8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great Concept, Great Art, Beyond Horrible Writing, May 10, 2008
This is a really attractive, eye-catching book. The art--especially the cover--is beautiful, its larger than most graphic novels and trade paperbacks, and the concept is amazing. The idea of humans shrinking down to six inches tall, but the rest of the world--including the animals--stays the same size. Great, great premise. That in itself is enough to save this from a two star review, but if you're expecting good writing from this, you should look elsewhere.
Michael Hague should stick to art. He's good at it. Writing, though, he's not. The characters are all one-dimensional and utterly unbelievable, and the dialogue is literally some of the worst I've heard. A modern day business woman gets to her knees, throws her arms in the air, and says "Mouse, what's to become of us! Help us! Lead us!" If that isn't enough, Hague further shows his inability to write a story by the way he lays out this book. It goes against every new development that has come about in comics in the last ten years. He drives the story forward with captions rather than the art and dialogue. He uses thought bubbles. It often feels like panels were cut out, or that Hague was trying to condense a three-hundred page story into one-hundred and change. In one panel, a Mouse and his people hear a sound and say "What was that?" In the next panel, they are already engaged in a battle with rats. There is no sense of the rat's arrival, no room to show their reaction or them getting ready to fight. Everything, especially towards the end, is rushed. It is the total opposite of the cinematic style modern comics have taken on.
It's a shame that this concept didn't get a better writer, because it's a great one. A writer who knew his way even the slightest bit around the comics medium wouldn't make the mistakes that Hague did. I was highly, highly disappointed in this book. Readers should also know that many plot threads are left unfinished, most questions are left unanswered, and the final page has a very "to be continued..." feel to it. I just don't think this is a title worth continuing.
5/10
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
good idea , albeit not original , with hasty execution ?, November 1, 2009
it seemed to me MR. HAUGE seemed somewhat rushed to get his idea down . i saw a sticker on the front of the book that said "SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE" . really ? with all the excellent writing out there . not to be too hard on the author/illustrator , but MR. MATHESON already told a very similar story in THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN . the book seemed rushed and some names and events seemed quite derivative and fantasy topical . fair execution to my mind . i like the art a bit more than the text . a tad above mediocre from where i'm reading . more power to him if they make a good picture from this source material .
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1.0 out of 5 stars
Sad sad comic, November 25, 2010
I picked this up in the library. I like the idea, quite promising but forget about the storyline, pacing and dialogue.
The art is deceptively interesting. When you actually look at the panels, these appear to be based on tracings and then juxtaposed to make a comic. Some artists do these sorts of things but it is not real drawings.
I know that this comic is targetted at young adults but surely they can distinguish between art and collage, can't they?
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