A review by scottishben
Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard, Vol. 2 by Rick Geary, Jackson Sze, Jemma Salume, C.P. Wilson III, Cliff Monear, Justin Gerard, Bill Willingham, Ben Caldwell, Cory Godbey, David Petersen, Christian Slade, Eric Canete, Dirk Shearer, Nick Tapalansky, Stan Sakai
4.0
I have just started getting some advance copies of books and Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard Volume 2 is one of the first books I have had the privilege to get to read and talk about for free before its release in a few weeks.
Mouse Guard has been on my radar for a while, when I have seen samples of previous books or flicked through copies in book shops I have always been drawn to the beautiful images and when this combined with the positive word of mouth I heard about the series I really have been long overdue in checking it out.
This particular volume is an unusual starting point in that most of the book is written by a range of guest authors and illustrators rather than David Peterson. Starting in this way I cannot compare the book too much with the previous titles or comment on how the different writers draw from and expand the world of the mouse guard. What I can do is talk about the book as it exists in itself which is as a very fun and satisfying reading experience suitable for a wide range of ages from 6 up.
The first anthology won the best anthology Eisner Award in 2011 and although I have not sampled that book I can say that this book is of truly an award winning standard. Each story is lovingly illustrated and this books makes an impressive showcase of both the wide range of talented comic illustrators we have working today and also how so much can be said so differently in a very small number of pages.
I did not like all the stories equally and I initially made the mistake of trying to ingest all the stories at once rather than putting the book aside and returning to it but I did feel that every story added to the sum of the whole and was a charmingly presented tale well worth my time. I can see myself returning to the book as well as quite possibly picking up a copy for my 6 year old nephew in time for xmas. There is plenty of action in the stories which I think he will like and there is enough depth that he could keep coming back to it as he gets a little older.
Some of the stories have a moral but it is never overly preachy and never gets in the way of the action.
The stories are framed in the context of an inn in which all of the patrons with bar debts get a chance to have their debt wiped if they tell be best tale. This sort of conceit has been around at least as far back as Dickens and is somewhat overused but works fine as a framing device for the stories.
In short this is a work that I would not perhaps have read if I did not have a review copy but I am very glad that i did and I can happily recommend this book to a very wide readership. I will probably also check out some more work by quite a few of the contributors to see what they are able to do in their own worlds.
Mouse Guard has been on my radar for a while, when I have seen samples of previous books or flicked through copies in book shops I have always been drawn to the beautiful images and when this combined with the positive word of mouth I heard about the series I really have been long overdue in checking it out.
This particular volume is an unusual starting point in that most of the book is written by a range of guest authors and illustrators rather than David Peterson. Starting in this way I cannot compare the book too much with the previous titles or comment on how the different writers draw from and expand the world of the mouse guard. What I can do is talk about the book as it exists in itself which is as a very fun and satisfying reading experience suitable for a wide range of ages from 6 up.
The first anthology won the best anthology Eisner Award in 2011 and although I have not sampled that book I can say that this book is of truly an award winning standard. Each story is lovingly illustrated and this books makes an impressive showcase of both the wide range of talented comic illustrators we have working today and also how so much can be said so differently in a very small number of pages.
I did not like all the stories equally and I initially made the mistake of trying to ingest all the stories at once rather than putting the book aside and returning to it but I did feel that every story added to the sum of the whole and was a charmingly presented tale well worth my time. I can see myself returning to the book as well as quite possibly picking up a copy for my 6 year old nephew in time for xmas. There is plenty of action in the stories which I think he will like and there is enough depth that he could keep coming back to it as he gets a little older.
Some of the stories have a moral but it is never overly preachy and never gets in the way of the action.
The stories are framed in the context of an inn in which all of the patrons with bar debts get a chance to have their debt wiped if they tell be best tale. This sort of conceit has been around at least as far back as Dickens and is somewhat overused but works fine as a framing device for the stories.
In short this is a work that I would not perhaps have read if I did not have a review copy but I am very glad that i did and I can happily recommend this book to a very wide readership. I will probably also check out some more work by quite a few of the contributors to see what they are able to do in their own worlds.