Review of Angel:Yearbook (spoilers)

I'm a bit late to the game, but here is a review of the one-shot comic Angel: Yearbook, the last Angel comic IDW will publish (not counting re-prints of already published comics). I have to say, this is a great way to for IDW to finish. I won't give away much about the stories, except for two. So this spoiler-ish.

It's not a grande finale; no bang, no boom, no epic story. Just 6 very different short pieces of talented writers about our beloved Angel characters, plus a nice good bye letter from the editor Mariah Huehner and another good bye from editor Chris Ryall(in comic form!).

Considering that I've been indifferent to several IDW Angel stories of late, it's very nice that the last comic is so good.

First, a review of the overall format and then more in depth about the individual stories.

The layout of the book is pleasing, simple and classic. It's white text, borders and design on black. No extra flashy colors(ecept in the stories themselves).

The book has three covers to choose from;
-Cover A by David Messina, colors by ScarletGothica.
-Cover B by Jenny Frison.
-Cover R1 by Nick Runge.

All of the artist above are familiar to Angel readers, as they all have done covers for the Angel books in the past. Nick Runge and David Messina have also done a lot of interiors. I like the choices of characters and ideas for the covers. One way or another, they reflect the stories inside, both the characters in focus and the mood. It's too bad the Messina cover show characters that's not in the book, since it made me expect to see them in stories, but oh well.

I think I would have liked the text "yearbook" on cover B, to have had a different color, better matching the color of the rest of the cover. However, the rest of the covers have the same yellow both for "Angel" and "yearbook" and it works for them, so it might have been a shame to break up the unity.

Now to the content. I've chosen to just review in depth two of the stories(OMG Unicorns! and My Only Friend). But here's a short presentation of each and every story(there's also a heartfelt introduction by Mariah Huehner).

...Dust to dust.
Written by Jeff Mariotte. Drawn by David Messina. Inks by David Messina & Gaetano Carlucci. Colors by ScarletGothica.

A story focusing on Gunn and his sister Alonnas time before they met Angel. We're shown how Gunn is forced to kill someone he likes, because they have turned into a vampire. This story is a clear foreshadowing of what Gunn will be forced to do in the future and we're shown that he realizes that he needs friends to help fight evil.


All the Time In the World.
Story by Scott Tipton & Elena Casagrande. Script by Scott Tipton. Drawn by Elena Casagrande. Colors by Illaria Travesi.
A sweet Wesley & Fred story, set in season 5. The two love birds are trying to get a first date, but demons keeps showing up, ruining the mood. Both fun and tragic, considering the last time they tried was before the first scene of the episode A Hole in the World. They never had a chance.


Fight For the Remote!
Written by Daniel Roth. Art by Stephen Mooney. Colors by Jordie Bellaire.
Spike & Angel both wants the remote. A very light and fun story.


This One Time.
Written by Brian Lynch. Art by Franco Urru. Colors by Andrea Priorini.
Angel, Spike, Illyria, Gunn, Betta George and Connor saving the world. Kinda. Reality keeps changing, making our heroes into puppets, children, Gunn turns into Illyria, etc etc. It's a wacky story, showing what could have happened, if things were different.


A Blessing and "The Curse".
Written by Chris Ryall. Art by David Messina & Francu Urru. Colors by David Messina & Fabio Mantovani.
A good bye letter from the main editor Chris Ryall, in comic form. He takes us back to the early comics, reminds us of past stories and artists, shows us Angel's time at IDW and finsishes with riding away on Cordelia the dragon saying "Where to? I say we head north, becasue personally, I kinda want to slay the dark hoooooorse", refering to the last line of the tv show, when Angel says he wants to slay the dragon, and to the takeover by Dark Horse of course.

Now to the more in dept reviews.

OMG Unicorns!
Written by Peter David. Drawn by Stephen Mooney. Colors by Jordie Bellaire.
This is the one that stands out. For one, it's in the shape of a blog. And has a white and pink layour, clearly breaking with the somber and murky colors of the rest of the book. But it's written from Harmony's perspective and is full of sillyness, so that is quite alright.

This is the kind of story, that at first makes you think to yourself "I could have written that. A teen year old could have written that" but then you get to the end and you think "Huh, this was actually... quite something." Needless to say, it's has a clever ending and a good build up, showing a good understanding of the character. It was very Harmony.

This could be taken the wrong way, but it reminds me of fanfics where the writer ssets out to give the character a happy ending and makes the other character help that character achieve their goal, even though it can seem a bit Mary Sue-ish. But its' deeper than that. The writer Peter David adapts to the way many people writes blogs. Or atleast, the sterotype of how dumb blondes write blogs. Then the story procceds and we get to see Harmony's darkness. Not just that she's evil, but that she actually has her own demons to fight. The story then ends with her recieving help, hope actually, and ability to live her life a bit easier. It's Angel that delivers that hope, in quite a suprising way, which is why I mentioned the fic thing. But after a moment's thought, I actually changed my mind; maybe Angel would actually have done that for Harmony. He has after all a thing for helping "bad girls".

Artwise, there's not much to say. It's simple but it works. There's technically just three images, in Mooney usual great style, reflecting the blogposts. However, they don't look like picture Harmony took and uploaded herself, which would be typical for a blog. They're usual comic book art reflecting the story. Mooney also made adorable unicorn emoticons.

My Only Friend.
Written by Patrick Shand. Drawn by Stephen Mooney. Colors by Jordie Bellaire.

This was my favorite story. It could be because I hang out at the same Buffy forum (slayalive.com) as the writer does. He and Daniel Roth(author of Fight for the remote!) are the two newbies to the Angelverse, two active people from Buffy/Angel fandom who mamaged to get their stories published in this yearbook. I believe it's their first work in the comic industry, which doesn't show, since they succeded so well in writing for the characters.

Back to the story. Not to give too much away, it's just two pages after all, but it's about Angel reflecting on where he belongs. On where his home is. It's quite beautiful. I don't like Angel as a character, so that I can completely overlook that dislike when reading this show how well written it is. The art by Mooney is great as well, fits the mood. Angel is pensive, a bit broody (I mean, we're talking about Angel), walking around town, making his broody face. The story focuses on Angel's inne monolouge, with just a few lines spoken out loud. Usually, I get tired of Angel's monolouge. He sounds pretentious and the writers tries to fit too much information into the story. Both on the show(there were at least two episodes with Angel(us) doing inner monlouge) and in the comics. But this is not like that. This is a short precise story, saying what's needed and nothing more. That Angel is home. He found his home in the first season of Angel, lost and regained his home and friends and family over and over again, but now we're shown he still knows he has a home.

* * * *


So, all in all, a pretty good comic book. Some stories did have a message they were clearly trying to push, with the characters expressing what they had learned by the end of it, kind of like in a South Park episode, but it was still good.