A Mischief of Magpies #2
Writer: Simon Spurrier
Artist: Matias Bergara
Colorist: Matias Bergara and Kike J. Diaz
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Cover Artist: Matias Bergara
Publisher: DSTLRY
It breaks my heart to not see more people talking about this book.
Not as much as the book itself breaks my heart, though.
Go Ever On
Seventeen-year-old Marinus can’t think about anything but returning to that strange place on the water—the Wandering City. Nothing else seems to matter.
Not his little sister’s death and the grief his family is feeling.
Not school.
Not the classmate who seems to have a crush on him.
When he does return, he manages to hurt an innocent and get beaten within an inch of his life by the monstrous Moray King. His parents think he is just trying to hurt himself.
In a way, they’re not wrong.
But he’s not done yet, not until he fixes the mess he made.
You Are Needed
You can't help but get all kinds of feelings when you read this book. If you can't, then I think I might be a little worried about you.
Right from the start, we're hit with Mar's feelings of grief and loss. The phone call from his parents at the end of issue #1 was exactly what I feared it was—his little sister Milly had passed away. As both an older brother and a parent myself, I cannot imagine the pain that family must be feeling. But then, I don't have to imagine, as this book does a terrific job of letting us feel along with Mar.
Once again we are reading along with his journals, only now that he's older they're all typed on his laptop. It's only when his mother takes away the computer that he starts writing them by hand again. It's just one more way that the book brings us as close to Mar as it can.
In the first entries, he can't even bring himself to say the word "died" when talking about Milly. Finally he forces himself to. If you've ever lost anyone, you know how accurate that portrayal is.
Even when Mar returns to the Wandering City multiple times this issue, things aren't the same. At first, he's given a grand power and the means to be a hero, to feel something other than "nothing." But he doesn't finish the job, and it leaves him battered and bloody. That leaves his parents thinking he's trying to hurt himself, something anyone with teenagers fears.
A new therapist leads to medication, and a new feeling of numbness that permeates everything. But through it all, he knows he needs to go back and finish what he started.
Too bad what he started was the Wandering City's end. One bad decision after another has led the City to a dark place, one that might be its end. And when Mar makes another effort to make things right, he makes them worse yet again. A gift is rescinded, and he's returned home.
This is where we shift to the handwritten journal. He says in the entry that the old entries were making him mad, so his mom took the laptop. Anyone who's ever made a mistake and had to look at the reminders of it can relate there.
In the end, he knows what he has to do. One last chance to make it all right. But to do so, he has to do what his parents feared, and hurt himself...
There's so much more that this book has to say, so much that it made me feel. I want to talk about it all, but I'm going to stop myself here. I'm stopping here for several reasons: first, because I want you to go find this book and experience it for yourself. And second, because I myself am in a bit of a more emotional state as I'm writing this, and if I open the floodgates like that, I don't know if they'll close.
Go Ever On
Simon Spurrier is using the medium to its full effect with this book. The oversized format allows for the journal entries to appear larger on the page while still not covering the art and burying it all in text. And the emotions that he is able to pack into the story, to pull out of the reader... it's uncanny.
Matias Bergara's art similarly makes the most of this format. There are very few instances of traditional panel layouts in this book, instead having smaller cutaways and plenty of spreads. The detail that he brings to both worlds, with their similarities and their differences alike, is amazing. And by coloring his own work along with Kike J. Diaz, he's able to pack so much more detail into the palettes used. As Mar becomes medicated, the world becomes more sedate and blue. The Wandering City becomes darker and more desolate with each failure.
I have to mention the lettering of Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, because words are an important element of this book. The journal entries have different fonts, depending on the age of the journaler and what tools they are using. The denizens of the Wandering City have their own manner of speech. The titular Magpies have another. The Moray King another still. And the weapon that Mar wields against the king is a feather pen that allows him to write words in the air, which then come true. This title wouldn't have the same impact without the multiple different lettering styles used here.
You Are Needed
A Mischief of Magpies #2 is another fantastic comic that makes full use of its oversized and deluxe format. The conceit of telling the story through journal entries allows for a variety of text and lettering styles, and allows the art plenty of room to be experimental. But all of that means nothing if the story doesn't have feeling and heart, and it has both of those in spades. Now we begin the long wait for the concluding issue in several months.