Linda ŠejićRezensionen

DNF, just not interested enough to continue. I suppose the art was good enough but Kaoru Mori spoiled all other graphic novels/manga for me forevermore. So I am comparing everything to an extremely high standard and *shocker*, nothing lives up to it.

3.5 stars - the text was difficult to read but the art was beautiful.

Very sweet romance -- I like the reimagining of the myth, and I really loved the art. Great details, wonderful use of light.

graphic fiction series, mythology (Hades and Persephone)

an awkward teen version of Hades (if centuries-old gods can still be teens) tries to get closer to his crush Persephone, whose protective mother Demeter generally disapproves of all suitors and social activities. Volume 1 sets up their first meaningful (more than a few words) encounter, set up by the meddling Zeus so that they find themselves trapped together on a chariot, which catches fire when it passes Helios, so that Hades has to land in the river Styx to extinguish it, but then Persephone gets lost in the mazes down there so it takes a while to get her out of the Underworld.

bonus material at the end includes background on how the comic got started, with detailed character sketches for the various deities.

Elliot ‘Elly’ Torres has been hired officially as Vlad Stein’s assistant, she finally has a steady job but now both she and Vlad need to figure out how to communicate and work together. Blood Stain Volume Four begins the second arc in Linda Sejic’s webcomic series as Elly and Vlad not only figure out how to work together but also figure out how to get their own lives figured out as well.

The book focuses on the next stage of Elly and Vlad working relationship—something Serge stresses needs to be done before leaving with his girlfriend—which basically means communicating each other’s insecurities with the other. Sejic moves away from the comedic misunderstandings phase into grown-ups working together phase very well and allows the story to branch out, namely how Elly’s job is affecting her relationship with her boyfriend and family while we begin to see what Vlad’s professional life is like and keeping his primary job becomes the focus so Elly can keep being his assistant. As always Sejic’s art is amazing and while the focus of the humor shifts, there are still nice little gags like the Vlad-dragon that appear but in a new frame of reference.

Blood Stain Volume Four basically sees Linda Sejic showing the fallout from the previous story arc and shifting to the new one doing so very well.

Just for a lark, Linda Šejić casts the lead characters from her Blood Stain series in a retelling of the Greek myth of Hades and Persephone. It's funny and has some novel tweaks from the other four Hades and Persephone adaptations I've read in recent years. I do think a little too much time is spent with the main characters apart as Persephone argues with her mother Demeter and Hades falls under the sway of Zeus, but it makes their time together all the more precious.

Season One is available to read for free on Webtoon:
https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/punderworld/list?title_no=312584&page=...

I hope it isn't too long before Season Two gets underway.

Blood Stain was a comic I was eager to read when I first read about it a few months ago. Thanks to Netgalley I had a chance to read the first volume. The illustrative work is beautiful, with lots of black and red to add to the dark yet funny story. The story follows Elly, a recovering-gamer who is living with her sister and her sister's family and needs to get a job to help support the household. She tries a few jobs but none of them stick. She is forced to apply for a job as an assistant to a Doctor, and she travels to his house to begin in her new role, her brain telling her she might be making a mistake due to the creepy voice of the Doctor who she'd only spoken to on the phone.

The first volume ends as Elly arrives at her new job, so I was really into the story by then and wanted to see where it went. I can't wait for the second volume of this series. The humour is great, the characters are a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed the little nods to horror and fantasy culture. Really enjoyable, I recommend it for sure. 4/5

Loved this first volume, and now I'm sad I'll have to wait for more. The artwork is fantastic, and the humor, with its Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings references, is right up my alley.
The extras in the back of the book are not to be missed.

I love the colorful artwork, the sense of movement, and especially the sense of humor of this web comic. If I weren't so lazy, I'd follow it online, but I've never been good about that, so I'll just look forward to volume 3.
If you like silly humor with a smidgen of darkness, and you're open to receiving it in graphic novel form, this series is for you. It combines the mundane with over-the-top zaniness in a really fun way.

Not a ton happened in volume 3, but I still enjoyed the art and the humor. I appreciated the author’s note at the end, telling us what’s coming up next in the series and how many books are planned. You don’t get that every day!

Dr Dan Miller is a plant biologist working with a small team on perfecting an accelerated plant growth process. But something goes wrong during a live experiment and soon the whole city of Los Angeles is in peril and the disaster is spreading over the US...

This graphic novel shows what could happen if something goes wrong when you tamper with mother nature. The problem for me was that I was never really drawn into the story. It's a serious subject...but I just didn't get hooked with the story or the characters. It was an ok read, nothing more. Perhaps I would have liked it better if the art has been more appealing, but it was kind of meh! You know not that good but not that bad.

2.5 stars

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with a free copy for an honest review!

Super adorable artwork and a great version of an old tale. I especially love Hades as a shy introvert--It made me so happy to hear the tale in a non traditional way

My review of this book can be found on my YouTube Vlog at:

https://youtu.be/PUpgnRxzKvQ

Enjoy!

Not much happens in this volume besides a meet-cute and Persephone trying (and failing) to have a heart-to-heart with her strict mama Demeter. This is just gorgeous to look at and the expressions are so fun. You can really see when a character has a flirty smile.

4.5

How the earth got its seasons has been mythologized across the planet, one of the most famous comes from the Greeks and has been immortalized in various forms by Western culture. Punderworld (Volume One) by author-artist Linda Sejic is an awkward and relatable retelling of the myth.

When Sejic began sketching Greek gods during a creative break from her series Blood Stain she did not intend to create another graphic novel series, however as illustrated in her bonus material her characters Vlad and Eliot “begged” to be the templates for Hades and Persephone then suddenly she began doing scenes that led to an entire graphic novel. Sejic portrays Hades and Persephone as secret admirers for centuries who suddenly find themselves thrown together after Zeus tries to “help” in typical Zeus fashion by abducting Persephone and Hades attempts to stop it. Besides the two primary characters, the Zeus and Demeter appear as major secondary characters with the latter being a well-meaning overly protective mother true to the myth. But besides a well plotted story, a graphic novel must have the artwork to back it up and frankly Linda Sejic brings the story to life through her art. Not only does the reader have to follow the dialogue and the actions of the characters they must take notice of the overall scene for the subtle clues of what is going on behind the characters’ back and what is going to happen. It’s hard not to drone on, but frankly Sejic’s work speaks for itself and should be experienced book in hand.

Punderworld (Volume One) begins the retelling of a well-known myth just more awkward than the reader is used to. Linda Sejic not only writes a fantastic story, her art catches the eye.

Hades has been lovesick for Persephone for a century or two, but he's always been too shy to do anything about it. Plus, Persephone's mother, Demeter, is well-known for her stony attitude towards any of her daughter's potential suitors. And surely someone like Persephone would never be interested in a guy like Hades, her complete opposite.

Except she's definitely interested. But she doesn't even know who he is, and all her overprotective mother will tell her is that he's some minor god. It seems like the two will never get a chance to really spend some time with each other, until Zeus gets involved and does a little meddling.

My previous experience with this series was brief snippets the creator posted in Twitter, which I occasionally stumbled across and very much enjoyed. I hadn't realized it had gotten serialized anywhere. When I heard it was being released in print, I instantly pre-ordered it.

In her afterword, Sejic said that this series started off as a coping mechanism for dealing with artistic block. It was never supposed to turn into a full-blown comic. And yet it did, and I'm glad.

Like I said, the stuff I saw on Twitter was just snippets, probably Sejic playing around. I remember seeing a version of one of the pages with Zeus and Hades, but almost all of this volume was new to me.

As someone who liked the Hades and Persephone myth when I was a teen, and then felt a bit guilty about it as an adult when I kept coming across adaptations in which Hades was the brooding bad-boy captor, I really liked Sejic's interpretation of the story. Rather than being a brooding jerk, Sejic's Hades was busy, responsible, and a little awkward. Sejic's Persephone was very much into him, fairly sheltered, and also very responsible and a little awkward. I'm interested to see how the rest of the myth plays out in this adaptation.

Volume 1 occasionally felt a little repetitive (a few flashbacks were shown multiple times, although slightly different portions or from different viewpoints) and didn't have as much on-page Persephone and Hades as I'd have liked. Still, I enjoyed it a lot and am really looking forward to Volume 2. The humor is wonderful, Hades and Persephone are cute together, and I love Sejic's artwork. The whole thing with Persephone's crown varying depending on her mood is great.

Extras:

Ten pages of bonus content - Sejic explains how the series came about, talks about some of the character designs, and more, with full-color artwork.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)½

Beginning on Elly Torres’ second day on her new job after her long first day in Volume Two, she doesn’t know what to expect next or in fact what she’s actually supposed to do. Linda Sejic’s Blood Stain Volume Three completes the first book of Sejic’s webcomic as Elly, Vlad, and Serge have to decide if they can get along with one another or not.

Waking up late in the morning, Elly nervously hopes that Vlad has not been waiting on her only the reader to find out that Vlad himself has overslept. As Vlad desperately attempts to get ready for the class he’s teaching, his demeanor and instructions to Elly just confuse her. So interpreting her duties as best she can, Elly thoroughly cleans his lab while Vlad embarrassingly falls asleep in the middle of his class. Upon returning an upset Vlad can’t believe the pristine condition and angrily tells Elly she overstepped her duties. While Elly wonders about her future, especially as her family’s situation isn’t improving, Serge argues with Vlad about his behavior over the years and later Vlad realizes how much better the lab is organized.

Unlike the first two volumes, the description of what occurs in this particular volume is straightforward as some sort of resolution has to be made about Elly’s character. In addition, the working relationship between Vlad and Serge comes to fore as it impacts Elly and is used by Sejic to give both characters more development. Given that this chapter ends the first Book, or story arc, of Blood Stain the final panel is somewhat predicable but only if you’ve read the first two books but it’s a rewarding final panel because of the journey we’ve seen Elly go on.

As a longtime fan of Sejic’s webcomic, it was a pleasure to have on paper the story I’ve enjoyed online. While Blood Stain Volume Three might be an ending, but it’s just the beginning of the story that is finished and there is more interesting that will be happening with Elly, Vlad, and Serge to come. So if you haven’t read either of the first two volumes, then I encourage you to check them out.

Picking straight up from where Volume One ended with a seemingly chilling end, Elly Torres is face-to-face with their new employer not knowing what’s going to happen next. Linda Sejic’s Blood Stain (Volume Two) continues Elly’s pursuit of a job though she not only has to contend with her employer but also herself in the process.

Elly’s first encounter with her new boss and her first day on the job is on in which both she and her new boss get their first impressions of one another. To say the least it is an adventure of awkward situations and verbal gaffs, for both Elly and her employer, Dr. Vlad Stein. Attempting to create a viable and productive working relationship between the two is Stein’s chef, Serge, who continually explains the good Doctor’s eccentricities to the very imaginative Elly while urging Stein not to send another assistant running away as fast as they can with his gruff behavior. Unfortunately for Serge, he doesn’t know what’s going on in Elly’s head.

Like my review for Volume One, this short description only gives a hint of what transpires in Blood Stain’s second chapter. The continued focus is on Elly, but now that the story is in its central location Sejic begins giving some light on both Serge and Stein. While Elly’s characterization is further along than her two male counterparts, the development on all three is both intriguing and raises questions about how all of them will interact with one another as time goes on and what situations they’ll get into because of their own quirks and misunderstandings.

As a longtime fan of Sejic’s webcomic, it was once again a pleasure to get on paper a story I’ve enjoyed online for years. Blood Stain (Volume Two) is a continuation of a fantastically drawn story with intriguing characters both familiar and that one is just getting to know. If you haven’t already picked up Volume One then I encourage you to get both it and this volume, you won’t regret it.

I received this from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Interesting story about the potential loss of control in GMO crops, in this case, dandelions in Los Angeles. Through rapid mutation, the new crop of weeds destroy the city's infrastructure and kill thousands. Farfetched? Perhaps.

The part I found most intriguing was the final dozen or so pages that presented both sides of the genetically-modified food argument. I liked that better than the story itself, but I'm an information and data junkie to the extreme.

Blood Stain Volume 1 by Linda Sejic is a fun prequel to a story but isn't a standalone story. Part of the rating I am giving is actually anticipatory, in that I think what is to come will be good so as an introductory chapter this is good. I would have preferred this to have been shorter and at least some part of the story (I consider all this to be backstory) to have been given.

The artwork is good and the characters are fun. There is humor along with foreshadowing (I am assuming) that should lead in to a fun story.

Reviewed from an ARC made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

An out-of-work college graduate with a chemistry degree has been trying to find a job for two years and desperately reaches out to her last chance, a rumored mad scientist with a creepy voice. This intriguing story idea is the basis for Linda Sejic’s Blood Stain (Volume One), a paperback imprint of Sejic’s webcomic of the same name.

Elliot “Elly” Torres is a twenty-something who does not know what she wants to do with her life or what use her chemistry degree will be to find a job. Living with her mother, sister and brother-in-law, Elly is drifting through life from failed job to failed job while being addicted to online gaming until her mother has to go to the hospital and her sister Claire gives birth. These changes put the entire family in financial straits and Elly has to help make ends meet, it hasn’t gone well for a variety of reasons. Finally in desperation she inquires on a years old job posting from her old college, it’s then that her life gets really interesting and seemingly in jeopardy.

That short description of the first chapter of Blood Stain only gives you a glimpse of what actually transpires in this volume of Sejic’s work. What I can’t elaborate on is the varieties of humor interwoven throughout the approximately 100 pages of story nor the fabulous characters of Elly and her sister Claire that dominate most of the story nor their interactions, which only add depth to their characterizations. In fact the one thing I forgot to mention above in my description is that all the male characters that appear are secondary in this chapter to both sisters, who’s interaction with and reaction to one another drives this first chapter of Sejic’s larger work. It is only when the scene shifts to Elly’s new work place that the rest of the eventual main cast is introduced.

Comics in all forms depend on three things: characters, story, and visuals. Sejic’s art is fantastic not only in her characters but also the scenes in which she sets that add atmosphere to the scenes and layers to the story in their own way. In addition to her work on the story itself, the end of book bonus material finds Sejic showing the creative process of how Blood Stain came about not only the story idea but how ideas turned to sketches that turned to pages. Not only do readers see the evolution of Elly and her two fellow “cast” members, but long time readers of the webcomic get the added pleasure of seeing some of Sejic’s non-continuity one-shot images of humorous and/or sexy nature that she has been inspired to create through her own imaginative process on paper instead of just on their computer screens.

As a longtime fan of Linda Sejic’s webcomic, I could not wait to have Blood Stain (Volume One) in my hands and to see the story in paper. It’s hard for me to articulate to those who have never heard of the webcomic or of the author about why they should buy this book, so I hope at least those who are intrigued by this review will at least search out the Blood Stain webcomic and view it for themselves. That way Linda Sejic’s work will speak for itself more than I ever could.

A short tale from David Weber's Honorverse, staring Honor Harrington. This is a Free Comic Book Day 2015 Edition. I enjoyed this! Honor Harrington is a bad-ass character, once I enjoy reading. With pleasing art, color, and style, and some fast-paced dialogue, this was a fine read. Makes me want to read more!½

As the world become overpopulated, food supplies are dwindling and scientists are exploring ways to genetically speed the rate food can grow. Unfortunately, one experiment goes awry and Los Angles is soon engulfed in quickly growing plant life and a scared human population.

It likes reading a storyboard of the infamous 70s disaster movies and I loved it. The artwork was superb and the story was interesting enough to enjoy. The author certainly has a strong point of view about GMOs and it shows. But get passed that, it was entertaining. After the story, there is a ‘science lesson’ on the pros and cons of GMOs which gives one food for thought.

Graphic novel about a genetically modified plant gone horribly wrong, spreading out of control in Los Angeles. It is about real concerns about GMOs the same way that Godzilla is about real concerns about radiation, which is to say it expresses a cultural anxiety, though the authors seem to think that they’re participating in a real debate.½

*Book source ~ A review copy was provided via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Dr. Dan Miller is a plant biologist working for a company trying to accelerate plant growth in an effort to relieve world hunger. However, when a demonstration for the press results in unintended and unexpected consequences, the city of L.A. goes up in flames. It’s up to Dan to find a solution before the whole world burns.

This story appealed to me because I’ve been hearing about GMO foods for awhile now. I like the spin this novel takes on what could happen, but then I like apocalyptic-type books. Watching L.A. go up in flames and the possible emergency response is definitely interesting and the story held my attention. Dan is a small cog in a big machine, but people are counting on him and he has to step up. He does a good job holding it together for a peon suddenly in the spotlight. The illustrations are fantastic and the information at the end helpful. All-in-all an entertaining graphic novel.