#63 Morning Glories, Vol 1: For a Better Future by Nick Spenser and illustrated by Joe Eisma
At the beginning of the first issue of Morning Glories, six students begin to attend the prestigious boarding school, Morning Glory 
Academy. They have very little in common with each other except for the fact that they share a birthday. It doesn’t take long before they learn that something’s rotten at their new school, and their new teachers have darker thoughts on their mind than providing a good education.
Morning Glories is an ongoing comic series by Image comic and the first volume of the trade paperbacks, For a Better Future, collects the first five issues of the series. I wasn’t really sure what I was getting into before picking up the series, other than the fact that it was about students attending a school with secrets, and that readers tended to really like it. To be honest, I think it’s best to go into this title knowing little about what you’re getting into, as half the fun is getting to experience the shock of each development in the story without much preparation. I also found it easier to sympathize with the characters this way. They know very little about their new environment, and the fact that we only see a few glimpses more than they do makes it easier to empathize with their fear.
The artwork for Morning Glories has a very crisp feeling about it, with very little extraneous activity going on in the background. Some people may find this a little too simplistic, but I loved it. The story sets up the surprises very well, often occurring right after the turning of a page so there’s no risk of accidentally “reading ahead” by eyeballing a panel down the page too early. The characters presented here are wonderfully diverse. Each possess a different personality and background, all which come across very strong. The story admittedly, raises a lot of questions and doesn’t answer them, but given as this is the very beginning of the series, that worked quite well for me. Sometimes a little bit of mystery is a good thing.
Morning Glories: For a Better Future is a suspenseful, and at times horrific story of adolescence. Our protagonists are all at an age where it's common to for school to feel like a prison, and that the adults in their lives are out to get them. So it's rather brilliant for Morning Glories to take this feeling that most of us go through in our lives, and push it to the extreme. The quality of For a Better future, from its artwork, to characters, to suspense building, is consistently excellent. I came out of the graphic novel filled with questions about what could possibly be going on in Morning Glory Academy, and fearful for what the future would bring for our characters.
Rating: five stars
Length: 192 pages
Source: Lewiston Public Library
Other books I've read by this author: This is my first
Next I will be reviewing 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson
xposted to temporaryworlds, bookish and goodreads
Academy. They have very little in common with each other except for the fact that they share a birthday. It doesn’t take long before they learn that something’s rotten at their new school, and their new teachers have darker thoughts on their mind than providing a good education.
Morning Glories is an ongoing comic series by Image comic and the first volume of the trade paperbacks, For a Better Future, collects the first five issues of the series. I wasn’t really sure what I was getting into before picking up the series, other than the fact that it was about students attending a school with secrets, and that readers tended to really like it. To be honest, I think it’s best to go into this title knowing little about what you’re getting into, as half the fun is getting to experience the shock of each development in the story without much preparation. I also found it easier to sympathize with the characters this way. They know very little about their new environment, and the fact that we only see a few glimpses more than they do makes it easier to empathize with their fear.
The artwork for Morning Glories has a very crisp feeling about it, with very little extraneous activity going on in the background. Some people may find this a little too simplistic, but I loved it. The story sets up the surprises very well, often occurring right after the turning of a page so there’s no risk of accidentally “reading ahead” by eyeballing a panel down the page too early. The characters presented here are wonderfully diverse. Each possess a different personality and background, all which come across very strong. The story admittedly, raises a lot of questions and doesn’t answer them, but given as this is the very beginning of the series, that worked quite well for me. Sometimes a little bit of mystery is a good thing.
Morning Glories: For a Better Future is a suspenseful, and at times horrific story of adolescence. Our protagonists are all at an age where it's common to for school to feel like a prison, and that the adults in their lives are out to get them. So it's rather brilliant for Morning Glories to take this feeling that most of us go through in our lives, and push it to the extreme. The quality of For a Better future, from its artwork, to characters, to suspense building, is consistently excellent. I came out of the graphic novel filled with questions about what could possibly be going on in Morning Glory Academy, and fearful for what the future would bring for our characters.
Rating: five stars
Length: 192 pages
Source: Lewiston Public Library
Other books I've read by this author: This is my first
Next I will be reviewing 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson
xposted to temporaryworlds, bookish and goodreads