Jax Epoch And The Quicken Forbidden Volume 2: Separation Anxiety

Jax Epoch and the Quicken Forbidden #2

by Dave Roman, John Patrick Green

When teenager Jax Epoch "borrowed" some magic items from another dimension, she set into motion a series of apocalyptic events known as the Quicken Forbidden. Now, the stuff of fantasy is invading the real world: snowstorms rage in the summer, mechanical knights ride through the streets of Manhattan, and dragons are forced to get day jobs. Amid the growing strangeness, Jax is put on trial for causing the end of reality - and something is hunting down anyone and anything connected to the Quicken. This is volume 2 of the series, with a new 8 page epilogue.

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Dave Roman is the author of several graphic novels including Astronaut Academy: Zero Gravity, Teen Boat!, Jax Epoch, and Agnes Quill: An Anthology of Mystery. He has contributed stories to Explorer: The Mystery Boxes, Nursery Rhyme Comics, and is the co-author of two New York Times bestselling graphic novels, X-Men: Misfits and The Last Airbender: Zuko’s Story. Roman is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts and worked as a comics editor for the groundbreaking Nickelodeon Magazine from 1998 to 2009. He lives in Astoria, NY with his wife, and fellow comic artist, Raina Telgemeier.

Dave has had stories in Flight volumes 3, 4, 5, & 7 (Villard) and Bizarro World (DC Comics). His website is Yaytime.com

Reviews

[Hillary]

Darn. I was hoping this series would get a lot better. It's still pretty good in a lot of ways, perhaps analogous to Garth Nix's Sabriel series in its mix of feminism and darkness directed at young readers, but it never quite has the magic of Nix's stuff. I think it's all that time shifting. It's supposed to be both unsettling _and_ creative, but it's way more the former than the latter, or maybe I'm just getting frustrated because nothing was wrapped up in this book. I don't love it, so I'll probably never know what happens. So be it. The gushy quotes on the back from Craig Thompson and Jane Espenson unfortunately oversell it. It's good, but it's not that good.

[Nick]

Good, but frustrating, especially the "ending". It remains dreamlike through the two volumes, but there's never any closure, even by dream logic. The story is fascinating for what it is, which is chaotic fantasy, but it felt like it could be better.