Moonstruck is published by Image Comics. It is written by Grace Ellis with art by Shae Beagle and guest art by Kate Leth.
Issue #2 is here and we finally get to meet Selena! It’s the day of their big date at the magic show, which by the way, a magic show in a world full of mythical creatures? Interesting…So, because she is nervous, she makes a very classic mistake of inviting her BFF along. This isn’t a deal-breaker mistake, it’s just, we’ve all seen the show or movie where the boy or girl is nervous about their date so they invite their best friend along and their date feels a bit awkward (to say the least) about the surprise third wheel. But we all love Chet. How could you not? He also manages to break the ice and disperse Selena’s initial discomfort. After meeting their nice cabby, Liam, they are dropped off in what looks like an abandoned part of town with definitely no sign of a magic show. However, super-sleuth Selena figures it out how to enter the show. Throughout the show, Julie and Selena, and even Chet, appear to be having a good time, with Selena pointing out all the ways the magician, a fox named Dorian, is actually pulling off his tricks. I don’t care what book you’re reading, what cartoon you’re watching you never trust a fox (excluding Nick from Zootopia, of course. He’s the best fox). Dorian is no exception to the rule as the magic show takes a turn for the worse….DUN DUN DUUUUNNNNNN.
And that’s all the plot I’ll give away.
As expected, Shae Beagle continues to show us a beautiful, happy, adorable world. Seriously. Even the creepy, mean, and/or angry character have a charm to them. And Julie and Selena are just wonderful together. They’re so cute with Julie’s awkward and nervous demeanor, meanwhile Selena is delivering sweet lines with a sultry look on her face without hesitation. Girl knows what’s up. And Chet, our glorious, centaur, Chet, is just full of wit and sass and a love of food. The Pleasant Mountain Sisters comic-within-a-comic interludes are clever and very “classic children’s book series” as even Chet describes. The best part is they may not seem like it, but I can tell they are going to be relevant to our actual comic plot. You don’t just insert these things for no reason (then again, Grace Ellis could prove me totally wrong). With clever and humorous dialogue, a growing (and intensifying) story, and a growing world filled with constantly new creatures, issue 2 of Moonstruck follows up issue 1 without missing a beat and without drawing out the over-arcing plot for too long. Issue 2 sets us up perfectly for issue 3 as we are already starting to see what terrible things are coming from Cass’s unsettling premonition from issue 1.
Moonstruck #2 OVERALL SCORE: 9.8 / 10
The only thing I didn’t like was very minuscule, but I didn’t like that Julie and Chet were rude to their clearly Scottish cab driver. I mean, I guess “Scotland” probably doesn’t exist per say in this world, but clearly accents and slang do. As soon as he said “lassie” I knew he was Scottish. He’s also a cabbie and I don’t think cabbies are treated by the majority of passengers very nicely in any version of any world that I’ve ever seen. So, while I liked Chet protecting Julie as she is clearly very sensitive, I didn’t like his rudeness to the cabbie due to Julie’s own psychology issues. And then no one even said sorry to the poor guy who apologized AND offered to get them another cabbie because he felt bad he upset them. But that was one meh scene in a whole book full of great ones.
Make sure you pick up a copy of Moonstruck #2 from your local comic store!
Happy reading!
