Tuesday 18 December 2018

Book Riot Read Harder 2018 in review: Princeless v. 2 : Get Over Yourself #BookReview #ReadHarder2018 #Blogmas



Category 18: A comic that isn’t published by Marvel, DC, or Image  


Princeless, Vol. 2: Get Over Yourself


Author: Jeremy Whitley
Publisher: Action Lab Entertainment Inc
Published: June 26, 2013
Page count: 122
Genres: fantasy, adventure
Date read: May 29, 2018
Number of times read: 1
Format: paperback
Source: Amazon









Summary

A new collection of the adventures of everyone's favorite runaway princess, the incomparable Adrienne. This time she's out to rescue her older sister Angelica, the most beautiful princess in the world. It won't be easy though. Not only does Adrienne have to deal with Angelica's legions of admirers and their sibling rivalry, but the King has hired a band of ruthless mercenaries to track her down. Can she save Angelica? Does she want to? And how will she deal with these deadly knights who are after her head?-- via Goodreads 

Review

In yesterday's review, I talked about female fairytale characters and agency and how Marissa Meyer handled that. Today's book is another take on the same issue. This whole series is about breaking out of the stereotype of females who need rescuing and it's all about a princess who rescues herself and then makes it a mission to rescue all of her sisters too. She's joined by her faithful dragon companion and her half dwarf blacksmith pal Bedelia. This whole thing can be best summed up by two panels near the end of this volume, when a knight that Adrienne, Bedelia and their new friend Raven have trapped in a tower accuses them of not being very ladylike, their respective responses are "We're not ladylike," (Adrienne), "I never said I was," (Raven) and a loud belch (Bedelia). It's a great story for young girls and teen girls to see that they can save themselves and fight their own battles. And it's a great story for little boys and teen boys so that they can see strong female characters and that girls don't have to be girly to still be awesome human beings who are interesting. 

The artwork of Emily Martin is another spectacular aspect of this book. I really love her graphic style, it's sort of reminiscent of 90s Disney but also feels really fresh and unique. Martin creates incredibly expressive faces on all of her characters. Together Martin and Whitley have done a great job of creating very distinct characters for their very diverse cast. Each character has their own personality. Some are very tropey but in a very parodic way. Sir Zachary the Pure, for instance, he's the character who accused our heroines of being unladylike, is so pure that it's clearly meant to be satirical. And it's the same with Adrienne's sisters, each of them has a dominant trait that is ratcheted up to eleven for the purposes of humour. And it succeeds, it's an incredibly funny book with lots of witty repartee and lots of good visual gags courtesy of Martin's artwork.


If you're into stories about princesses who can save themselves this one is definitely worth checking out. If you like slapstick adventure comics this is also up your alley. And lastly, if you like taking fairytale tropes and seeing them get made fun of, this series is definitely for you.

Overall Rating


4 bolts


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