Missing World Media 2019
Written by Tom Stillwell
Illustrated by Dale Yaddow
With great power comes great absurdity. Emily’s just a normal kid living in a city filled to the brim with superpowered heroes and villains. When she finds herself gifted with extraordinary abilities Emily must decide which side she falls on. Does she use her powers for Good or Evil? Neither! As Hijinx, Emily uses her powers to stick a big ol’ whipped cream pie in the face of Titan City. What good are superpowers if you can use them to have a whole lot of fun!
Well after the girls found Emily an outfit to wear and we've been properly introduced to their lives and their world it's time to have even more fun! I am impressed with what Tom is doing here and how he's taking these two girls and making them feel like flesh and blood people. I like the way we see two sides of very much the same coin here, one rash and impulsive the other thoughtful and wanting a plan. I like the way they work together it has this really weird kind of Laverne and Shirley vibe to it and if you don't know who they are then wow I am old heh.
I am a huge fan of the way that this is being told. The story & plot development we see through how the sequence of events unfold and how the reader learns information is presented perfectly. It isn't just how the story is told either it's how we see how the story is shaped by the girls personality traits as well. The character development we see is amazing and the more we see them the more we learn about them and that's precisely how it's supposed to be. Plus to see the circumstances and situations that arise and how they are handled, act and react to, helps the flesh them out even further. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages it's actually straight up takes us through the story without all the twists turns along the way but with a few killer endings.
I implore you all to please head and order yourself the set that's available because if you love comic books and you love good storytelling and you really enjoy how comics were before they got all dark, angsty and depressing well then you really need to have this. This along with everything else in Tom's arsenal and it takes a lot for me to get a tattoo of a character and I have one of his. Actually the character who inspired HiJinx herself.
I find myself adoring the work that Dale is doing on the interiors here. The linework is fantastic and the way that the way the varying weights are being utilised to bring out the attention to detail is phenomenal. Can I also say those panels with the brick walls are everything, until the two didn't have them then I was what? I love seeing how backgrounds are utilised to work within the composition within the panels to bring us depth perception, a sense of scale as well as the overall sense of size and scope to the book. This does have a very nice style to the artwork and there is a great uniqueness in what Dale does and when we see the balloons utilised the way they are it's really well rendered. The colour work is pretty amazing as well. I love the vibrancy we see here and how the hues and tones within the colours are utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work that we see is sensational.
Sure it can be cheesy at times but that's okay it's comics people. This is fun pure and simple it's where you go to get lost in a world full of colourful characters and impossible scenarios.