Hugos 2018: Monstress: The Blood by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

I'm back at it! Once again, I'm attempting to read all the 2018 Hugo finalists (in certain categories) and vote. I'll be running these posts on Wednesdays, since I don't use Wednesdays for comics reviews anymore. First, I'll be starting with a couple sequels to 2017 Hugo finalists that I'd already read before they were announced as 2018 Hugo finalists, beginning with the sequel to Monstress: Awakening:

Comic trade paperback, 149 pages
Published 2017 (contents: 2016-17)
Acquired and read October 2017

Monstress, Volume Two: The Blood

Writer: Marjorie Liu

Artist: Sana Takeda 
Lettering & Design: Rus Wooton

I'll be honest, I don't really follow the unspooling backstory behind Monstress. All the stuff about gods and inheritances and dead gods and spirits and Dawn Courts and Dusk Courts... it's a bit impenetrable to be honest. But that's okay, because Liu and Takeda are much more adept at carrying the reader through the human, the immediate, and the emotional. As much as we learn about the god hidden inside Meika Halfwolf, we also learn about her relationship with her mother, and her childhood with tiger-pirates(!), and her determination to figure out how everyone around her is using her and escape it. We also get her being manipulative and clever, but not as clever as she thinks she is.

We also also get more Ren Mormorian, and more of catkind in general, and we get more Kippa being adorably innocent: loved her learning to swim with the help of a shark-pirate, and then that backfiring when she came along with Meikea and Ren. Loved Ren getting pushed around because he's so small, but sticking with Meika because of a promise he swore, and then getting to use his badass nekomancer powers. Loved Ren's superior explaining the significance of being a feline:

from Monstress #7

It's not a perfect comic (man I wish I cared more about the epic fantasy backstory), but I'm enjoying it, and it's different than anything else I can remember reading, and Takeda's art is still gorgeous. Hope that Monstress runs and runs, but I also hope she goes on to do even bigger and better things now that she's had her "big break" once it's over.