Reviews

Lantern City, Volume 2, by Matthew Daley

lukeisthename34's review

4.0

A rare 'second volume better than first'. Pretty interested to see where this goes now.

loop's review

4.0

Still good. Worldbuilding takes a backseat this time around, with more time spent in politics and characterization. As a result, the art is slightly less interesting, with less of Lantern City to see. In fact, that's my main complaint about this volume: Lantern City feels like it could be any other city in any other genre and it would still work, which is not what one should be saying about any steampunk work. But, put simply, the steampunk needs to be relevant for it to be interesting, otherwise we're just reading a story set during the industrial revolution. Pacing is still not great, with scene changes being too abrupt or certain events taking place in a truncated number of panels or pages, skipping over large periods of time where a little buildup would make the characterization and plot much more satisfying. A few more chapters would fix that problem. That said, the plot is still fairly strong with good twists - it just needs to lean more on the steampunk like in volume 1.

Also included in volume 2 is a prequel short story. A good 15 pages of prose. Took a bit to get into it, but I found Daley's prose stronger than his comic writing. Nothing spectacular, mind you, but immersive enough that I would gladly read a full-length Lantern City novel by him. It is clear his writing is much more suited to prose than comics, as I reckon some of the truncated pacing of the comics is a result of adapting what was originally meant for another medium, whether that be prose or television.

All in all a great volume. The prose story makes up for a slightly less steampunky volume.