A review by housedesignerking
Dodge City #1 by Cara McGee, Josh Trujillo

challenging emotional fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

I picked this up at a local comic book and graphic novel store in a display they’d briefly set up by the register. I figured I’d try something new.

I’m not 100% sure what I just read. I mean, I know it’s a graphic novel about a school dodgeball team. At least I think it’s for a school. The entire story takes place in a gymnasium that looks like one you’d see in a school. Then again, I once belonged to a church that had a gymnasium within it. It was mostly used for coffee hour. It’s never really specified if this one is in a school, a YMCA, or (even less possible) a church. I hope it's not in a church because there's a butt scene where it's something of a bubble butt, and that kind of closeup would be inappropriate in a church, LoL.

Tomás is the new kid, which you don’t find out right away. The other boys on the team are Amardeep, and Huck. Huck is part of the struggle story line. He’s deaf. The girls are Drew, Elsie, and Judith. There’s another team, but you never get introduced to them aside from the butt pic. There’s also a coach, but again, it’s never specified if she’s also a gym teacher, or if in Dodge City, they just have a local Dodgeball team.

The story itself is a bit confusing. There’s also not much of a story line. It feels more like someone went to their sport practice and decided to write about it while only retaining bits and pieces of the memories. The talk bubbles don’t go along with the pictures all the time to help the reader know what’s going on. 

It also doesn’t help matters that a part of this is in Spanish. If you’re not bilingual, only party of the Spanish part is understandable. Google Translate may be of assistance, here.

Basically, most of this is a dodgeball game, and the ending makes the whole story a bit random. The story ends maybe a minute after the game is over. I know that some graphic novels are written to give little tidbits of a story to make you wanna keep reading, but I’m just not feeling that intended desire to immediately buy the second one because too little was given in this one. 

I may look into the second one just to satisfy my curiosity regarding where the heck this mess was supposed to go. It’s hard to tell if this is a good story just with the first installment, but I'll give it 1 star.