Finished Mirror vol 1 by Emma Rios and Hwei Lim, it was a really involving thoughtful read. The narrative initially presents itself as a bit of an opaque mystery box, flitting between strange sci-fi gone fantasy concepts and different time periods that keep you a little off kilter with the larger fiction for some time but at its heart, the book is all about its characters relationships with each other, with themselves, and the exploration of life. What unites us in it, divides us in it, the changes that occur and metamorphosis we enter and emerge from between the two gates of life and death, and ultimately the choices we make in this time that define us. These throughlines exist from page one and remain very clear throughout. Reveals do come along the way in the larger narrative though, both small and large right to the end, and make good on the vagueness early on.
The art by Lim is gorgeous and playful with its layouts, characters using the panel boundaries to hoist themselves and so on. Imo the books biggest strength and weakness is its willingness to jump in deep early on and expect the reader to come along for the ride and trust the payoff will come, and while that would put some folks off,i think the moving painting feel of the art and creativity on the page goes a long way towards convincing the reader to stick around where a less inspired book would not.
Not a perfect book, and not everyone's cup of tea, but I think folks interested will get out what they put in. I can see where folks would find it too slow paced at establishing it's fiction and or potential *vaguness* in the scripting style, although to that point I feel like this is a book written by an artist for an artist. The storytelling is there scene to scene and clear, but often in visuals rather than words. My only issue is there is a set of small stories at the end; I would love to know if (and I'm a little suspicous that) these shipped with each individual as their content feels like it would have been better played throughout the book as interludes, oppose to bundled together at the very end. They definitely provide extra clarity with different perspectives to certain plot moments. Also, can't really imagine where the book goes next, it feels very thematically complete at the end, so interested to see what the plan is.
!!" So
