly set up a webpage, spoilers most people are doing it right to start with) and then I'm going to take the rest of the week off (mostly to write-up reviews for all the currently ending anime, some of them had some really interesting endings) and start back up April 7th (and until further notice anime reviews are moving to Tuesday night because I just can't find the energy to write them up Monday nights after the rest of the day). In any case, let's talk about these final two webcomics and why I think they're worth reading!
Witch's Quarry by Jen Lee Quick
Sir Veolynn Moreshire wasn't expecting to go to her brother's wedding only to find that he's swapped places with a body double and run off with his lover. And she certainly had no way of knowing that her brother's fiancee to be a selkoi who picked him out soley for his genetics and isn't above turning his sister into a man so she can still obtain it. Thus Veolen, her brother's double, his fiancee and her sisters have set out on a journey to find her, now his, brother while tensions between various factions and countries begin to rise in the background.
When I first stumbled across this comic I was a bit surprised I hadn't heard of it earlier, it has pretty solid art and plotting and updates rather frequently so it has a more than a few chapters under it's belt too. But, assuming it's been hosted on smackjeeves from the beginning, the comic is just over a year old so I'm even more impressed, over 300 fully colored pages in not even a year and a month is nothing to sniff at! The story feels a little less strong currently that it did in previous chapters since it's focusing a lot on the magic of the world and we (the readers and in some cases the readers and Veolen) are still in the dark on a lot of the ins and outs of magic. Hopefully there will be an infodump or such soon or maybe I just need to go back and reread part of the story, even when a story updates this fast it's still really easy to forget details if you only read it a page at a time.
Witch's Quarry can be read on it's Smackjeeves site or the MangaMagazine site (which has nothing to do with manga, they're all English webcomics, nor is it presented in a magazine format so I'll admit the name irks me) but you have to be a subscriber to get the updates as quickly or something strange like that. No print version as of writing.
Worsted for Wear by Rachael and Joshua Anderson
Knitters, speaking from my own personal experience, tend to be odd ducks to start with and Camden is a bit weirder than most. Thankfully she has plenty of friends who are also into various fiber arts to try and keep her in check or to even encourage her more insane ideas.
This isn't the first knitting webcomic I've read before, I know I talked about Knit Princess a few years back, but I think that this one is the much stronger comic. The larger cast of characters helps (I'm of the opinion that there is a limit to how strange even a fictional character can be so having multiple characters to focus on in the story really helps), since it talks about more than just knitting it has a wider range of gags available to it, and recently they did a flash-forward comic which makes me excited since it seems like the characters will develop in the next few years (of comic time). Even if it's a gag a day comic I still like to see character development, my favorite comics in that genre do that, so now I'm more excited about the comic than I used to be and should probably recommend it to more of my knitting friends now that I think about it.
Worsted for Wear can be read online and they are also currently holding a kickstarter which should be winding down in just a few days and has already met it's goal.
