Oz Comic Con Part 2

So I finished the other books I bought at Oz Comic Con

Changing Ways 2 & 3

As you might recall in the last blog post, I said how awesome Changing Ways 1 was.  so what did I think of 2 and 3?

Let me start with that Randall's art and writing were just as good as part 1 but these two didn't pull me into the story as well as the first part.  It may be that after the first part punched me in the guts (metaphorically speaking) - I had tensed up ready for the punches in parts 2 and 3.

I found part two's leap forward of ten years both helped and hindered the story.  It gave the story a chance to grow and progress the consquences of part 1 but it also left gaps in the story and the actions of one character, David Barratt, in the missing decade didn;t quite make sense to me.  In part one he was a dedicated family man who had already lost one child and his actions here didn't fit that.

I am being a bit harsh and the character telling us about what happened is an unrealiable figure they may not understand why things happened but when David does appear we don't get any real explanation.

On the plus side we do learn more of what is going on, while not every question is being answered (and for all we know the answers we are getting may not be right).

Part two ends with the discovery that someone we thought dead is actually alive which leads us to part 3

Part three leaps back to the end of part one and eplains what happened to that character until part 3. (there is a slight discontinuity between 2 and 3, in part 2 she appears to be cryogenically frozen, which doesn't happen in part 3)

Part 3 also doesn't answer or fill in the blanks of part 2.

However what 2 and 3 together do is get us revved up for part 4 (i have no idea how many parts Randall has planned) which seems to be leading to some sort of final battle/revelation

I'm on board for the rest of the series as it comes out and look forward to seeing how it plays out.

Headlocked volumes 2 & 3

I also read the next two parts of Headlocked Kingston and Mulipola's wrestling comic.

I also enjoyed this series as seen in part 1.  Parts 2 and 3 basically carry on from part 1 except there is a gap - something happened that left our hero Mike Hartmann bloodied in the middle of the ring and blacklisted to the wrestling industry .

But there is salvation from Doc Nightingale, a wrestler who left the industry for four years to try his hand at Hollywood.  He wants to make his return and offers Hartmann the chance to train with him as a masked wrestler known as Painkiller.

There's more to this as Nightingale is seen talking to someone on the phone about Michael and his training.

Also there is  a reporter looking to do an expose on Michael and we see him meeting wrestling school trainers and the shady practices that go on there.

I'm really oversimplifying here as we meet a heap of characters who are well felshed out.

This is a really good book and each volume builds on the last juggling several plots really well.

Mulipoli's art and the covers by Jerry "The King" Lawler are so good, (yep going for the technical language here)

Again I'm on board for the rest of this book also.