After the close of the Emily the Strange novels with Piece of Mind, I worried that that would be my last crossing of paths with Emily and her cats. I heard rumors that there would be a new comic book series starting, but I don't follow comics as closely as I follow graphic novels and other forms of fiction.

Thankfully, my lovely public library (who first introduced me to Emily, by the way) does have someone who follows both and is willing to purchase brand spanking new comics. So by dumb luck, not a week or two after it was first released, I had Emily and the Strangers Volume 1 by Rob Reger in my hands.

Here I was sure it would be a completely different take on Emily, with its own timeline and whatnot. It isn't. Yes, the style of the drawings is cartoonier, and Emily looks younger, but events happen in the same universe and timeline as those of the novels.

Emily is settling down after all her adventures, focusing on being a better daughter and future dark aunt. She also wants to return to one of her loves: music. There's a local contest where the prize is a magical (and haunted!) guitar. So Emily has to put together a band with the other local cooks and freaks.

And since it's a comic, rather than a hybrid graphic novel, there's nothing but Emily. The illustrations remind me a bit of the Danny Phantom universe. Partially it's a combination of the ghostly mayhem and unusual pre-teen / teenage characters. ( )

Okay, I'm going to admit something embarrassing here. I didn't know this was a comic when I requested it from netgalley. I don't usually read comics or manga's any more, because it's not a fully satisfying read, when you can finish them in ten minutes. But I did like this one. I first heard of Emily the Strange a few years ago, when a family friend was talking about it. And I was excited because she sounded cool and fun to read about, but I never actually got around to reading any of it until now, when I was approved on netgalley.com to read it. I'm happy that it was better than I expected, not having read any comics or manga's in quite a few years (4+). I thought it was cool that I could read it on Adobe, because I'd been reading my galleys on there for a while, and didn't know that you could do that. I'll probably request the next one if it ever comes on Netgalley again, which I'm sure will be as good as this one. The writing was good and the art was amazing, I couldn't stop looking at it on a couple pages. Small font is beside the point. The story was an amusing read, and I finished it quite quickly. All in all a great book. Definitely check it out if you see it, It's a three in one! (':

Thanks for reading! Here's a link to my blog:
radioactivebookreviews.wordpress.com ( )