Our Patron-exclusive essay series continues. You can read all of these incredible analyses for as little as a dollar a month on our Patreon.
Welcome to the first of a two-part series exclusively for WWAC patrons, covering the six contenders for the 2022 Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story. Reviewed in this post are Monstress Volume Six, Once & Future Volume Three and Lore Olympus Volume One.
Monstress Volume Six: The Vow
Monstress has long been a favourite at the Hugos, the first three volumes each winning the award while the fourth and fifth became runners-up. And now, we have a sixth Hugo-nominated trip to the fantasy world created by writer Marjorie Liu and artist Sama Takeda – a world of magic and technology, as seen through the eyes of the troubled anti-hero Maika Halfwolf. Many of the characters in this land are part human, part animal; they are capable of human kindness and empathy – and also all-too-human brutality in the name of military victory.
Once & Future Volume Three: The Parliament of Magpies
One of last year’s Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story finalists was the debut volume of Once & Future, put together by the team of writer Kieron Gillen, artist Dan Mora and colourist Tamra Bonvillain. That book introduced us to academic Duncan and his hard-as-nails elder matriarch Gran as they witnessed the return of King Arthur – not as the gallant monarch of legend, but as a hideous, homicidal zombie. Fortunately, Gran happened to have past experience with such folkloric fluctuations and was able to give Duncan a crash-course in the Ash Williams school of monster-slicing heroics.
Lore Olympus Volume One
Hades, God of the Underworld, receives a phonecall from his partner Minthe cancelling a date. He is forced to suffer the humiliation of attending a party alone while his brothers Zeus and Poseidon have their wives for company, but his chagrin turns to passion when he notices a beautiful – and single – newcomer named Persephone. And so begins Rachel Smythe’s Lore Olympus, one of the biggest hits of online-comic platform Webtoon, the first chunk of which is collected in this hefty trade paperback.
Read the rest of these reviews in our Patreon exclusive essay.
