QS stands for “Quickshot”, a series of short form review/preview/opinion articles.
It’s an era of my life that feels pretty long ago at this point, but I kinda got my start in the reading world thanks to comics and graphic novels. I mean, I’ve loved reading for as long as I can remember, and I definitely devoured a ton of chapter books through my elementary school years (especially Goosebumps and some kid-focused Star Wars stuff). But a lot of my most keen memories of reading at a young age came through the form of, especially, graphic novels.
Amongst all of those, none stood out more than Bone. An epic fantasy saga, wrapped up in comedic middle-school-aged shenanigans. Starts a bit simply to ease you into things, then matures the conflict and themes, ostensibly, right alongside its primary readership base. That series is super awesome, and I definitely plan to do a deep-dive article into it at some point, because it was a pretty formative part of my literary journey when I was younger. I highly recommend you check it out, if you haven’t.
And speaking of both ‘checking it out‘ and ‘epic fantasy wrapped in comedic middle-school-aged shenanigans‘, we have Hooky! A series I didn’t even know existed until stumbling upon it on the store shelf, decided to check it out on a whim, and ended up really loving it!
Across three books, Hooky follows twins Dorian and Dani Wytte, two aspiring witches who accidentally set off a chaotic chain of events when they miss the bus on their first day of magic school. The ensemble cast grows to pretty huge sizes as the story evolves, including rambunctious scamp Nico, exuberant princess Monica, aloof brother Damien, stoic baker Mark, goofy prince William, and fierce princess Aisha. Along the way, this motely crew has to contend with the physical threats of evil witches and cruel humans, and a larger society-wide issue of mages versus non-mages.
As my little synopsis there might imply, this is the sort of story that isn’t afraid to grow and evolve into some deeper, darker territories as it goes along. It’s not some sort of adult-rated affair, but I was pleasantly surprised at how the series wasn’t afraid to hold its punches when it came to tense moments, high stakes, and dramatic revelations. It’s kind of the ideal way to grow a story, really, by easing the reader into the world and cast before heightening the thematic content right alongside our characters’ own growth and development.
Something else I didn’t expect going into this series was how prevalent of a focus there was going to be on romance. It’s not something that steals the spotlight or anything, but the first book makes it clear who the major character pairings are going to be (and there’s actual four major couples who all get their moments of spotlight and attention), and it was really delightful to watch all of these relationships grow and evolve over the course of the series. Definitely a lot of funny and heartwarming moments, in equal measure, plus a dash of drama too, of course.
Honestly, the writing across the board is pretty solid. Even with the cast as big as it is (and there’s even more supporting characters who pop up from time-to-time), I felt like everyone was pretty well-balanced. Obviously, our core leads of Damian, Dani, Monica, and Nico remain consistently critical to the plot, but all the other members of the ensemble still had cool heroic moments, or quiet introspective reflections, or dramatic standout scenes. Or humorous bits! The writing is quite witty, and I chuckled aloud at more than a few moments in each book.
But at this point, I’ve blathered on for quite a while without touching on what is, pretty objectively, the most critical factor of a graphic novel…the ‘graphic‘ part. As in, the visuals and art!
Truthfully, I’m just not exactly sure how much to say, aside from how I think the art is pretty great. On a surface level, it’s cute and charming, but there’s a fair bit more going on under the hood. For example, it’s remarkably detailed. You can probably tell from the pictures in this article, but the art style isn’t as simplistic as it seems at first glance. Everything from the backgrounds to the characters themselves are bursting with minor details and little features, and that consistency and quality is carried across every single page without fail. It’s super impressive.
The art style isn’t afraid to shift and grow either, to better fit the mood of the scene. Some of the darker and more tense moments, in particular, are drawn extraordinarily well. The vibrancy is replaced with abrasive dark shadows and intense explosions of red and black that suck you right into the scene, evoking the sort of feelings you might not get from a less exploratory art style from a more rigidly-drawn graphic novel or comic. There’s a palpable sense of anime inspiration in the art style, in terms of how it shifts around, is maybe a good way to put it.
These are pretty dense books too, which is something I love! You’re not going to breeze through the trilogy in a single hour, is what I’m saying. There’s quite a lot of plot and character packed into these hefty tomes, and tons of dialogue (most of the books’ weight comes from the ink-laden pages, to be clear, but these books are still chunky). And I love that especially in a graphic novel, because it really feels like you’re getting an appropriate bang-for-your-buck in a medium that can sometimes blitz past in the blink of an eye when it’s little more than just pretty pictures.
Another little touch that I quite enjoy is how every major character has a different color hue for their speech bubble. When the pages get packed with characters and dialogue, it makes it extremely easy to tell who is talking at a moment’s notice without any guess work needed. It trains your brain to such a good extent that some beautiful panels can focus entirely on painting the setting and not even have the characters in-frame, but their little colored speech bubbles poking in still let you know who is talking. It’s neat!
Now, I want to mention that Hooky actually started life as a Webtoon. If you’re unfamiliar with Webtoon, it’s an online website (and an app) that allows artists to upload their own comic stories to be digitally read. Readers then vote on their favorites, which boost those stories up in the rankings and lead to them being seen by more people. Hooky, an especially popular Webtoon, found itself in the position of being able to transition from the web to print media, and it’s not the only Webtoon to do this.
The thing is, the Webtoon backstory leads to Hooky‘s only real noteworthy shortcoming: the pacing.
I think the pacing of the character development is very solid, and so is the pacing for the romantic buildup. But the pacing of the main plot isn’t perfect. It’s not bad by any means, but there’s a palpable sense of ‘this is going pretty fast‘ that becomes easier to understand when you realize this series started as a short-form digital comic that, by the very nature of its medium, HAD to tell the story quick enough to exist within bite-sized chunks. It’s the sort of thing that would’ve had a bit more breathing room if the series had been a long-form graphic novel saga from the start.
Does it ruin Hooky? No, of course not. But you can feel it a bit while reading, so I had to mention it here.
Whether you check it out online via the Webtoon site/app, or decide to go for the printed book releases (my personal recommendation), Hooky is a graphic novel trilogy you should absolutely check out!
9/10
The Contrarian Corner 