Another weekly read to distract myself from my own destructive thoughts. Here we go! BACKGROUND:
I've never heard of this comic, so chalk this one up as another of my blind reads. THE WRITING: Fuzzy Baseball follows the rivalry of two baseball teams: the Fernwood Valley Fuzzies and the Rocky Ridge Red Claws. The Fuzzies have never been able to beat the Red Claws, and this latest game doesn't seem like it will be any different. What's different this time for the Fuzzies is that they have a new player on the team. Blossom Honey Possum was a longtime fan of the team who got good enough to get signed, and she was frustrated to see that her team seemed resigned to lose yet another game. It seems Blossom's never-say-die attitude was just what the team needed, as the Fuzzies gradually evened the odds during the ninth inning. This was a surprisingly short graphic novel, so the bulk of the story focuses on the last inning of the game. The rest is exposition, so overall, it's a rather self-contained story with not much world-building or character development. Other than Blossom, who is given a bit of backstory, you don't really get to learn a lot about the other characters. Despite this, the story still has some heart to it thanks to Blossom herself, as her push for team spirit is a big focal point. Being a non-American, I don't know a lot about the nitty-gritty of the rules of baseball, but the comic describes the action in a way that sounds fairly technical but still makes sense to me. The writer appears to be a huge baseball fan (to the point that this particular story appears to be inspired by a real-life baseball team they were a fan of), and their passion for the sport is evident through this aspect of the writing. THE ART: As the cover art may have given away, the characters are all anthropomorphic animals. Unlike most characters of this nature, which tends to give the animals more human-like features, the animals here feel closer to the actual animals they're based on. Instead of giving the characters features like hands or more human-like faces, all the animals still more or less look like how they would in real life, except they're now standing on their hind legs, wearing baseball uniforms, and making facial expressions. Overall, the art style is pretty amazing. There's a lot of impressive shading and textures that add a lot of detail and make the animals' appearances lean closer to the realistic side, but they still have a bit of a cartoony side thanks to their animated expressions. In some ways, the style reminds me of editorial cartoons; the animals have exaggerated features that make them caricatures, but they're still drawn in a style that evokes how they actually look in reality. VERDICT: Though it's far from the longest graphic novel I've ever read, Fuzzy Baseball was still a short but sweet read. The story isn't really fleshed out or original (how many times have you heard the "underdog sports team wins game because team spirit or whatever" story?), but it still has its charm despite not having too much to work with. I also really love how the animals are drawn here. I don't think it's gonna blow any minds, but I think it's still worth checking out if you want a feel-good all-ages story that you can finish in one sitting. Read Fuzzy Baseball Vol. 1 on Comixology: https://m.comixology.com/Fuzzy-Baseball-Vol-1/digital-comic/337761?ref=c2VhcmNoL2luZGV4L21vYmlsZS90cmFkZUl0ZW0 - end -
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June 2024
Derryck
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