Comic Picks By The Glick

All of that complaining I did about how long some of the basketball matches went on for in “Slam Dunk?”  I take it all back now.  Though the final match stretched on in that title for seven volumes, the current storyline in “Girl Genius” looks like it will match or possibly exceed that length as well.  The difference between these two series is that while “Slam Dunk’s” final arc lasted for over a year during its initial serialization in Japan (and was republished in the space of a year on our shores) the “Mechanicsburg” arc in “Girl Genius” has been ongoing since February 2007.  The comics collected in this volume take us up to December 2012, and they’re still not done yet.  It doesn’t seem like the story has gotten away from Phil and Kaja Foglio so much as it has evolved into its own self-perpetuating engine of madness.  Kind of like most of the creations from the characters in this title, actually.

Yet even though I’ve gone into the last few volumes of “Girl Genius” with the hope that this will be the last volume in the storyline, I’ve still come away from them satisfied.  Even though the story was started so many years ago, it has undergone lots of changes and shifts in direction, subplots raised and completed, and characters irrevocably changed that it bears little resemblance to how it began.  In fact, the stakes are raised even higher as all-out war is declared on Mechanicsburg and all manner of living and mechanical monstrosities converge on the town to grind it into rubble.  This gives the Foglios even more license than usual to cut loose with their mad science creations and some gloriously over-the-top ranting from the cast itself.  So even if the story itself feels interminable at this point, the journey itself is still an entertaining romp with unflagging energy.  Other creators could stand to learn a thing or two here -- about the unflagging energy, not the length.  NOT.  THE.  LENGTH.