Keenspot 2020
Written by Mike Rosenzweig & Jason Swoboda
Illustrated by Remy “Eisu” Mokhtar
Lettered by Mike Rosenzweig
The '90s teen comedy continues! With the God Mode website now so popular that AOL refuses to host it for free, but with no money to pay for the web-hosting it requires, Marceline and the gang make a desperate plea to be saved by their only hope -- Broderick, the world's most unlikeable nerd.
So right now is the perfect time for you to head over to Keenspot (http://www.keenspot.com/) and take a good look at what they've got to offer. I am not sure when I found them myself but I keep coming back to their books because of the high quality of storytelling that we get. For me this embraces aspects of my childhood in ways that I can appreciate and be reminded of that pure joy of discovering this for the first time. Between playing Dungeons & Dragons (yes 1983) then see the cartoon all of my science fiction fantasy dreams were able to come to life. I see that here as well within the characters we meet and how they go about their business.
Now the nineties for me were about going out, drinking and college so video games and the internet we're not even thought of. Although I do remember the Arcade with Dragon's Lair heh. Still the way that this is being told, while set in the 90's, has a very universal appeal regardless of when you grew up. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented to the reader beautifully. It is nice that as a reader I don't know what's happening until it does this way everything is kind of a surprise and has this really good impact when things do occur. The character development that we see is phenomenal and there are moments when Remy takes the direction and utilises that in his work so we see things that may or may not be there but still engages the reader. All these teenage personalities are diverse and they manage to make each one feel like a complete person. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the twists and turns along the way it helps with the creation of the books overall ebb & flow.
The interiors to me feel like a mixture of traditional American animation and that manga/anime feel. The linework is strong and smooth and really manages to bring this style to life in ways that will pleasantly surprise you. The faces and facial expressions we see are joyous things to behold. The amount of characterisation they bring to the table compliments the writing perfectly. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show such a great, solid eye for storytelling. Not going to lie I would like to see more backgrounds. When they are utilised they are so wonderfully done and work within the composition of the panels to create some depth perception, scale and an overall sense of size and scope. I am a fan of the colour work here. It may be quite simple (but now that it's done, I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind, that I put down in words...) but often times that takes the most skill to pull at this level. The choice of colours and how the hues and tones within them are utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is beautifully rendered.
This book Teen+ but honestly I think this could be all-ages easily enough. I think this is one that you can have the whole family read and talk about it over a device free meal. At this point in time when most of us are pretty much quarantined at home it is the absolute perfect time to be reading this. Young, old and in-between this is going to appeal to such a wide audience.