Monster High: World’s Scare #1. // Review
Frankie is having serious problems. Her dad died, which would be awful enough for anyone in her position in high school. To make matters worse there’s a big event coming-up and she’s not even close to creating an invention that’s worthy of her dad’s legacy. All she ever wanted was to create things to help monsterkind and now...maybe lightning will strike and five her the proper inspiration in Monster High: World’s Scare #1. Writer Jacque Aye delivers a cute, little coming-of-age story with artist Caroline Shuda and colorist Katherine Shuda. It’s a simple, well-articulated high school drama that just happens to be in the cutest end of the horror genre.
Frankie is going to have a bit of difficulty getting her friends’ attention. She’s got the most voltageous idea for something new for the World’s Scare, but they’re a lot more interested in protesting it. See: the big corporate sponsor for the Scare is this company called Gloomtech Beauty. They test their products on innocent animals. There’s no way a company like that should be able to sponsor the World’s Scare. Naturally they’re going to want to protest, but what if the protest cancels the Scare?
Aye crafts a script that works on a few different levels. There IS an adorable horror motif going on throughout that issue...as per that standard for Monster High-related products...but there’s a lot of deeper emotional stuff that’s going on beneath the surface as well. It’s a simplified look at life in high school and coming-of-age in a very contemporary world of social consciousness. The fact that it all comes together without feeling at all preachy is quite an accomplishment. The whole thing feels delightfully fun.
A good portion of the fun comes in the fomr of the visual reality of the story. There may not be a whole lot of variety in the way the drama hits the page, but it never fails to be so irresistibly adorable that it scarcely seems to matter that Caroline Shuda alwats seems to be delivering the same shots from the same angles. Caroline’s art is given vivid life by Katherine Shuda’s colors. It's just so graphically enjoyable, but it's easy to forget that not much is actually being tried. In the way of bringing it to the page in a way that would make friends interesting visual storytelling. It doesn't have to. It's way too cute to have to.
The adventure that the ensemble engages in feels perfectly well suited to the cast. Every character seems to be getting a respectable amount of time on the page. The focus is on Frankie, but there's a lot of other stuff going on around the edges of everything. There's something to engage a lot of different personalities in the course of the drama. The ongoing soap opera that is being delivered is a great deal of fun. The whole thing seems to come from some weird parallel dimension where the Addams Family is perfectly normal...and that’s a world that’s a lot of fun to hang out in.
