Member Reviews
Oof! This was real bad. I'm not sure why this even became a comic. There's so much text. It's written as prose and the art is bad. Real bad. Some generic fantasy claptrap that I couldn't be bothered to keep up with. Reads like someone wrote some fan service thing like Turkish Star Wars. (That's a real thing. Get drunk and watch it in a MST3K way. It's beyond awful.)
Book Review
Title: Vizilsan: Blue Rabbit's Crystal
Author: Marko Marković
Genre: Graphic Novel
Rating: **
Review: When I saw Vizilsan: Blue Rabbit’s Crystal for request on NetGalley, I instantly got Alice in Wonderland vibes form it and the synopsis was interesting so I decided it give it a go purely because I can read graphic novels really quickly. Only a few pages in, I knew this going to be for me but I pushed through as the story seemed interesting. However, it didn’t get much better and by the end I was left really enjoyed and I can honestly say I don’t know what I just read which is extremely rare for me.
I had quite a few problems with Blue Rabbit’s Crystal and I will go through them one at a time. The first reason was the art style, as it in done in the style of a watercolour painting everything seems a little blurry around the edge, like it lacks the sharp definition that you need with graphic novels especially digital ones. The second reason is the constant changing of font which is a massive strain on the eyes. The last two reasons are linked together and a bit more complicated. One half of these reasons is I think it is too complicated for a graphic novel, when you are combining both sci-fi and fantasy in a graphic novel you need to keep it fairly simple or present the information is small, manageable pieces, think the Saga series, that is it done right. Vizilsan was just overly complicated from the beginning throwing information at you that has no context or explanation. The second half of this is personally I felt this would have been better of as a novel where these overly complicated point could be explained far better than just ramming in tons of unnecessarily dialogue that really just drags things out.
Overall, I couldn’t even focus on most of the information I was being bombarded with while reading this but to say it was a hot mess is being polite, although the artwork was great even if it is slightly the wrong style for a graphic novel, Golden being my favourite character because cat people who doesn’t like them and that is my reasoning for giving it two stars.
I'm in minority and I like Marković's art - I find it immersive and pleasant to watch. Unfortunately a ton of descriptions (info-dumps) and dialogues is too dense and make this graphic novel difficult to follow.
It was ok, but nothing more.
ARC through NetGalley
Disclaimer: ARC via Netgalley.
I hated the artwork. It is not a style I like. Plot is a little confusing, even with the info dumps. Kick ass women though.
Why they bothered with the graphics in this I don't know, for they're not done well, and the pages are littered with verbiage throughout. What little I could be bothered with was a bog-standard (and very boggy) fantasy with the Whojammaflips and the Whowhatnows fighting over ownership of the Sacred Macguffin of Dooflidonk. As usual. Snore.
I really didnt enjoy this. The graphics are dull and unclear and there is so much text. I like graphic novels that tell the story through the graphics and so this book wasn't a good book for me.
I enjoyed this graphic novel. The story is good and the characters are interesting but I wasn't fully invested in them. I liked the art style, although I don't think it will be to everyone's taste. Overall I liked this one but I don't know if I am invested enough to continue with the story.
The art style is absolutely stunning, I'd guess he used pastels and watercolors combined. This is an adult fantasy epic adventure that had more text than usual graphic novels and I didn't mind it one bit.
I also liked the explanations in the beginning so that the reader isn't totally lost and confused going into the story.
I can definitely recommend Vizilsan.
Thank you Netgalley for the copy.