jaydup14's review against another edition
3.0
Great drawings, too short but entertaining. Love the representations.
francisopal's review against another edition
5.0
Fun. Fresh. Bright art, sweet characters, way too short. I pray that they make more of this comic. A sports anime made less about drama and more about relationships.
crookedtreehouse's review against another edition
2.0
There have been a few really wonderful stories about growing up and inclusivity using sports as a narrative in the last couple of years. Fence by C.S. Pacat, and Check Please by Ngozi Ukazu being the best of the bunch. Each of them tells an interesting story that happens to involve sports. Fence is a cool look at classism and gender-attraction, and Check Please is about accepting your queer self and teaching empathy by example. Dodge City is just a bland book about Dodge Ball.
I got no sense of any of these characters aside from This Person Is An Outsider, This Person Is Confident, This Person Is The Cool Kid You Have To Win Over. It was very basic, and never engaged me.
I don't recommend it unless you really, really, really, really have spent most of your life dreaming about a graphic novel about dodge ball.
I got no sense of any of these characters aside from This Person Is An Outsider, This Person Is Confident, This Person Is The Cool Kid You Have To Win Over. It was very basic, and never engaged me.
I don't recommend it unless you really, really, really, really have spent most of your life dreaming about a graphic novel about dodge ball.
rosewelsh's review against another edition
3.0
Dodge City is a teen graphic novel that centers around a dodgeball team made up of misfits and outcasts. Tomas is new in town and joins the Jazz Pandas in the hope of feeling less lonely and making some friends, but grossly underestimates the highs, lows and intense drama of being on a team. The story follows Tomas making the team and making friends, as well as his first dodgeball tournament as part of the Jazz Pandas.
This was a super quick read that I liked, but I honestly wished I liked it better. I don't know much about sports but I have read two other teen sports related graphic series (Fence and Check Please) and although I generally hate comparisons, those two are streets ahead of this. In those I felt as though the reader was really going along with the main character and experiencing the same situations and emotions, whereas in this Tomas felt very one dimensional, even though he's a very likeable character with a lot of heart. There's an underlying LGBT storyline between two characters on the team, and the author teases more information every time they interact but we never actually get to that information. There's a lot of potential with this series and these characters, but this first volume felt very rushed and I never got the feeling I knew any of the characters/their personalities. There's some cool kids there, especially Huck who plays on the team while being deaf, and I would have loved more insight into why he loves and decided to play dodgeball, or how he feels about people not including him because they forget about his deafness. I'm guessing that's something the author plans on expanding on in the future, but without anything like that to build the character with in the first volume, it felt flat.
It's a quick read and I would probably check the second volume out from the library to see if it's been improved upon, but I wouldn't go out of my way to track it down.
I should also note the art is probably the best thing about this series!
Blog / Twitter
This was a super quick read that I liked, but I honestly wished I liked it better. I don't know much about sports but I have read two other teen sports related graphic series (Fence and Check Please) and although I generally hate comparisons, those two are streets ahead of this. In those I felt as though the reader was really going along with the main character and experiencing the same situations and emotions, whereas in this Tomas felt very one dimensional, even though he's a very likeable character with a lot of heart. There's an underlying LGBT storyline between two characters on the team, and the author teases more information every time they interact but we never actually get to that information. There's a lot of potential with this series and these characters, but this first volume felt very rushed and I never got the feeling I knew any of the characters/their personalities. There's some cool kids there, especially Huck who plays on the team while being deaf, and I would have loved more insight into why he loves and decided to play dodgeball, or how he feels about people not including him because they forget about his deafness. I'm guessing that's something the author plans on expanding on in the future, but without anything like that to build the character with in the first volume, it felt flat.
It's a quick read and I would probably check the second volume out from the library to see if it's been improved upon, but I wouldn't go out of my way to track it down.
I should also note the art is probably the best thing about this series!
Blog / Twitter
zepysgirl's review against another edition
2.0
The art was fine. The story was rushed and pointless. It lacks substance.
orangerful's review against another edition
4.0
If you liked [b:SLAM! Vol. 1|32332997|SLAM! Vol. 1|Pamela Ribon|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1490525022l/32332997._SY75_.jpg|52969285], you'll love Dodge City. Another niche team sports story with a cast of misfits. Lots of diversity, great sense of humor and you're rooting for everyone to find their way.
redhairedashreads's review against another edition
3.0
3 stars - I liked it
This was a fun story about Tomas finding his place with the worst dodgeball group, the Jazz Pandas. This was just a great group of friends who have each other's backs. I also liked that Tomas started to learn sign language so he could communicate with his teammate, Huck. My only issue was that there were whole conversations in Spanish that had no translation, so I had to pull up Google translate to figure out what was being said.