Marcia ChenRecensioni

Bij het lezen van deze serie merk ik dat ik graag in deze wereld ben. De sfeer van het mysterieuze, het ongrijpbare en daarin de zo herkenbare menselijke emoties. In dit deel een feeërieke dame die de gebroken Mr. Lewis weet te inspireren tot het ontwerpen van de meest geniale apparaten en hem zo aan haar weet te binden dat hij blind van verliefdheid zich helemaal geeft. Iets waarvan je als lezer weet dat dit niet goed gaat aflopen maar hoe dat precies gebeurt, blijft heel lang spannend.

Lady Mechanica die er niet achter komt hoe zij geworden is zoals zij nu is, blijft een rode draad door alle verhalen heen. In dit deel komt het zo goed als niet in beeld wat ik wel jammer vind want ik ben heel erg benieuwd waar dat nog eens naar toe gaat leiden.

Leuk ook om oude bekenden terug te zien komen zoals inspecteur Singh, nichtje Winfred, dokter Littleton en zijn dochter Alexandra. Altijd weer hilarisch Alexandra te zien die weigert Lady Mechanika als een werkelijk mens te erkennen.

Het tekenwerk is zoals altijd vol met details voor de ingewikkelde kledij van de personages en soms ook voor de ruimtes waarin de personages zich bevinden. Maar er wordt ook wel regelmatig gebruik gemaakt om wat meer op de personages in te zoomen zodat er geen achtergrond nodig is. Dit maakt wel dat de uitdrukkingen en houdingen van de mensen duidelijk in beeld komen en voor mij werkt dat heel goed om me nog meer in het verhaal in te leven.

Weer een prima verhaal. Op naar de volgende.

Dit derde deel van Lady Mechanika bevat niet 6 hoofdstukken zoals het tweede deel maar slechts 2 waarvan het tweede hoofdstuk 2/3 van dit deel beslaat. Een verrassende andere opbouw van wat ik anders van trade paperbacks gewend ben waarin een vast aantal hoofdstukken een vast aantal bladzijden beslaan. Mooi dat hiervan afgeweken kan worden en een verhaal daardoor niet onnodig uitgesmeerd wordt.

In The Lost boys of West Abbey verdwijnen zoals de titel het al zegt een aantal kansloze jongens en is het Lady Mechanika die dit raadsel weet op te lossen. Dit doet zij samen met inspecteur Singh waarvan ik het vermoeden heb dat dit niet het laatste is wat we van dit heerschap hebben gezien. Ook weet ik nog niet zeker of hij zuiver op de graat is wat het lezen extra spannend maakt.

Het leek er even op Lady Mechanika meer over haar achtergrond te weten ging komen maar dat viel tegen. Alhoewel zij wel meerdere malen een flash back kreeg waarin zij zichzelf op een tafel zag liggen zonder armen.

Bijzonder vond ik wel dat na de Duitsers en hun zucht naar zwarte magie uit het vorige deel er nu gedeald wordt met de Joodse legendes van golems en Molochs, het levenloze levend maken, een ziel geven. Deze strip schuwt geen duistere kanten van de mens en stelt je ook niet gerust. Zoals wat te denken van het laatste plaatje waarop de jonge Winifred met de mechanische beer speelt waarvan wij weten dat het bewustzijn van een van verdwenen jongens heeft gekregen.

Een strip die blijft boeien.½

Het tweede deel van Lady Mechanika gaat tot mijn verrassing en misschien ook wel spijt helemaal niet over de oorsprong van Lady Mechanika zelf, dit zal dus nog wel even een geheim blijven. Daarentegen vormen de zes hoofdstukken een afgerond verhaal met slechts kleine verwijzingen naar het eerste deel.

Lady Mechanika haar hulp wordt ingeroepen door de kleine Winifred die zich zorgen maakt om haar grootvader die op expeditie is en plots niets meer van zich laat horen. Dit ontaardt in een avontuur vol reizen met zeppelins, gevechten met kwaadaardige Duitsers, ontdekkingen van geheimen die eeuwen als mythes zijn beschouwd, wetenschappelijke nieuwsgierigheid, mysterieuze genootschappen, verborgen natuurvolken, nieuwe vriendschappen en natuurlijk de overwinning met een ontknoping die ik niet direct had zien aankomen. Kortom een verhaal waar ik behoorlijk door meegesleept werd.

Het enige dat mij af en toe stoorde waren de mensfiguren die wel heel erg uit proportie getekend waren alsof de tekenaar niet wist hoe dat perspectiefwijs op papier te krijgen. De enorme borsten, wespentailles en enorm lange benen van de vrouwspersonen kan ik nog wel waarderen maar als het dan opeens helemaal niet meer klopt, is dat jammer.

De tekeningen lijken ergens slordig, je kunt het het tegenovergestelde van de klare lijn noemen. Maar aan de andere kant zijn de bladzijden rijkelijk gevuld met details, zoals ook de tekening op de voorkant al laat zien. De kleding van alle personages zitten vol frutsels en stiksels en koffers zijn dikwijls met gouden versiersels beslagen. Daarnaast zijn veel kaders omhuld met radars, schroeven en anderlei mechanisch metaalwerk. Allemaal oogstrelend. Samen met het boeiende verhaal, een topreeks.½

Gorgeous art, great characters, and an engaging story. I wish it had been slightly longer, but I'm happy to read any Lady Mechanika story.

Received via NetGalley.

I've fallen in love with the Lady Mechanika books. The stories are great and the art is lavish, with mindbogglingly intricate details. This series has become not just a must read for me, but a must buy.

3 Stars for the writing, 4 for the art. This is super pulpy stuff, but fun and drawn beautifully. The writing isn't bad, it just doesn't stick out as especially creative or witty. I love how she has a different outfit on every cover. This one was much more "Indiana Jones" than the first book, which focused on her origins (which weren't really revealed, so hoping to get back to that).½

The Graphics/ Artwork

The graphic was once again beautiful, I loved the gadgets and costumes as much as I did last time. Benitez, once again did a great job displaying Lady Mechanika and her allies, who were much more diverse than the last volume.

The Story

The story was a bit more slow than the last one and I didn't have much of a care about it in the beginning. I had to stop for a couple of days before I picked it back up again. The story picked up again towards the second half of the book which I really appreciated. This took the story away from Lady Mechanika's origin and introduced new characters. This story showcased the type of things our heroine usually does on a daily basis and that's help people. Considering how Lady Mechanika feels about herself, you can tell that everyone who meets her and knows her really thinks highly of her. There was a lot of speaking

Our Heroine

Lady Mechanika shows a lot more of her sensitive side in this book, and while the book showcased her fighting skills there was not as much this time instead showing that our heroine can use her brains almost as well as her brawns. This was a point on the books behalf.

Great story, awesome graphics.

Series Info/Source: This is the fifth volume in the Lady Mechanika series. There are six books in this series right now with more to come. I got a copy of this book for Christmas.

Story (5/5): Lady Mechanika finds another intriguing clue into her mysterious past. As she tries to track down answers, she is forced to detour when Mr. Lewis becomes entranced by a young widow who is linked to the untimely death of many other geniuses. It was a very well done story and really kept my interest. Although the story doesn’t make much progress, it was still action packed and engaging.

Characters (5/5): I continue to really love Lady Mechanika and enjoyed watching her try to manage Mr. Lewis and his depression. The inclusion of a fae-like character was also well done.

Setting (5/5): I love the London setting and the backgrounds and settings are absolutely beautifully drawn with stunning detail.

Writing/Drawing Style (5/5): While this series can be a bit text-heavy at times, the story flows well and keeps me interested. I do wish we could make a bit more progress each book about Lady Mechanika discovering her history. However, every volume does have a nice contained mystery in it and the main mystery does make a tiny bit of progress as well. The drawing here is spectacular and I just love to sit and look at the beautiful illustration. The illustrations are done in deep, rich tones and have a ton of amazing detail to them. The whole thing is very well put together.

My Summary (5/5): Overall I enjoyed this a lot more than the fourth volume in the series and am glad I picked it up to read. I loved revisiting these characters and this world. I especially enjoyed the intricate story and absolutely stunning drawing. If you are a steampunk fan you absolutely have to give the Lady Mechanika graphic novel series a try. If you enjoy action packed graphic novels with a Victorian setting you will also probably enjoy this series.

I received a copy through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

I read volume 1 and 2 of Lady Mechanika, and liked them a lot. So I just couldn't resist when this became available.
I liked volume 3 even better than the previous ones. And inspector Singh is an interesting addition to the group...
This graphic novel has great artwork, lovely details (like the gears on the borders...), and a good story as well.

I'm turning into a fan of Lady Mechanika....
This was at least as good as the first volume.
The storyline has been done before (numerous times), but it didn't feel stale at all. I liked the little winks to Indiana Jones and The Rocketeer.
I also like the fact that the 'damsel in distress' isn't a helpless creature in these stories, illustrated by Fred in this volume, who does the very best she can to escape her captors...

I received a copy trhough NetGalley in return for an honest review.

The art is just brilliant. I was mesmerized right from the opening scene, where the moon was drawn spectacularly. The story is fine, but the art is what made me spellbound. Now I'm going to have to read every work by this author/illustrator. 4 stars are entirely for the art.

Note - I received a free copy of the book from the publisher. This has not influenced my review in any way.

Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com

This second volume was even better than the first! The artwork, as I'd come to expect after the first volume, was still great. It is amazing and really one of the best things about this comic. I liked this story better than the first, even though it is not that original (typical ancient treasure kind of thing). Still it was a pleasure to read. There is still a lot of text on some pages, but I had the feeling it was slightly less this time. Lady Mechanika makes a really nice lead in this steampunk comic.

Looking forward to more!

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com

It's a shame that this volume is only 60 pages where the others were more than twice as long. It is no miracle that the story can not be very complicated in such a short time span, so the case was resolved rather quickly.

I still really liked the art and the characters though, and I'm already looking forward for the next volume!

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Once again, love love love the series. This time around Lady Mechanika gets distracted from finding her maker and the owner of the same robot arm she has with her comrade who has fallen in love with a fairy. But this fairy is not all good and is ready to take Mr. Lewis's life. It's up to her and the girl to rescue him. Beautiful all the way through and ending was sad.

The Lady Mechanika series is one of only a handful that I make a point of keeping up on. The story never disappoints and the artwork is fantastic. I am not sure what more there is to add, that is really what you are looking for in graphic stories of any kind, and it is here.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

I absolutely love this comic book series! How could you not with a lady robot and steampunk! Plus I love the glasses!! Squee! This one is about her protecting the girl and finding her grandfather who has found weapons that the Germans want. Full of action and adventure!

Lady Mechanika continues to be beautifully drawn, but I'm beginning to weary of how drawn out her search for her origins is.

Received via NetGalley.½

Pros: gorgeous artwork, interesting story, great costumes

Cons: depressing ending

Lady Mechanika’s quest to discover her past is sidetracked when Mr Lewis’s depression suddenly dissipates and he announces his engagement to a mysterious woman.

This volume collects the three comics that make up this storyline. It references some of the earlier volumes, but as situations and people are given enough reference, you can follow along even if you haven’t read those.

As with the other volumes, the artwork is gorgeous with some great steampunk costumes and a Victorian style setting. There are a few fight scenes with good action and a new female bad guy.

I found myself conflicted by the depression plotline. On the one hand I think the team did a great job of showing that it can take a long time for people who have suffered lost to recover. On the other hand, Lady Mechanika seems to have reached a point where she’s tired of Mr Lewis’s grief and just wants him to go back to being her occasional sidekick. I could actually understand his choice for marriage at the end of the volume and felt that Lady Mechanika took something from him and then left him alone to deal with the fallout at a point when he clearly needs intervention. The idea that he’ll just recover on his own - given enough time - is unfortunately rarely true in real life, and it would have been nice to see this acknowledged in the comic, maybe by sending him to a convalescent home or giving him a pet to care for (it’s possible this will be addressed in the next issue). But that last page with him is very depressing to read.

On the whole though, I thought it was a great volume.

I received this from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

Not a bad story, but extremely short, over a hundred pages shorter than the previous two volumes. As always, though, the artwork was fantastic.

I received this from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

More of the same as volume 1: steampunk, evil bad guys, and twists. While the plot wasn't anything overly original, it was fairly well done, and beautifully drawn. As long as Benitez is involved in this series, I'll keep reading.

** I received a copy of this book for free through a Goodreads giveaway. **

I really enjoyed this graphic novel! I loved the world, loved the magic/science combination, and enjoyed the mystery (although that was less interesting than the world and the characters, there was enough mystery to keep the story moving). The illustrations were amazing also and really helped tell the story. I will definitely be continuing with this series and have already ordered the first two installments. Definitely recommended for steampunk/victorian mystery/magic fans!!

This volume of the Lady Mechanika series was, for my taste, better than the first two (which I did also enjoy). I just felt the story was better and the artwork was subtly better, or at least less cheesy and more natural (whatever natural would be for someone like Lady).

If you kinda liked the first two but was on the fence about reading more in the series I think you will be pleasantly surprised with this volume. I highly recommend it.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.½

It wasn’t too long ago that I discovered the Lady Mechanika graphic novel series, and its one I’ve come to look forward to reading each time I find a new volume. When I had the opportunity to read an early copy of Lady Mechanika Vol. 3: The Lost Boys of West Abbey by M.M. Chen and Joe Benitez, I jumped on it.

Lady Mechanika is an engrossing steampunk adventure told in graphic novel format, and is a series I would recommend to all fans of both steampunk and graphic novels. This volume continues to follow the adventures of Lady Mechanika and her friends and companions. Lady Mechanika takes an interest in a new case after Winifred finds the headline in the newspaper. Children have been found murdered in Mechanika City, and, if that weren’t enough, they all have connections to mechanical experiments.

The artwork is, once again, absolutely stunning. This alone will keep me coming back for more each time. The design and color pallet choices hold a certain mastery that isn’t quite attained by ever graphic novel or comic I stumble across. The characters are quite chatty, however. Some of the pages feel a bit too cluttered with dialogue. There are almost paragraphs instead of sentences in some places, which can make getting through a single page take longer than usual. A bit ironic, really considering the overall length of the volume.

The characters are both memorable and endearing. Mr. Lewis has returned for this adventure, being notably absent in the second volume. His niece, Winifred, first introduced in volume 2, has also returned. Volume 3 seeing the introduction of a new character as well, this time not a relative of Mr. Lewis. Singh is a detective who is also investigating the murders. Despite not having very many pages to get to know him, I quite liked Singh’s character. Mechanika and Singh make a good pair, and, I hope he’s included in future installments.

The story feels less fleshed out than previous books in the series, and for good reason. At only 63 pages long its almost one hundred pages shorter than both the first and second volume in the series. Everything is over before the story has really begun. While I really liked the introduction of the new character, we don’t have time to really get to know him. And there is only one real fight scene as opposed to numerous ones in previous volumes.

Even so, the story is much stronger and held my attention much more fully than volume 2. We go back to more plot relevant happenings as opposed to the more generic globetrotting and friend saving of the previous volume. Mechanika’s background is once again touched upon if not fully explored. The current case she is working on have brought nightmares with it, only Lady Mechanika can’t fully tell if they are normal nightmares or if she is finally beginning to remember the parts of her past which have been long forgotten. I can only hope we will see this developed further in future volumes.

I greatly enjoyed Lady Mechanika, Vol. 3: The Lost Boys of West Abbey. It was a fun tale that was more in tune with the first volume in the series than the second one. If you like graphic novels, steampunk, and strong female main characters check this series out. If you don’t like steampunk or don’t like very chatty characters in your graphic novels you may want to skip this one.

Lovely Artwork, Okay Story

(Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this book for review through Goodreads Giveaways.)

-- 3.5 stars --

So, full disclosure: I'm new to the Lady Mechanika series and wasn't sure how it would go, diving in in the middle like I did. But the cover caught my eye, so I entered (and won!) a copy through Goodreads, and here we are.

The copy on the back promises that Volume 3 is "a perfect entry point for readers," and so it is! Aside from a passing reference to "Pappy's discovery in Africa," the plot is pretty self-contained, and Lady Mechanika's backstory, easy enough to infer.

In this steampunk version of Victorian England called Mechanika City, a gruesome discovery has been made: in the basement of an abandoned building, the bodies of five young orphans. Bound to operating tables, runes drawn on their skin in blood (not theirs), surrounded by curious clockwork toys. While the brass isn't terribly interested in a bunch of dead street urchins, Inspector Singh - himself a former orphan and petty thief from Kolkata - has taken a special shining to the case. As has investigator/cyborg Lady Mechanika, who hopes it might shed some light on her own stolen past.

The art's generally pretty great: the clockwork toys are rad, Lady Mechanika is fierce (though I'd love to see more of her mechanical limbs), and the colors are perfectly dark and gloomy. The plot's pretty basic, but engaging; if anything, it made me want to pick up the first two volumes in the series, if only to learn more about the titular hero. (And with a series runner called The Mystery of the Mechanical Corpse, can you really blame me?) I guess my only complaint is that the dialogue sometimes felt a little stilted and unbelievable? Though this could just be the convention of the genre; idk, sadly I don't read a whole lot of steampunk. (So many books, so little time.)

And Winifred! How cute is she, with those oversized glasses? She's like a cooler (read: 1880s, not 1980s) version of myself at that age.

http://www.easyvegan.info/2017/06/16/lady-mechanika-volume-3-the-lost-boys-of-we...½