I recently got a book I pledged for on Kickstarter called Steve Lichman - Volume 1. For those of you who don't have a clue on what I'm talking about, Steve Lichman is a comic about a group of role playing game fantasy based monsters who struggle more with their self confidence than the occasional dungeon crawling adventurers. The first 15 chapters of the comics can be found here, and Dave Rapoza's site.
Ecstatic to see other plights Steve and the gang were going to deal with, I blasted through the book the same night I received it. The first thing I want to say about this book is that I loved it. I enjoyed the artwork, the characters, and the foreshadowing of what's to come in future volumes. With that being said, I feel a sense of obligation to bring to light something that irked me in the book.
Although minuscule, my feeling lingered on every page like an itch I couldn't scratch. The comic is called "Steve Lichman" with his face glistening in gold on the front cover. If you read through the 15 chapters I linked earlier, he makes enough appearances and interactions with the characters enough to make me think, yeah it totally makes sense why the comic is named after him. However in the book, there is a slight alteration to the chapters around chapter 15. Instead of being about the monster that looks like a treasure chest, it is about Dracula dealing with his breakup with Britney. The chapter after that (16) is about Steve accompanying Dracula to Britney's trailer in an attempt to win her back. It was at this rearrangement of chapters where the book started to draw its focus less on Steve and more on Dracula.
It wasn't until around halfway through the book that I started to realize this transition. By then, the times Steve is actually in a panel, he is mostly just standing around while acting more as a background character. The book no longer felt like a compilation of comics about Steve and his friends dealing with D&D related situations, but Dracula's delusions of granduer. To further my point on this in a numerical way, I went back and counted the number of panels Steve and Dracula appeared. Steve appeared a total of 284 times where as Dracula appeared 374.
Taking a few steps back, it doesn't bother me so much on the amount of times Steve appeared compared to Dracula as to how inconsequential Steve started to feel in the end of his own comic. Some of his dialogue even felt like it could have been said by anyone else but it was given to him because he hasn't said anything in the last 5 panels. I could go into a lot more detail to elaborate my point, but that would mean crossing spoiler territory in the book.
Now that I'm done scratching this little itch, I once again want to clarify that I really enjoyed this book and am looking forward to reading Volume 2. I just hope they return to the formula they had in the beginning for the characters, especially Steve in their next volume. It does look like it's going to still be mostly about Dracula since it's going to be called "Steve Lichman, Volume 2 - Dracula Gaiden: Sekushina Monsuta Ben." But you know what, if it is, that's okay since this time Dracula's name is at least in the title. Then again, it would also be hilarious if they make the next volume about someone else like Flay one of the other characters. So to the people that have read this and are just a publish button away from flooding me with hate comments, I am NOT implying that the creators, Dave Rapoza and Dan Warren, intentionally pulled a switcheroo to trick people into buying this book. I can admit that it can be my own expectations (that gestated for almost a year) are at fault for this little outburst. I give many thanks to them (all the people that pledged to make their Kickstarter a success) for providing me with a book that I know I will be re-reading time and time again.
Although minuscule, my feeling lingered on every page like an itch I couldn't scratch. The comic is called "Steve Lichman" with his face glistening in gold on the front cover. If you read through the 15 chapters I linked earlier, he makes enough appearances and interactions with the characters enough to make me think, yeah it totally makes sense why the comic is named after him. However in the book, there is a slight alteration to the chapters around chapter 15. Instead of being about the monster that looks like a treasure chest, it is about Dracula dealing with his breakup with Britney. The chapter after that (16) is about Steve accompanying Dracula to Britney's trailer in an attempt to win her back. It was at this rearrangement of chapters where the book started to draw its focus less on Steve and more on Dracula.It wasn't until around halfway through the book that I started to realize this transition. By then, the times Steve is actually in a panel, he is mostly just standing around while acting more as a background character. The book no longer felt like a compilation of comics about Steve and his friends dealing with D&D related situations, but Dracula's delusions of granduer. To further my point on this in a numerical way, I went back and counted the number of panels Steve and Dracula appeared. Steve appeared a total of 284 times where as Dracula appeared 374.
Taking a few steps back, it doesn't bother me so much on the amount of times Steve appeared compared to Dracula as to how inconsequential Steve started to feel in the end of his own comic. Some of his dialogue even felt like it could have been said by anyone else but it was given to him because he hasn't said anything in the last 5 panels. I could go into a lot more detail to elaborate my point, but that would mean crossing spoiler territory in the book.
Now that I'm done scratching this little itch, I once again want to clarify that I really enjoyed this book and am looking forward to reading Volume 2. I just hope they return to the formula they had in the beginning for the characters, especially Steve in their next volume. It does look like it's going to still be mostly about Dracula since it's going to be called "Steve Lichman, Volume 2 - Dracula Gaiden: Sekushina Monsuta Ben." But you know what, if it is, that's okay since this time Dracula's name is at least in the title. Then again, it would also be hilarious if they make the next volume about someone else like Flay one of the other characters. So to the people that have read this and are just a publish button away from flooding me with hate comments, I am NOT implying that the creators, Dave Rapoza and Dan Warren, intentionally pulled a switcheroo to trick people into buying this book. I can admit that it can be my own expectations (that gestated for almost a year) are at fault for this little outburst. I give many thanks to them (all the people that pledged to make their Kickstarter a success) for providing me with a book that I know I will be re-reading time and time again.
If there is anything you are going to bother to retain in this blog it's this:
"Just so you know, this book eventually focuses more on Dracula instead of Steve. It could really use more Steve. But that's okay because it's still a great read"
No comments:
Post a Comment