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FRACTURED KISSES: MOONATION ANTHOLOGY #03
Gina Biggs, Editor
($4.00,
Strawberry Comics - formerly Moonation)
Review by Mark Campos
From the outside, it looks like 64 pages of domestically made manga. The first story ("New Year's Resolution" by Robin Sobolewski) and the fourth ("Special Little Nothing" by editor Gina Biggs) are thoroughly-researched simulations of shojo-manga, down to the faux-translated text. The stories are bland romances, and the art could be better (did Robin really cut and paste backgrounds out of other comics onto pages 14 and 17? Swipe bad!). The self-congratulatory afterwords by both artists could also be left out.
But read the second story, "Jungle Love" by Joanna Estep: not slavishly emulating the manga style (though the characters look a little like Lilo), it's a fun tale that would have fit perfectly in
Action Girl. And "The Lonely Giant" by Traci Allan is closer in style to
Castle Waiting – it's a nicely turned adaptation of a Scottish folk tale.
The two stories that don't try to toe the manga party line succeed better than the two that do. Sadly, the cover will probably keep all but the manga-enthusiasts from picking this up.
[
Retraction: In my review above of Fractured Kisses
#3, my suggestion that Robin Sobolewski had "swiped" a couple of panels from other comics for her backgrounds was unfortunate, and I retract it completely. Apparently there are these prefab backgrounds, like zipatone screens, that one can buy and use in one's comic, and that is what Robin used, no swiping involved. I apologize for any trouble I might have caused. — Mark Campos ]
[ Link to this review ]
