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Last Man #2
Lastman, Tome 2
Lancé au cours du tome 1 de Lastman, le grand tournoi annuel parrainé par le roi Virgil et la reine Efira se poursuit. Contre toute attente, le duo improbable formé par Adrian Velba, 12 ans, et Richard Aldana, grand costaud surgi de nulle part, déjoue tous les pronostics. Après avoir défait son vieux rival Gregorio en combat singulier, Adrian a le plaisir de voir Richard éjecter successivement du ring le couple Halpes et Alyssa – cette dernière se révélant être, derrière le masque de la combattante, la jeune femme avec qui Richard avait passé la nuit peu de temps auparavant. Cette victoire inattendue vaut aux deux comparses de se voir qualifier pour la grande finale, qui les opposera au tandem unissant Lord Ignacio Cudna et le terrible Cristo Canyon, invaincu depuis des années…
Projet innovant conçu d’emblée pour déborder du cadre de la seule bande dessinée (jeu vidéo, notamment), Lastman est le produit d’un travail collectif dont, intentionnellement, les auteurs n’ont pas souhaité préciser qui fait quoi. Organisés en studio, et nourris d’une riche culture de gameplayers, Vivès, Balak et Sanlaville font vivre Lastman à toute allure, avec un sens aigu de la narration et du spectacle. Prépubliée en ligne sur une idée originale de Bastien Vivès, cette nouvelle série paraîtra à raison d’au moins deux tomes annuels et, à la manière des grands mangas, pourrait compter à terme de très nombreux volumes.
Projet innovant conçu d’emblée pour déborder du cadre de la seule bande dessinée (jeu vidéo, notamment), Lastman est le produit d’un travail collectif dont, intentionnellement, les auteurs n’ont pas souhaité préciser qui fait quoi. Organisés en studio, et nourris d’une riche culture de gameplayers, Vivès, Balak et Sanlaville font vivre Lastman à toute allure, avec un sens aigu de la narration et du spectacle. Prépubliée en ligne sur une idée originale de Bastien Vivès, cette nouvelle série paraîtra à raison d’au moins deux tomes annuels et, à la manière des grands mangas, pourrait compter à terme de très nombreux volumes.
211 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews
March 23, 2016
The Last Man volume two subtitle is The Royal Cup, and that's what happens, the Big Championship. So it looks like an adventure comic, highly influenced by the cinematic approach of some manga. And it's a romance, too. The comic is done by a French animator, a comics guy, and a filmmaker. So what can you expect? Seth T's amazing review will tell all you want to know, but plans are in the making for as many as twelve volumes of the comic itself, and films, and in the way of other great stories, the adventure and romance is just scratching at the surface. This is what you see at the end of the second volume, that there is more here than just a generic adventure-romance.
Richard Aldana, the mysterious stranger, continues to win all his matches, though he doesn't use any magic, relying solely on martial arts. He fights as a team with young Adrian, supported by Adrian's (hot, single) mom. Now, from the first volume you knew Aldana had secrets. In this volume someone finds out these secrets, and at the moment of the Big Reveal, everything changes. There are secondary characters as well of interest, that may emerge as important, probably will. What you realize at the end of this one is that the series will not be about what you thought it was, which is really surprising and cool. It's about bigger ideas than just action and adventure, though that would have been enough, as those aspects have been great.
What is maybe the best aspect of this series is the artwork. The action sequences especially are breathtakingly drawn, lovely. Just gorgeous. I guess I would say I don't like the hyper-masculinized Aldana, but these are the times we're living in, sigh. From superheroes and now to manga, these huge muscled Hulk and Thor guys, these "fantasy" machos as if we were all living in Miller's Sin City. But on the whole, this is just a wonderful series, better than I thought it was going to be. Highly recommended!!
Richard Aldana, the mysterious stranger, continues to win all his matches, though he doesn't use any magic, relying solely on martial arts. He fights as a team with young Adrian, supported by Adrian's (hot, single) mom. Now, from the first volume you knew Aldana had secrets. In this volume someone finds out these secrets, and at the moment of the Big Reveal, everything changes. There are secondary characters as well of interest, that may emerge as important, probably will. What you realize at the end of this one is that the series will not be about what you thought it was, which is really surprising and cool. It's about bigger ideas than just action and adventure, though that would have been enough, as those aspects have been great.
What is maybe the best aspect of this series is the artwork. The action sequences especially are breathtakingly drawn, lovely. Just gorgeous. I guess I would say I don't like the hyper-masculinized Aldana, but these are the times we're living in, sigh. From superheroes and now to manga, these huge muscled Hulk and Thor guys, these "fantasy" machos as if we were all living in Miller's Sin City. But on the whole, this is just a wonderful series, better than I thought it was going to be. Highly recommended!!
July 19, 2015
This series is growing on me more and more. I'm actually pretty curious to see where it's going. Video review of volumes 1 & 2 here.
December 12, 2015
There are a lot of things I love about manga, but one of the best things about a lot of manga is the absence of a status quo.
A little over twelve years ago, I began a love affair with manga. That’s as broad and general as saying that a little over thirty years ago, I began a love affair with women. It’s just general and non-committal enough to be nearly entirely meaningless. Really, it probably began the moment I picked up my first issue of Power Pack as a fourth-grader and realized that comics stories could present evolving storylines. Maybe it began earlier, when I read The Chronicles of Narnia as a second-grader and realized that stories could be long, could skip around chronologically, and didn’t even have to follow a single character throughout. Maybe my love affair with manga began the moment I first tied a string of letters together to form a word—just like my love affair with women began that moment in kindergarten when I saw one of the second grade girls in a choir performance and her hair was just, just perfect and my heart caught. Neither were what they would be: the girl was not a woman and the word was not manga. But the seeds were there. The origin has a story.
I began a broaching familiarity with manga early on. I read Area 88 occasionally in the early early ‘90s. I read Akira as Marvel released them across the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. I picked up a handful of Robotech comics, which I now realize probably don’t actually count at all. But it wasn’t until the early-to-mid 2000s that I began actively purchasing manga along with all my other comics and graphic novels. My tastes had yet to refine[1] 1]In ten years I’m sure to read this and scoff at the idea that I would consider my tastes to have refined by age 40.]], and I was simply picking up series just to, you know, just to see.
Love Hina. Naruto. Death Note. Plenty of single volumes from those piles of abortive manga detritus that Tokyo Pop was shooting out like a t-shirt cannon with unlimited ammunition. (Gothic Sports!)
Among all the things I love most about manga[2]2]Now may be as grand as any place to remark that I don’t typically refer to manga as manga. I just call them comics. I don’t typically say graphic novels either. I don’t find the differentiation usually very helpful. I will, however, occasionally condescend simply because others will find the shorthand useful. While I don’t want to underscore in any sense that Japanese comics are fundamentally different from American, Canadian, Hungarian, Korean, or French comics, there is some small social sense in which “our” perception of Japanese comics differs. So to that end, I’ll begrudgingly speak of manga.
Otherwise, it’s merely a marketing category and I don’t actually think those do anybody any good.]] is that these books often allow for (and sometimes actively pursue) deeply evolving story worlds. Status quo may be decimated at any time.
Marvel and DC superhero books don’t actually feature Character in any honest sense of the term. Instead, they feature storytelling engines. Or maybe better, storytelling prompts. A reader of Spider-Man in 1970 can more or less jump into Spider-Man in 2010 and pretty much know exactly what’s going on. Only the trivialities (like who is punching Spider-Man now) have changed. Same with Superman, Batman, Captain America. (Maybe not the X-Men? But then again…) Now take something like 20th Century Boys. If you read through volume 4 and then skipped to volume 8, you would both have no idea what was going on and have no way of figuring it out. The world shifted. Same with Akira. Otomo reinvents his entire storyline at least four times throughout the book. Chapter 6 looks entirely different from chapter 14 which looks entirely different from chapter 19. It’s exciting, and the books often aren’t afraid to change everything along the path to their finale.
While Spider-Man is merely a series of tacitly connected short stories set in the same world and using the same set of characters[3]3]It often feels like these stories are the product of a creative writing prompt that generates a pile of stories and then those stories are just published one after another. Then the writers in the study group get another writing prompt that is almost identical to the first and are asked to do that same thing again. It occasionally generates some good stories, but there’s not really any reason to keep following the series. You can really just wait until you hear about a particularly good story or anthology and pick up that one.]], you can sink your teeth into the stories featured in many of these manga. And if you’re going to read them, you’ve got to keep up. Biomega and Knights of Sidonia writhe and shift and go all over the place. Same with Monster and 20th Century Boys. And Negima and Children of the Sea and Flowers of Evil and even Death Note.
Which brings us to Balak, Sanlaville, and Vivès’ Last Man series.
With volume 1, Last Man revealed itself to be a superbly designed and deftly paced Fight comic, betraying a certain connection to one of the modes by which shounen manga likes to assert itself. In a way, that first volume felt like it could be a wonderful extrapolation of Negima's Mahora Martial Arts Tournament. It was beautifully scripted and fluidly rendered. Still, not being a particular fan of fight comics, I wondered how the creators could develop the story of a tournament over a full twelve volumes (the length of the series). Volume 2 answers that in the best way, following in one of my favourite manga traditions by decimating what I had imagined was status quo. By the end of the volume, we realize that the last two volumes are mere prologue for what should prove to be a much larger, more satisfying story. And I am blisteringly excited to watch it unfold.
Given the opportunity to ask a few questions of the creators, I broach the question of manga:
With volume 1 of the series, we note a heavy emphasis on Hope as a thematic direction. By volume 2 we’re seeing the fruit of that and then an evolving exploration of Loyalty. Aldana has at least a temporary loyalty to his young partner Adrian and an abiding loyalty to his own sex drive. Elorna’s ties to Gregorio are tested. The queen gives up rooting for the Hometeam to cheer for the Visitors. A pair of lovers are one of the combat teams and have their dedication to each other measured. Marianne has her own interests that bind her to certain paths of action. And Adrian is, of course, guileless and forthright in his passions. These loyalties propel the action in volume 2 and will hold consequences for the remainder of the series.
One of the things I hoped to convey in my review of the first volume but pretty much entirely didn’t touch on at all is just how entirely exciting this book is. There is so much going on. One page leads into the next with so much pregnant purpose that it virtually becomes a magnificent feat to put the book down before arriving at its final page. When I finished volume 1, I thought Wow, omigosh. I cannot wait to read volume 2. At the end of volume 2, I thought Wow, omigosh. I cannot wait to read volume 3. And it’s not just because these end on cliffhangers. Because they don’t. Not really. It’s just that you don’t want the story to end. You want to devour it all. You want to inhabit their world and see how everything shakes out. Is Adrian going to have to fight Elorna? Will Aldana punch out a woman? What if Adrian has to fight the likes of Cristo Canyon? Will the honey badger have a speaking role? Why is Adrian’s mom on a motorcycle on the cover to volume 3??
Obviously, there may be some readers who won’t be excited by the book. Hypothetically they must exist. Even if only in our imaginations. But in the small segment of my friends to whom I’ve leant the book, nobody does not devour it. My wife, who is even less invested in fight comics than me, loves it. My co-worker, who probably has an unhealthy interest in comics featuring terrible fights (he adores Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and pushes it on me regularly), loves it. I love it. You probably will as well. Last Man is the ongoing series that most excites me at the moment.
Even a cursory read offers ample evidence that Last Man would have actually made a hot hentei comic had the creators wished to move in that direction. Vivès and Sanlaville draw ridiculously good-looking people who exhibit a sensuous kind of physicality. For all its PG-rated coyness,[4] Last Man is a pretty sexy book. Aldana is all muscles and masculinity and has a bathing scene that pretty obviously smokes. I don’t know whether it’s intended to appeal to the female gaze or the gay male gaze (though the two seem to increasingly blend and blur), but I doubt there are many from either side of the coin who will be sad.
All that aside though, I’m glad they decided against making a porn comic because then I wouldn’t be talking about the book here. And this is such a lovely, exciting book that I need to talk about it. The artists portray so much elegance of motion that even heavy, stomping, oxen men move with a kind of liquid energy. Certainly more like a crashing wave than something more gentle, but still. More lithe figures like Adrian exhibit the same sense of weightlessness as the dancers in Vivès earlier work, Polina. The backgrounds, too, are skillfully devised with all manner of unexpected detail. A dragon here, a crowd reaction there. Altogether lovely.
And without segue…
One of the things I loved about Negima was the unveiling of a large and full cast of characters. That book had plenty of volumes to move about and explore the numerous personalities that comprise the core of its narrative thrust. By the time of the Mahora Martial Arts Tournament (a big magical combat tourney occurring about 1/3 through the series), we’ve had ten volumes by which to grow attached to all the competitors—essential for creating reader interest in the battles.
Balak, Sanlaville, and Vivès accomplish this in a volume or two. Readers are easily invested in Adrian’s and Aldana’s stories—and in Elorna’s as well. We know enough about Gregorio to know exactly how we want to see his fights end. Alyssa’s fight is a surprise and plays well off a moment from volume 1. And of course there’s the mystery behind the champions, Cudna and Cristo Canyon. All of this works so flawlessly because these are characters we know; we’ve been insinuated into intimate moments of their lives and persons through subtle expressions and body language. It’s all so very well done.
It’s hard for me not to gush over Last Man. For whatever reason, I am tempted to pretend that I’m above passionately boosting for a series. All the same though, I’ve long argued for the essential subjectivity of the critic’s role—and even more than a critic, I count myself an evangelist for good comics. And Last Man is good comics. Actually, it’s very good comics. So maybe now I’ll have another book to recommend constantly and incessantly and breathlessly forever—right alongside Cross Game, the book I’m currently most known for hyping rabidly.
_______
[Review courtesy of Good Ok Bad.]
_______
Footnotes
1) In ten years I’m sure to read this and scoff at the idea that I would consider my tastes to have refined by age 40.
2) Now may be as grand as any place to remark that I don’t typically refer to manga as manga. I just call them comics. I don’t typically say graphic novels either. I don’t find the differentiation usually very helpful. I will, however, occasionally condescend simply because others will find the shorthand useful. While I don’t want to underscore in any sense that Japanese comics are fundamentally different from American, Canadian, Hungarian, Korean, or French comics, there is some small social sense in which “our” perception of Japanese comics differs. So to that end, I’ll begrudgingly speak of manga.
Otherwise, it’s merely a marketing category and I don’t actually think those do anybody any good.
3) It often feels like these stories are the product of a creative writing prompt that generates a pile of stories and then those stories are just published one after another. Then the writers in the study group get another writing prompt that is almost identical to the first and are asked to do that same thing again. It occasionally generates some good stories, but there’s not really any reason to keep following the series. You can really just wait until you hear about a particularly good story or anthology and pick up that one.
4) Or maybe PG-13, I guess?
A little over twelve years ago, I began a love affair with manga. That’s as broad and general as saying that a little over thirty years ago, I began a love affair with women. It’s just general and non-committal enough to be nearly entirely meaningless. Really, it probably began the moment I picked up my first issue of Power Pack as a fourth-grader and realized that comics stories could present evolving storylines. Maybe it began earlier, when I read The Chronicles of Narnia as a second-grader and realized that stories could be long, could skip around chronologically, and didn’t even have to follow a single character throughout. Maybe my love affair with manga began the moment I first tied a string of letters together to form a word—just like my love affair with women began that moment in kindergarten when I saw one of the second grade girls in a choir performance and her hair was just, just perfect and my heart caught. Neither were what they would be: the girl was not a woman and the word was not manga. But the seeds were there. The origin has a story.
I began a broaching familiarity with manga early on. I read Area 88 occasionally in the early early ‘90s. I read Akira as Marvel released them across the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. I picked up a handful of Robotech comics, which I now realize probably don’t actually count at all. But it wasn’t until the early-to-mid 2000s that I began actively purchasing manga along with all my other comics and graphic novels. My tastes had yet to refine[1] 1]In ten years I’m sure to read this and scoff at the idea that I would consider my tastes to have refined by age 40.]], and I was simply picking up series just to, you know, just to see.
Love Hina. Naruto. Death Note. Plenty of single volumes from those piles of abortive manga detritus that Tokyo Pop was shooting out like a t-shirt cannon with unlimited ammunition. (Gothic Sports!)
Among all the things I love most about manga[2]2]Now may be as grand as any place to remark that I don’t typically refer to manga as manga. I just call them comics. I don’t typically say graphic novels either. I don’t find the differentiation usually very helpful. I will, however, occasionally condescend simply because others will find the shorthand useful. While I don’t want to underscore in any sense that Japanese comics are fundamentally different from American, Canadian, Hungarian, Korean, or French comics, there is some small social sense in which “our” perception of Japanese comics differs. So to that end, I’ll begrudgingly speak of manga.
Otherwise, it’s merely a marketing category and I don’t actually think those do anybody any good.]] is that these books often allow for (and sometimes actively pursue) deeply evolving story worlds. Status quo may be decimated at any time.
Marvel and DC superhero books don’t actually feature Character in any honest sense of the term. Instead, they feature storytelling engines. Or maybe better, storytelling prompts. A reader of Spider-Man in 1970 can more or less jump into Spider-Man in 2010 and pretty much know exactly what’s going on. Only the trivialities (like who is punching Spider-Man now) have changed. Same with Superman, Batman, Captain America. (Maybe not the X-Men? But then again…) Now take something like 20th Century Boys. If you read through volume 4 and then skipped to volume 8, you would both have no idea what was going on and have no way of figuring it out. The world shifted. Same with Akira. Otomo reinvents his entire storyline at least four times throughout the book. Chapter 6 looks entirely different from chapter 14 which looks entirely different from chapter 19. It’s exciting, and the books often aren’t afraid to change everything along the path to their finale.
While Spider-Man is merely a series of tacitly connected short stories set in the same world and using the same set of characters[3]3]It often feels like these stories are the product of a creative writing prompt that generates a pile of stories and then those stories are just published one after another. Then the writers in the study group get another writing prompt that is almost identical to the first and are asked to do that same thing again. It occasionally generates some good stories, but there’s not really any reason to keep following the series. You can really just wait until you hear about a particularly good story or anthology and pick up that one.]], you can sink your teeth into the stories featured in many of these manga. And if you’re going to read them, you’ve got to keep up. Biomega and Knights of Sidonia writhe and shift and go all over the place. Same with Monster and 20th Century Boys. And Negima and Children of the Sea and Flowers of Evil and even Death Note.
Which brings us to Balak, Sanlaville, and Vivès’ Last Man series.
With volume 1, Last Man revealed itself to be a superbly designed and deftly paced Fight comic, betraying a certain connection to one of the modes by which shounen manga likes to assert itself. In a way, that first volume felt like it could be a wonderful extrapolation of Negima's Mahora Martial Arts Tournament. It was beautifully scripted and fluidly rendered. Still, not being a particular fan of fight comics, I wondered how the creators could develop the story of a tournament over a full twelve volumes (the length of the series). Volume 2 answers that in the best way, following in one of my favourite manga traditions by decimating what I had imagined was status quo. By the end of the volume, we realize that the last two volumes are mere prologue for what should prove to be a much larger, more satisfying story. And I am blisteringly excited to watch it unfold.
Given the opportunity to ask a few questions of the creators, I broach the question of manga:
Question: I’ve read in other interviews that the storytelling for Last Man is at least somewhat influenced by manga. What aspects of manga in particular are you drawn to and which have you woven into Last Man? (Will we see a manga-style time-skip!)
_______Answer: HA! Busted with the time skip. Well, what we like about manga is how they handle the storytelling. It’s very cinematic. You have the time to create a universe and at the same time, you are very close to the characters’ emotions. The pacing of the story, how the panel are laid out, that’s a huge inspiration to us. And, of course, the boobs. Japanese artists draw the best boobs.
With volume 1 of the series, we note a heavy emphasis on Hope as a thematic direction. By volume 2 we’re seeing the fruit of that and then an evolving exploration of Loyalty. Aldana has at least a temporary loyalty to his young partner Adrian and an abiding loyalty to his own sex drive. Elorna’s ties to Gregorio are tested. The queen gives up rooting for the Hometeam to cheer for the Visitors. A pair of lovers are one of the combat teams and have their dedication to each other measured. Marianne has her own interests that bind her to certain paths of action. And Adrian is, of course, guileless and forthright in his passions. These loyalties propel the action in volume 2 and will hold consequences for the remainder of the series.
One of the things I hoped to convey in my review of the first volume but pretty much entirely didn’t touch on at all is just how entirely exciting this book is. There is so much going on. One page leads into the next with so much pregnant purpose that it virtually becomes a magnificent feat to put the book down before arriving at its final page. When I finished volume 1, I thought Wow, omigosh. I cannot wait to read volume 2. At the end of volume 2, I thought Wow, omigosh. I cannot wait to read volume 3. And it’s not just because these end on cliffhangers. Because they don’t. Not really. It’s just that you don’t want the story to end. You want to devour it all. You want to inhabit their world and see how everything shakes out. Is Adrian going to have to fight Elorna? Will Aldana punch out a woman? What if Adrian has to fight the likes of Cristo Canyon? Will the honey badger have a speaking role? Why is Adrian’s mom on a motorcycle on the cover to volume 3??
Obviously, there may be some readers who won’t be excited by the book. Hypothetically they must exist. Even if only in our imaginations. But in the small segment of my friends to whom I’ve leant the book, nobody does not devour it. My wife, who is even less invested in fight comics than me, loves it. My co-worker, who probably has an unhealthy interest in comics featuring terrible fights (he adores Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and pushes it on me regularly), loves it. I love it. You probably will as well. Last Man is the ongoing series that most excites me at the moment.
_______
Even a cursory read offers ample evidence that Last Man would have actually made a hot hentei comic had the creators wished to move in that direction. Vivès and Sanlaville draw ridiculously good-looking people who exhibit a sensuous kind of physicality. For all its PG-rated coyness,[4] Last Man is a pretty sexy book. Aldana is all muscles and masculinity and has a bathing scene that pretty obviously smokes. I don’t know whether it’s intended to appeal to the female gaze or the gay male gaze (though the two seem to increasingly blend and blur), but I doubt there are many from either side of the coin who will be sad.
All that aside though, I’m glad they decided against making a porn comic because then I wouldn’t be talking about the book here. And this is such a lovely, exciting book that I need to talk about it. The artists portray so much elegance of motion that even heavy, stomping, oxen men move with a kind of liquid energy. Certainly more like a crashing wave than something more gentle, but still. More lithe figures like Adrian exhibit the same sense of weightlessness as the dancers in Vivès earlier work, Polina. The backgrounds, too, are skillfully devised with all manner of unexpected detail. A dragon here, a crowd reaction there. Altogether lovely.
_______
And without segue…
_______
One of the things I loved about Negima was the unveiling of a large and full cast of characters. That book had plenty of volumes to move about and explore the numerous personalities that comprise the core of its narrative thrust. By the time of the Mahora Martial Arts Tournament (a big magical combat tourney occurring about 1/3 through the series), we’ve had ten volumes by which to grow attached to all the competitors—essential for creating reader interest in the battles.
Balak, Sanlaville, and Vivès accomplish this in a volume or two. Readers are easily invested in Adrian’s and Aldana’s stories—and in Elorna’s as well. We know enough about Gregorio to know exactly how we want to see his fights end. Alyssa’s fight is a surprise and plays well off a moment from volume 1. And of course there’s the mystery behind the champions, Cudna and Cristo Canyon. All of this works so flawlessly because these are characters we know; we’ve been insinuated into intimate moments of their lives and persons through subtle expressions and body language. It’s all so very well done.
_______
It’s hard for me not to gush over Last Man. For whatever reason, I am tempted to pretend that I’m above passionately boosting for a series. All the same though, I’ve long argued for the essential subjectivity of the critic’s role—and even more than a critic, I count myself an evangelist for good comics. And Last Man is good comics. Actually, it’s very good comics. So maybe now I’ll have another book to recommend constantly and incessantly and breathlessly forever—right alongside Cross Game, the book I’m currently most known for hyping rabidly.
_______
[Review courtesy of Good Ok Bad.]
_______
Footnotes
1) In ten years I’m sure to read this and scoff at the idea that I would consider my tastes to have refined by age 40.
2) Now may be as grand as any place to remark that I don’t typically refer to manga as manga. I just call them comics. I don’t typically say graphic novels either. I don’t find the differentiation usually very helpful. I will, however, occasionally condescend simply because others will find the shorthand useful. While I don’t want to underscore in any sense that Japanese comics are fundamentally different from American, Canadian, Hungarian, Korean, or French comics, there is some small social sense in which “our” perception of Japanese comics differs. So to that end, I’ll begrudgingly speak of manga.
Otherwise, it’s merely a marketing category and I don’t actually think those do anybody any good.
3) It often feels like these stories are the product of a creative writing prompt that generates a pile of stories and then those stories are just published one after another. Then the writers in the study group get another writing prompt that is almost identical to the first and are asked to do that same thing again. It occasionally generates some good stories, but there’s not really any reason to keep following the series. You can really just wait until you hear about a particularly good story or anthology and pick up that one.
4) Or maybe PG-13, I guess?
June 24, 2015
Loving this series! A French author writing a quasi-manga series. It has all the action and plot of a shounen manga but much more character depth and that certain "quelque chose" I love about French comics. This volume brings us to the battle competition and its completion. Intrigue abounds though, especially with the identity of our mystery man. We are given a few hints, though nothing to hang our hat on and by the end of the book we find a cliffhanger ending that shows another character he either knows about or may be from the same origins. I adore these characters and can't wait for the next volume. Kudos to First Second for picking up this popular French comic and bringing it to us in English!
September 8, 2015
*A ginormous MEH*
Same issues as with the first one but only compounded by the lack of originality and the sex. Blech. Puny runt sees his MOM for pete's sake fornicating with Mysterious Stranger who has teamed up with him for mysterious reasons. Yep.
The storyline did not get better as a result. SHOCKER.
Same issues as with the first one but only compounded by the lack of originality and the sex. Blech. Puny runt sees his MOM for pete's sake fornicating with Mysterious Stranger who has teamed up with him for mysterious reasons. Yep.
The storyline did not get better as a result. SHOCKER.
April 9, 2019
Si el primero me pareció entretenido este lo he devorado. La narrativa es genial con respecto al tipo de historia que cuenta. Se le nota la influencia manga en la manera que tienes de pasar páginas al leerlo. La historia comienza a prometer y los personajes se empiezan a dibujar. Seguiremos a ver qué tal continua.
April 22, 2019
3,5/4
Resolución del concurso del primer tomo. La trama está guay y abre la historia a algo más. No es un tomo en el que pase mucha cosa, aunque empieza a dejar claro que Richard no es lo que parece. Las batallas son muy guays de leer y muy visuales. Ahora se verá hacia donde va la historia.
Resolución del concurso del primer tomo. La trama está guay y abre la historia a algo más. No es un tomo en el que pase mucha cosa, aunque empieza a dejar claro que Richard no es lo que parece. Las batallas son muy guays de leer y muy visuales. Ahora se verá hacia donde va la historia.
July 27, 2015
This volume just opened up another twist.
May 8, 2019
The suspense intensifies!!! I'm not sure what it is that draws me into this story so much. The characters aren't very multidimensional, except possibly Richard and Cristo. And really the only reason I name them is because of the mystery surrounding them of who they actually are. Adrian has the potential of a stronger arc and his mother seems to have secrets of her own, but I don't know if the author will explore this. Perhaps the intrigue lies in the mystery of who these people are, why there are dinosaurs and motorcycles all in the same setting, and who Richard Aldana really is, where he's from, and why he decided to fight in the tournament.
September 26, 2017
Carino anche il secondo numero di questo "manga all'europea", con la fine del torneo per il piccolo Adrian Velba e per l'energumeno Richard Aldana, che non trascura la madre del ragazzo, finendo a letto con lei, ma dopo la vittoria scappa con la coppa, finendo con l'essere rincorso dai due. Carina e semplice la struttura, piena di scontri con difficoltà crescenti, ma non limitata agli stessi. Bella costruzione dei personaggi, molto a la Vives.
December 23, 2018
I picked the first volume up on a whim (and a desperate attempt to reach my 101 goal). I was surprised to find an enchanting fluidity in the illustration that matched perfectly with a story in which movements both big and minute have an impact on outcome. Superb line work and a mysterious world have me hooked.
January 14, 2020
Jamás me hubiese esperado que un cómic de acción/aventuras que copia descaradamente el formato de los shonen japoneses me fuese a gustar de esta manera, pero oye, estoy completamente enganchado.
August 1, 2017
Si se va poniendo más bueno.
November 2, 2017
SO GOOD
February 11, 2018
Un deuxième tome que j'ai beaucoup plus apprécié que le premier, l'intrigue ce place enfin et devient plus intéressante
June 24, 2018
Bien dans l'ensemble. Dommage que la force des personnages féminins montrée dans le premier volume soit complètement balayée par leur extrême émotivité (que de stéréotypes)
March 11, 2019
Див. відгук про перший том.
Нічого не зрозуміло, відірватись дуже складно.
Нічого не зрозуміло, відірватись дуже складно.
March 20, 2020
Pour vrai, j’etais pas certain des dessins au départ, mais ça se lit tout seul.
March 25, 2020
There's big twist in this volume that I didn't see coming. I'm not sure if it's brilliant or cheap. But this series sure is fun.
April 3, 2020
Drôle, inattendu, haletant, un très bon second tome! On en apprend un peu plus sur le tournoi et les nouveaux personnages! Encore une fin qui oblige à acheter la suite!
July 5, 2020
"Last Man" #2 or Street Fighter II Turbo: Girls, Punches and Pot of Gold.
Still simple, still entertaining, but looks like the scale will go up.
Thumbs up.
Still simple, still entertaining, but looks like the scale will go up.
Thumbs up.
November 14, 2020
3.5 stars.
April 1, 2021
Come il primo, più del primo. Divorato.
December 8, 2022
Story 4
Art 4
Art 4
December 27, 2022
Me gustó tanto como el 1, a ver cuándo la siguen.
April 2, 2023
The best in the first three volumes.
March 20, 2025
После сериала-приквела финальный твист вообще крышу сносит
December 12, 2019
Es complicado reseñar este segundo volumen sin hacer spoilers... pero en fin, lo importante es que sigue en la misma línea del primero, esto son cómics con un dibujo feote y desgarbado pero con un dinamismo y una expresividad sorprendentes, y con un guión que cuenta muchas cosas pero no entorpece en la acción, el conjunto es muy fluido, se lee sin pestañear.
En cuanto a la historia poco se puede contar sin destripar nada, pero se puede decir que el torneo sigue adelante... hasta que se acaba... por otro lado tenemos intrigas palaciegas, romance, misterios que vienen del tomo anterior y siguen sin desvelar y misterios nuevos de este tomo que ya veremos en qué acaban. Richard Aldana no es el único que tiene secretos que ocultar.
El tomo acaba con un cliffhanger de los que hacen daño.
En cuanto a la historia poco se puede contar sin destripar nada, pero se puede decir que el torneo sigue adelante... hasta que se acaba... por otro lado tenemos intrigas palaciegas, romance, misterios que vienen del tomo anterior y siguen sin desvelar y misterios nuevos de este tomo que ya veremos en qué acaban. Richard Aldana no es el único que tiene secretos que ocultar.
El tomo acaba con un cliffhanger de los que hacen daño.
March 30, 2021
En aquest segon volum Aldana i el petit Adrian arriben a semifinals i guanyen també el campionat. Marianne i Aldana comencen el seu romanç, però els que han investigat a Aldana han fet que el vinguin a buscar i aquest fuig al final, el que provoca que mare i fill acabin la història agafant la moto i anant darrera d'ell, amb el que començarà suposo la tercera part. Mateix estil i interès, mateixa valoració...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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