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Review: Brain Camp

Brain Camp Brain Camp by Susan Kim
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.45 stars.

It took me a long time to finally pick this up because I don’t have a very great track-record with its publisher, First Second. I’ve read three other books published by them, Anya’s Ghost, and Boxers and Saints. All of these books were good but… unsettling or unsatisfactory in some way, and that’s the impression I’m left with whenever I think of them.

I think Brain Camp may be my favorite First Second book I’ve read… either this or Saints. The story was interesting but jarring at the same time, because I didn’t really expect it to be as creepy as it was. There’s blood and a gross act of plunging a hand into someone’s throat. When things like that happened it was like I said: Jarring. And I'm someone who likes me some weird shit, okay? But whenever it happened here it always seemed like it came out of left field and didn't match the tone of the rest of the book.

I enjoyed this book overall, however I would have enjoyed it a lot more if the storytelling was smoother. It moved way too fast. One frame they’re here, the next frame they’re there, and it was really… Just, bad and not well done, and I would have liked Brain Camp a lot more if the pacing was better. I mean, there were THREE people working on this book (plus editors and such), and no one caught on to how bad that was? Ever heard of first making a storyboard and mapping out your panels and then revising them before going ahead and inking/colouring something that's way too rushed? No? I can tell. This overarching issue with pacing was the main thing that gave the whole book an unsettling feeling overall.

The art has the same thick cartoony style like most other First Second books, but I liked it.

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