Sigil 1

Everything about this feels far too glib. We have a schoolgirl who might as well be Buffy mark II, struggling at school, traumatised by her mother having recently died. She has strange dreams, and when attacked by some bullies at school, demonstrates superpowers then finds herself time-travelling to some pirate ship, under attack by some superpowered evil pirates.

Okay, a teenage girl forced into great responsibility and astonishing situations by some power (apparently inherited from her mother, from some hints here) is not a setup unique to Buffy, but the relationship with the dad is so far very like Buffy’s with her mom, and the dialogue is often seeking a similar style, and a writer needs to do something to make this seem less inspired by that, or to do something to make it stand out from other attempts to reproduce the greatness of that TV show. This doesn’t make any obvious attempts either way.

The dialogue is glib too. My impression of Carey (I’ve not read a lot of him) has been that he is skilled but not demanding enough of himself, happy to go with easy options once he has an idea he likes. Maybe I am too put off by things like her addressing her father as “dad-of-my-life”, but that is horrible, isn’t it? The interaction with the school’s female bully doesn’t convince at all, either – she is badly underwritten in the first place, but calling the bully insane and a moron is surely no way to get out of a conflict, but it works here. The interaction with the bully’s paramour is even worse, no part of it at all believable on any level. To be fair, a conversation with a teacher is handled with more sureness of touch, but there is too much clumsy, lazy writing here. The joke lines are painfully lame, as is the big villain’s entrance line on the last spread.

The art has a likeable brightness, and some good faces here and there (mainly the lead character’s), but some are sloppy, and there are lazy irritations, such as when she gets paint on her face, the marks migrate nonsensically from one panel to another, like some version of Rorschach’s mask. The art also falls down on some dramatic moments – when you have been mysteriously transported to an ancient pirate ship and then a cannonball explodes close to you, you must react far more dramatically than she does here, where she might as well be surprised by a stray frisbee.

It all feels tepid and far more pleased with itself than the comic comes near justifying. Buffy is probably my favourite TV series ever, so I am prone to try things that seem a bit like it with some hope in my heart, but as often happens, this dashes those hopes with depressing thoroughness.