hflh's reviews
57 reviews

Following Elly’s first night and day at work and all the misunderstandings and challenges that ensue, vol 2 is when Blood Stain really begins to shine. 

The art is dynamic and has a lot of personality which, combined with the characters and antics, makes for an incredibly fun read if you like a healthy dose of the ridiculous. We also start to see more of Elly’s active imagination in the form of videogame themed daydreams which are such a treat. 

My only complaint would be that the art can be inconsistent and some panels feel slightly lifeless but I did not find this detracted from the story or my enjoyment of the art overall. 

TW:

Short one panel flashback of a character being bullied as a kid.

On Blood Stain as a whole:
Blood Stain follows recent chemistry grad Elly as she struggles under the pressures of her family to find and keep a job in today's dismal market. Her last option is an assistant position for a creepy scientist - Vlad - that no one will work for.

Volume 1 is a slow start, but it's worth it to stick around I'm not sure how I feel about where volume 4 is going, but of the completed volumes, Blood Stain is a truly delightful and wholesome comedy of errors about oddballs and overcoming bad first impressions. It's a fun, modern mix of Northanger Abbey (but with a little less romance) and Beauty and the Beast (but with a lot less Stockholm syndrome). Elly is a daydreaming gamer and nerd (but she's not given a stereotypical gamer girl character design) while Vlad is an awkward academic who struggles with the social stuff. The art has distinct personality and life without being overly stylistic, the characters are endearing, and Sejic is great at sprinkling in goofy humour without sacrificing too much realism.

TW: One minor specific trigger that

Elly's sister puts a lot of pressure on Elly to get a job to help pay their mother's hospital bills, despite Elly trying her best. The sister doesn't believe Elly and belittles her in their interactions.</spoiler?

On Volume 1:
Much of my comments for Vol. 1 can fall under my whole-series thoughts. Vol. 1 is definitely a slow start, but it is a strong introduction for Elly and her current situation, as well as for 

Vlad's chef Serge

. Elly is a great character and the the events of the volume are entertaining.

Ok I know Dante is amazing for all the careful attention to details across the whole Comedia and for his commentary on politics and morality, but really I just think Inferno is a fun read. I love the fun demon adventure, Virgil and Dante's dynamic, Dante's audacity to add real people from his life in hell, and I really enjoy Ciardi's translated verse. 

If you like medieval or early modern literature and love all things gay and adventure, might be for you :)

If you like Inferno because of the romantic tension between Dante and Virgil, the verse, and the devils, and don’t care about Dante’s craft or his musings on religion, sin, and politics, you will not like Purgatorio.

Purgatorio is more boring and the verse is drier, but it is still a little gay as I’m very certain Heaven welcomes people with a fully choreographed Pride parade.

If you enjoyed this - or didn't - I recommend checking out the updated 2021 version. It majorly expands on the original: rewriting original content in more detail, adding new content, and completely new art.

The 2021 art is more sophisticated and simplistic, and is done completely in colour which is a HUGE addition. The colour really allows Hill to celebrate the different cultures of each People more than the original could.

If you have read the original of this comic published in 2010, I would recommend picking this up as well. This updated version expands on details in the original with completely new art, writing, and content.

Compared to the 2010 version- should you read both?

The 2021 book draws on content from the 2010 book but both have their strengths. The 2021 is more polished and detailed overall, but the 2010 version includes some content that this new version doesn't touch on.

Most notably, the 2021 version lacks a preface from Gord Hill. I liked Pamela Palmeter's foreword but it is a huge loss to completely remove the two pages written by Hill in the original. Hill's preface introduced readers to Hill and acted as an artist statement that was, in my opinion, a much more meaningful way to preface the comic than only a foreword from an outside person.

In terms of art, the 2021 art is more sophisticated and simplistic to accommodate full-colour. The colouring is a HUGE addition as it really allows Hill to celebrate the different cultures of each People more than the black and white could. Still, I would encourage readers to check out the 2010 version as the art has a bit more personality in my opinion - really distinct heavy line work and shading that had to be sacrificed for the colour.

Review
This is a thorough, but high-level overview of a select number of instances of Indigenous resistance across the Americas between the 1400s and present. The book covers a variety of Peoples across the Americas but obviously cannot cover every unique People or instance of resistance so I would recommend consuming other Indigenous-authored content as well. Notably, the comic is missing content on any Métis or Inuit peoples (see end for some recommendations that can help supplement this).

While the text is written in plain language and the comic-format can help with engagement, this is an incredibly dense book. There are lots of descriptions of events with dates, specific people, the amount of deaths, etc. so it can be hard to follow at times and you might need to read it in chunks. It becomes easier once you are used to the style and the events in the 1900s-present have simpler details.

The art is distinct but can be simplistic. The simple art works well with the straight-forward, educational presentation of the content and there are some interesting ways certain panels interact with each other.

Who should read?
I would recommend this to anyone - particularly if you are educated on the general history of colonization but not on Indigenous resistance or if you have a good understanding of Indigenous history in North America but not Central or South America. When learning about colonization, it's important to not only learn about the historical and ongoing injustices but to also acknowledge past and present Indigenous resilience. This is a good starting resource for both. This comic provides a basic background on colonization but it celebrates Indigenous resistance and resilience first-and-foremost, so you will need to consult other resources for a more thorough understanding. Similarly, it provides a good starting point for some key events in the history of Indigenous resistance but I'd highly recommend taking your reading further if you the comic content interested you.

Recommendations for further reading
To start filling the Métis and Inuit gap I can recommend the Pemmican Wars comic series which is about a young Métis girl and Angry Inuk which is a film that highlights some Inuit resistance in the face of anti-sealing activists.

If you enjoyed the more modern resistance efforts, you might also enjoy The Road Forward which looks at First Nations resistance in BC and celebrates Indigenous resilience through art - free on NFB's YouTube channel (there are so many other films free on NFB and CBC Gem too, and resources online with more book and comic recommendations). There is also a free film on NFB titled Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance which covers the Oka Crisis in more detail than the comic. 

For general resources (biased to "Canada") this Google Doc is a list of online educational resources, books, and films:  https://rb.gy/5hsmix

This is an interesting experiment structurally and phonetically and it’s fun seeing each chapter have very distinct sounds and tones. A couple chapters actually made me feel dizzy which I can’t say has ever happened to me while reading. 

I appreciated this unsettling reading experience, but I found the sounds got old and a lot of the chapters were too long for me so I zoned out at some parts it I’m honest. The afterward discusses several rules that guided the writing process which made me understand why some chapters were longer and appreciate it a bit more. This is definitely more of a structure experiment first and foremost so I’d recommend reading the afterward before the poems so you can appreciate them more.

It is quite sexual and sometimes violent in your raw and gritty art type way if that bothers you. And there is some unfortunate cultural generalizing and stereotyping  (Eg “Congo bongos throb to voodoo hoodoo”  when voodoo and hoodoo are distinct and neither are traditionally practiced in the Congo, making it’s reductive to include them lumped together just for the rhymes, especially when anything related to Africa or the African diaspora are already so often just clumped together).

There is also a moment where a person angers some people at a bar and is getting beaten by various crowds, including “Klu-klux cults kung-fu punch[ing] them”. It will depend on each reader whether this is considered appropriate or if, in this context they’re “just words”. To me, it felt poor taste to casually reference such a violent, racist group without meaningfully engaging with it just for the sake of the rules and structure of the poetry experiment. Even if the collection is just an examination of the English language, I don’t think you can separate these words from what they represent outside of phonetics.

Overall, it’s an interesting and quick read for considering the quality of vowels in the English language. But, it could be long and boring and sometimes reduced issues of culture and race which some readers will be put off by.

So much happens in quick succession without much chance to get to know the characters, but at the same time the action feels drawn out so it was hard for me to get invested.

Solid set up for the start of a fun adventure.

I really liked this book. It does a disservice to say that this is four short stories. It is four self contained stories, with small connections between. But, each story builds on a single overarching narrative and mystery in an *incredibly* satisfying way. I really enjoyed following each of the characters as the larger plot unfolded and couldn’t put it down.

I struggled a little with the prose. It’s a bit more descriptive and wordy than I usually like, but this hardly impacted my experience as the actual story itself was engaging.

I was particularly attached to the final central character and the relationships she was building. It’s set up for a sequel and I really hope one is published because I’m excited to see things where things go.