Written by: Gene Ha
Art by: Gene Ha
Publisher: Dark Horse
Fantasy is a rich genre in comics. From Fables to Birthright and the ever popular Saga, there’s plenty to choose from if you’re a fantasy fan. Mae, initially funded through a successful Kickstarter, was all set up to join the fray of great comic fantasy. Sadly, the book does not live up to even the lowest of expectations.
Before we get to the plot, lets talk about one of the most noticeable aspect of the book. The art. It’s ugly and it’s an instant turn off. Some panels look like pictures of the game Borderlands from an cancelled PSP port taken with a early 2000’s camera flip phone. While games like Borderlands and TellTale’s games have the advantage of motion which makes their cell shaded graphics pleasant to look at, Mae does not. Gene Ha seems to be attempting some kind of whimsical fantasy look for his book, but it just looks lazy and uninspired.
If the art doesn’t stop you from going any further than the first page, there isn’t anything good in terms of writing either.
The book stars Mae Fortell and her sister Abbie who tends to run away a lot, most recently missing for seven years. She comes back and has quite the tale to tell. Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Kid enters a fantasy world with talking animals and other creatures, kills the bad guy, becomes royalty. If that sounds a whole lot like Narnia, that’s because the plot in this book seems to be ripped straight out of other successful fantasy work. How about fantasy creatures from another world entering our world. Sound familiar? It’s been done a hundred times before and Mae shamelessly makes it 101. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with taking old tropes and using them to write your own story. The problem with Mae is that it does nothing original with these tropes, you’ve seen everything in this book before and you’ve seen it done better.
They say imitation is flattery, in Mae’s case it’s just plain ugly.
