Reviews

Renegade Rule by Ben Kahn, Rachel Silverstein

alexis_sara's review

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5.0

Queers girls playing games and kicking ass pretty much locked me into enjoying this one. I do think it could have used more time, more space. I think the stakes feel a bit artificially inflated. There is no tournament for any competitive game i've ever seen that has no runners up prize. The idea that a game with a grand stage show has no second place prize is so freaking wild to me. That was pretty distracting. I do think we didn't get room for the sapphic romances to really blossom in the book.

The art is fantastic, colors are great, it's a really good book that I think coulda been that level greater with more space or different priorities. It worked well for the space they had though and the team did a good job of fitting in the full story in such a condensed place.

grid's review

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4.0

This was silly but fun.

I don’t think the authors know much about e-sports, but that’s probably okay. This fantasy (where all the top players are GLBTQ+ and adults and more or less the same age) is a lot less gross than reality, and a lot more fun.

youvegotmejl's review

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adventurous lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

crookedtreehouse's review

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2.0

Almost every film student of the late twentieth/early twenty-first century thinks that just writing about their friends sitting around at their houses having awesome conversations would make for an interesting film. They're almost always wrong. Excruciatingly so.

Similarly, this century, more and more media seems to be about playing video games of mmorpgs or fantasy campaigns. But it is super fucken hard to write about playing a game in a way that's interesting to someone who's not involved in playing that same game.

Renegade Rules opens with a team playing an mmorpg and just throwing one liners at each other to give the reader some idea of their personalities. And ... it feels like a lot of 80s superhero comics, in that the snappy patter is just going to sound like dated idiocy in just a few years. And while the art in this book is fine, it's not supporting the in-game world experience. If you're just going to go for action flick interaction, you need some astounding artwork to make your audience realize how cool the game is, and it needs to look vastly different from the Real World component of the story. But there's really no difference between the two worlds, and the whole thing just looks a slightly above average webcomic.

I just didn't care about any of the characters (again, they have the depth of action movie characters, so I don't think I'm supposed to care very much), and the premise about wanting to be champions at The Nationals tournament just wasn't exciting.

redhairedashreads's review against another edition

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3.0

 
3 stars - I liked it

This was a fun story about a group of friends who are competing in the Renegade Rule virtual gaming tournament, and along the way they find love and a sense of purpose. I enjoyed this. This was both amusing and heartwarming. I was expecting more development on the potential Tonya and Sasha romance though. 

Overall, this was fun and had great artwork and vibrant colors. I would read another volume of these girls falling in love and kicking ass. 

 

smfields's review

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adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

pib003's review

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3.0

This was fun, I probably would've liked it more if I was a gamer myself.

booksgamesvinyl's review

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adventurous funny hopeful medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

thatonelibrarygirl's review

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3.0

Quick, easy read. Interesting concept and plot line- couldn't wait to dig into this LGBTQ+ comic reminiscent of Ready Player One. However, the writing seemed a bit fragmented and didn't pull me in as much as I'd hoped. I'll be interested to see if any upcoming comics support further character development and plot lines.

katherina17's review

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5.0

This was so cute and sweet. I was rooting for them the whole time