Saturday, July 23, 2016

She Wolf #2



She Wolf, Spell Number Two: Mirror Walking introduces a new character, the vampiress, Nikki, who is teaching the werewolf, Gabby, how to deal with her nightmares.  Then a full Moon comes out, and they fight, just like in a good supernatural teenage thriller.  Nikki's mother teaches Gabby how to avoid turning into the wolf, so things are a little more normal for her.  Or is it just a dream?  And what do Nikki and her mother mean when they say that the scratch from her ex-boyfriend isn't what turned her into a werewolf?  

Nikki is black, but she initially appears white because she wears pasty, white makeup to protect her from the sun.  Another thing I noticed is the setting.  There's a video-game arcade in the shopping mall with Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and Defender; this gives away the time frame.  Video-game popularity peaked in 1983, but by 1985, most of the arcades in malls had closed, as profits from video games dropped 97% in this period.  It wasn't until the 1990s that arcade games regained popularity, and that was overshadowed by home video-game systems and computer games.  

I like the way Tommaso uses light and shadows, like the white light on pretty much all the pages.  In Spell Number One, he bathes Gabby in the yellow moonlight.  In Spell Number Two, he takes her to Hell and to an Aztec-like fantasy before teaching her about herself and her family.  Reading this makes me want to go back to Spell Number One to see what I missed.  

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