BooksOfTheMoon

Volume 20 (20!) of Agatha’s adventures see us under the sea, with a big confrontation between Agatha and her mother, as well as finally getting Gil free of his father’s influence. Albia shows us some of what she can do and the deep dwellers come to the surface. In amongst all this, there’s time for some quieter moments too. Unexpectedly poignant is Oggie’s revelation about being married while being a Jagermonster, and the story he tells about his wife. And Airman Higgs finally comes clean about who he is to Agatha.

I’m really impressed at how well the plot coheres, despite how long-running the series is. Running a strip three days a week for decades at this point must make it difficult to keep track of. And I do always enjoy these paper collections that let us catch up with the story and read a year’s worth of story in an afternoon.

The battle for Paris is over – the old Master is dead but his daughter has broken through and stepped into his place. Almost her first action is to exile Agatha and the others who recently came to her city, while she rebuilds its fortifications. Agatha finally accepts an invitation to come to England to try and study and discover what she can about the temporal stasis field that holds her own city in its grasp.

Although I read Girl Genius online, I often struggle to keep the story straight in my head, since we’re only getting three pages a week. Here, we have nearly a year’s output in one place, and I can read it in an afternoon, making it much easier to keep track.

In the Foglios’ imagination, England is a wondrous, sunken island (is it even still an island if it’s under water?), ruled by an incredibly powerful, undying god-queen, who has had her own reasons for forging England into an empire that almost rivals that of the Wulfenbachs (although from a parochial point of view, I wonder what happened to Scotland and Ireland).

As the title nods to, this volume focusses on the queens (Albia and her mostly lost equals) and pirates. Most prominent amongst the latter is the always-wonderful Bangladesh Dupree. Here she gets to face off against an uber-assassin and help kidnap her own boss. She’s nearly as much fun as the Jagermonsters – high praise indeed.

Even after 18 volumes, the story is fresh and engaging. Agatha and her entourage are so much fun, and it’s funny enough that I was laughing out loud on multiple occasions. Roll on the next one.

Goodness me, I think this may be the best Girl Genius volume to date! Agatha has jump-started the castle and as it returns to full power, the full might and power of the fully armed and operational Mechanicsburg is unleashed upon the Wulfenbach hordes. In the middle of all this, the Storm King pretender, Martellus, kidnaps Agatha and teleports her to his refuge, far away. As you’d expect, it all goes horribly wrong.

What with a fully operational (and as twisted as ever) castle, and a full complement of Jagers, this book does not lack for action. The humour knob has also dialled up to 11 and there are many laugh out loud and ‘punch the air’ moments. The story is racing along and getting ever more complex, making these paper collections all the more important for those of us who struggle to remember what happened three hours ago, never mind the days between pages online. That doesn’t stop me from reading them online, but you definitely get more out of it when you can read a whole volume.

The art, as always, is beautiful and the double page spreads definitely make an impact (moreso on paper than online). At the time of writing, this is the last available Girl Genius collected volume. No more binging, I’m going to have to start waiting a year or so between them which is nearly as frustrating as reading the story a page at a time. Ah well, I’m off to go and relieve the frustration by starting again from the start.

And so Agatha Heterodyne’s journey brings us to the siege of her home town of Mechanicsburg. As she continues to try and repair the castle that co-ordinates the town’s defences, Gil and Tarvek are trying to sort things out on Castle Wulfenbach. And the Jagers are back! Properly! This book has a surfeit of Jagers, if such a thing were possible, although is sadly counterbalanced by a smaller role for the castle, which I’ve come to grow very fond of as a character.

The story is still flying along at breakneck pace, and the siege is pretty tense. There are some great moments though, like Franz (the monster) telling invaders to rejoice at the return of the Heterodyne as he stomps all over them, and the ongoing character moments with the minions (von Zinzer’s progress to chief minion not least, and the blossoming romance between Airman Higgs and Zeetha). The Foglios definitely know how to do a cliffhanger too, and the mad-scientist lightning here is as effective as the Doom Bell from last volume.

At the time of writing, there’s only one more volume left that’s been published, so the question is whether to get it now or to wait and savour it? Ah, who am I kidding, I’m only good at self-denial when it’s something I don’t want…

The eleventh volume of Agatha Heterodyne’s adventures see her racing against time to repair her castle while dodging the machinations of the imposter Zola and the remaining parts of the castle not under the control of the central mind. Meanwhile, armies gather outside Mechanicsburg waiting to strike.

There’s one heck of a pace to this story. You really feel the pressure that Agatha is under, although the ongoing battle between Gil and Tarvek about who should be her suitor helps to lighten the mood as you get the feeling that despite their own agendas (of which they have many), they both desperately care for Agatha and do want to help her. This volume also has (just!) one Jager scene where things are set in motion and we get to see the fun, crazy monsters doing politics. One Jager scene is better than no Jager scene, but I’m looking forward to seeing them come back to the fore.

The pace is neck-breaking, the characters great fun to watch and the story as engaging as ever, especially the final double-spread page. No spoilers, but DOOOOOOOOOM :-D.