As We Were / Strange Someone

by Kel McDonald, Melissa Curtin (Illustrator)

Strange Someone is about a woman named Liz who just wants to finish writing her book and instead, gets caught up in the weirdness surrounding the guy she's hired to help her.

Genres: Comics, Fantasy, Graphic Novels

200 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2011

Reviews

[Suzanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is getting two stars for "it was okay." I wish I hadn't spent money on this book, if I'm honest. Boring, not much in the way of romance or mystery, and the artwork wasn't Kel's best writing or choice for collaboration. their later stuff is better.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book contains two self-contained graphic novels set in the universe of Sorcery 101, both originally published as a webcomic.

"Strange someone" is about a young writer discovering that Jeff, the nurse she met while writing a medical romance book, not only has some odd peculiar quirks, but also seems to harbour a bigger secret.
This part had a difficult history on the web as it lost the first two illustrators during its original publication. The print version has been completely remade in the style of the third and last artist - which, unfortunately for me, is the style I like less, as I find it unnecessarily goofy and cartoony.

"As we were" is a slice of life of Lope and Suzanne, the first a magical creature disguised as a human, the second a human woman in search of vengeance after her family was killed by the vampire Seth. The story follows the duo as they try to hunt Seth down, leading them eventually to Lope's homeland, and focuses on Suzanne's moral dilemma that her hunt for Seth is slowly eroding everything else in her life.

[Zefyr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute stories. Strange Someone is underdeveloped; I wouldn't have minded that so much if it just left off the afterword and allowed itself to have an unknown future, but it tries to do too much and falls a bit flat. As We Were is better written, but struggles where the illustration is sometimes hard to read. It might be partly a publishing issue: the colors don't read well in this print, and there aren't wide enough margins in the middle to accommodate the tight binding (and, weirdly, the first chapter of As We Were is double-printed). I like McDonald as a storyteller in general; this is just a bit of a flop.

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not totally in love with the artwork, but I think it might just take a bit of adjustment. The "Strange Someone" art is like Jhonen Vasquez took a course in moe-manga. A bit disconcerting, but more than covered by the wonderful dialogue. "As We Were" is more seriously toned, but equally engaging. Also, it's just nice to read funny, cute werewolf stories. I like werewolves. I picked these up at Otakon on a whim and my sister's recommendation. Glad I did and will definitely be following McDonald's other works.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

Strange Someone started pretty promising, but with every page showed its weaker sides - no consistent plot, unnecessary dialogs and at times bad artwork. I guess this kind of colorful book without any goal and inner sense, but with a little mythic twist, ain't just for me.

[Shaun · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two charming urban fantasy short stories, written by McDonald and drawn by two different artists. They were actually both of them quite good.