George MagerRezensionen

Well, the overlong epic concludes and almost makes sense of its many threads. Alas, it was all a dream, but that's at least true to the cartoon source.

As with previous volumes, the art starts fine with Jim Campbell and gets progressively worse as it is handed over to lesser talents. At least they have given the art chores on the useless Miss Langtree school story at the end to someone other than George Mager, so it almost looks like it belongs to the same universe now.

Having skipped the first volume of the series since my library didn't have it, I must admit I am now completely lost in these middle chapters of the epic length story. There is a reveal that a masked character from last volume is a character from the cartoon series who was not previously in The Unknown. So this seems to be set after the events of the cartoon and not during? And there is some shapeshifter we need to be worried about? And a pirate? Huh?

After a to-be-continued ending to the adventures of Wirt and Gregory, the last quarter of the book is another poorly drawn, garishly drawn adventure of the origin of Miss Langtree's animal boarding school.

The first half of the book does a good job of capturing the tone and spirit of the original cartoon with half-brothers Greg and Wirt each offering their differing versions of events from the same odd evening.

But then the second half of the book goes off the rails as we are subjected to a story set in the schoolhouse from the "Schooltown Follies" episode. No Greg, no Wirt, no frog or Beatrice even. Instead, we are introduced to Pooree the Elephant, the clumsy new transfer student. Horribly drawn, horribly written, and, worst of all, horribly colored in a manner that completely clashes with the palette of the series. What were the editors thinking?

Greg and Wirt continue on their adventures in the Unknown, each trying to prove to the other the worth of Hero Frog (i.e., is he truly a hero or is he a villain?). As usual, the brothers meet an eccentric cast of characters, in a variety of surreal settings.

This book picks up precisely where Volume 3 ended with no recap. Like with the previous volume, I wasn't thrilled that Greg and Wirt were separated for most of the story, but the characters are compelling enough to each stands on his own. The quirky humor will appeal to a very specific audience but not to all. Luckily, I fit into that former category.

The final story in this volume is an unrelated one back in the animal boarding school, although this one was a huge improvement over the one in the previous volume. It has an actually plot, humor, and better illustrations.

This is a solid read for those already fans of the show and comics, but not for those without that knowledge.½

A decent addition to the ongoing saga of Wirt and Greg traveling throughout the Unknown. It had been a while since I read Volume 2, so I definitely forgot a few details but was quickly brought up to speed on the main story at least. Greg and Wirt being separated is a little disappointing because I do like their interactions together. However, both characters are compelling enough on their own that this was still a good read. Some of the illustrations were a little more sketchy (and looking less like the animated show) than I'd like, but that wasn't too bad. The final short story about Kitty going to the animal school was pretty awful, but that was unrelated to the main plotline.

In the first half of this book, Greg and Wirt continue on their journey to find the hero frog, encountering more strange persons in the Unknown along the way. In the second half are a couple of stories featuring the animal school that was in one episode of the Over the Garden Wall TV show.

After the first volume of this book ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, I was excited to get this second volume from my local library. Unfortunately, I felt like this book didn't quite live up to expectations. I think at this point I was ready for the hero frog search story to wrap up, but it is still left open-ended. It was funny to see the story from both Wirt's and Greg's perspective, but I don't feel like much really happened here. The little vignettes about the animal school were okay, but not really that exciting. Also, the illustrations were just *slightly* off from the animation of the show, which was a bit of a letdown as well.

I *might* go on to read Volume 3 when it becomes available, but I'm not sure at this point...