Comic book reviews for Lumberjanes #57, Lumberjanes #58, and Lumberjanes #59 by Shannon Watters, Kat Leyh, AnneMarie Rogers, Maarta Laiho, and Aubrey Aiese
Average rating: 4/5 stars
Lumberjanes #57 by Shannon Watters and Kat Leyh (written)
Art: AnneMarie Rogers (illustrated), Maarta Laiho (colors), and Aubrey Aiese (letters)
Jo and April’s lifelong friendship is just the best. Of course, April has been planning on throwing Jo a birthday party this entire summer. And of course, she’s been able to keep track of the dates, even if this camp doesn’t run on linear time. (Also, I appreciate that Rosie also has this ability too.)
It was cute to see the flashbacks to Jo and April when they were younger. Rogers really did justice to Jo and who she is in them.
Though April should’ve known better than to ask the Yetis for help. They always just cause more trouble than they are worth.
I thought Mal confronting her fears in order to help distract Jo was pretty great. I’m not sure we’ve had this lineup on an adventure together. It was quite ominous to see the emergency kit laying on the beach. However, this is also a comic book where everything does come out just fine in the end.
Mixed feelings on Rogers’ art. But I appreciated the butching up of Mal and all the time they took to draw different types of young hardcore lady types as Rosie reads off all the birthdays. It’s always fun to remember just how many other campers there are.
Lumberjanes #58 by Shannon Watters and Kat Leyh (written)
Art: AnneMarie Rogers (illustrated), Maarta Laiho (colors), and Aubrey Aiese (letters)
Rogers’ art is growing on me, bit by bit. I think they are understanding the characters, and their own interpretation of these characters much better. The bold inking choices, along with Laiho’s strong nature-centric palette, works well to tell the story of campers. I do appreciate how the book always comes back to the fact that they are at camp.
Relatedly, I cannot believe we hadn’t had an official, on a stage, camp play. Of course, this is April’s solution for the broken DVD. The kids can just act it out. Jo and she may appreciate it, but since the rest of them don’t know the movie, it might not be as entertaining as April thinks it will be.
Likewise, I see Jo, Mal, and Barney earning all the badges on their adventures. I’d forgotten that Jen wasn’t there when they met the selkies.
What pushed this issue into five stars for me was that Jo knew what was going on the entire time. Of course, she did! But also, I loved how she wanted to strand them there, and they didn’t just forget the other raft. Plus, how Mal and Jo foil each other, and they all have to admit what’s happening to Jen. Jen always finds out in the end.
I’ll be curious to see if Barney gets a little more of the story about them. Right now, they’re pretty passive, and I’d like to learn more about their skills, beyond the ever-important kitten wrangling.
Lumberjanes #59 by Shannon Watters and Kat Leyh (written)
Art: AnneMarie Rogers (illustrated), Maarta Laiho (colors), and Aubrey Aiese (letters)
With the exception of Mal staying cool under pressure and getting everyone to tie those knots to use the rope to anchor themselves on a sea snake’s tooth, there wasn’t much growth or even further characterization this issue.
Jo’s admittance that she wasn’t into big, bursting celebrations like April likes to throw felt small. Like this conversation should’ve happened perhaps with April.
We know Molly is the type to do what she had to for her friends. We know April overdoes it all the time. While we don’t know some of the other characters, like our stage manager Wren, do we care enough? Is this story moving to a place where it’s expanding with new characters? Perhaps new characters would be a way to add further texture to this world. Or perhaps, maybe summer camp shouldn’t last forever? Of course, we still do have characters like Rosie that we only have some backstory on, and Jen hasn’t really gotten a good one in a while.
My waning enamoration with this world could also be Rogers’ art not sticking for me. The style feels kind of dated. I’m not exactly sure why the previous issue felt different art-wise compared to this one.