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Guardians of the Whills
Okay, as part of "post to DW every day in January" I decided that if I couldn't think of anything, I would pull a comic off the pile, read and review it.
This one is from the library so it doesn't really count, but it was still there on the pile!
Star Wars: Guardians of the Whills: The Manga
Adapted by Jon Tsuei Illustrated by Subaru
Viz Media, 2021
I thought this was an original manga when I checked it out but I think it's actually adapted from a novel by Greg Rucka. Anyway, it's a perfectly cromulent Star Wars adventure in which Baze and Chirrut, always the best, get to shoot a lot of Imperials while saving orphans, so I have no real complaints. My main takeaway is: for something that purports to be a backstory book set on Jedha about Baze and Chirrut called "Guardians of the Whills", it sure manages to give us absolutely no new backstory about Baze and Chirrut and Jedha and the Guardians of the Whills! Okay, it explains how they met Saw and where Baze got his giant gun. Because that was definitely the burning question about Baze and Chirrut's backstory that everybody wanted answered. Otherwise, it's just more of what we saw of them in the movie - which is great, don't get me wrong! It made a fine comic. I'm not sure if I'd've had patience with it at novel-length.
(To be fair, I don't think you could do a good Baze and Chirrut story at anything other than surface level while maintaining even a little plausible deniability about the fact that they're married, so my main complaint is probably corporate's fault.)
Hmmm if I'm doing reviews I should have like, stars and categories, right?
*** Writing: perfectly cromulent, as stated above, no complaints except what was probably Disney's fault.
**** Art also perfectly workable manga style, I did not fall in love but also it never detracted from the story. The extra point is because so many recent media tie-in comics do a terrible job on visually translating the screen characters to paper and this one does great (Basically every character in this comic looks like they give great hugs, which is exactly what you want in a Rogue One spinoff), and the fact that it uses black & white really well, a rare skill in American comics. (Which is going to be an issue if I move on to the rest of the stack, because I'm usually reading at night with a red go-to-sleep lamp that basically washes everything monochrome. I have in the past reviewed based on 'is it legible under the red lamp' though. We'll see.)
**** Stand-Alone-Ness: It would probably help to have minimal knowledge of like, what a Jedi is, but it's a complete story in one volume and you probably have to know much more than that.
Keeper? n/a it's a library book, but if I had it I would probably keep it, if only to be able to look at Chirrut's face whenever I wanted to.
Will I be seeking out more? Meh. Probably not until Disney admits they're married. Might go look up and see if there's any good fic for them I missed last time I looked! I feel like I might remember a long one that was, in retrospect, confusing because it used canon from this book maybe I'll try to find it.
This one is from the library so it doesn't really count, but it was still there on the pile!
Star Wars: Guardians of the Whills: The Manga
Adapted by Jon Tsuei Illustrated by Subaru
Viz Media, 2021
I thought this was an original manga when I checked it out but I think it's actually adapted from a novel by Greg Rucka. Anyway, it's a perfectly cromulent Star Wars adventure in which Baze and Chirrut, always the best, get to shoot a lot of Imperials while saving orphans, so I have no real complaints. My main takeaway is: for something that purports to be a backstory book set on Jedha about Baze and Chirrut called "Guardians of the Whills", it sure manages to give us absolutely no new backstory about Baze and Chirrut and Jedha and the Guardians of the Whills! Okay, it explains how they met Saw and where Baze got his giant gun. Because that was definitely the burning question about Baze and Chirrut's backstory that everybody wanted answered. Otherwise, it's just more of what we saw of them in the movie - which is great, don't get me wrong! It made a fine comic. I'm not sure if I'd've had patience with it at novel-length.
(To be fair, I don't think you could do a good Baze and Chirrut story at anything other than surface level while maintaining even a little plausible deniability about the fact that they're married, so my main complaint is probably corporate's fault.)
Hmmm if I'm doing reviews I should have like, stars and categories, right?
*** Writing: perfectly cromulent, as stated above, no complaints except what was probably Disney's fault.
**** Art also perfectly workable manga style, I did not fall in love but also it never detracted from the story. The extra point is because so many recent media tie-in comics do a terrible job on visually translating the screen characters to paper and this one does great (Basically every character in this comic looks like they give great hugs, which is exactly what you want in a Rogue One spinoff), and the fact that it uses black & white really well, a rare skill in American comics. (Which is going to be an issue if I move on to the rest of the stack, because I'm usually reading at night with a red go-to-sleep lamp that basically washes everything monochrome. I have in the past reviewed based on 'is it legible under the red lamp' though. We'll see.)
**** Stand-Alone-Ness: It would probably help to have minimal knowledge of like, what a Jedi is, but it's a complete story in one volume and you probably have to know much more than that.
Keeper? n/a it's a library book, but if I had it I would probably keep it, if only to be able to look at Chirrut's face whenever I wanted to.
Will I be seeking out more? Meh. Probably not until Disney admits they're married. Might go look up and see if there's any good fic for them I missed last time I looked! I feel like I might remember a long one that was, in retrospect, confusing because it used canon from this book maybe I'll try to find it.