‘Rat Queens’ #11 Fun, Despite Jarring Artist Change
I was a lady raised on Dungeons & Dragons. My family and a gaggle of misfit friends used to get together around the dinner table every Sunday, clean out our cupboards and play. Ending the week with being an elven sorceress with a black cat familiar named Leah was comforting. Reading Image Comics’ Rat Queens reminds me of this. It’s a fun, dirty spin on the traditional fantasy trope of a crack team going on a quest.
Rat Queens #11, like the rest of the series, is written by Kurtis Weibe. However, its illustrator has changed. Roc Upchurch illustrated the first eight issues, while Tess Fowler illustrates this issue, after Stjepan Sejic took over as main artist, then bowed out after doing one issue, #10, due to health reasons.
That’s honestly my main gripe with this issue. Weibe’s writing and Fowler’s illustration don’t mesh as well as Weibe’s and Sejic’s or Upchurch’s did. However, despite this, the issue is fun. It is a solid continuation of a good series.
Weibes writing of Rat Queens #11 has the same charm and sharpness that the rest of his work with Rat Queens does. It begins not with the Rat Queens themselves but with some scenes that are important to the quest and plot but are outside of the knowledge of our heroines. It heightens the stakes for the readers and creates a mystery I think is important for establishing the story. Weibe does this a lot. He alludes a lot to a past or a part of the universe we’re not seeing. This issue he focuses on Hannah’s past. In fact we visit her hometown , but things have mysteriously changed.
In my opinion, Weibe’s writing really shines in the dialogue. The crude and funny nature of the voice is what cemented my love of this series. This issue fills my expectation of witty dialogue that borders on crass. My favorite part is when the girls are talking about the people they’ve had sex with. Violet, who is described as a hipster dwarven warrior, says “… an’ now I got rashes on my thighs from his beard.” about the sex she had in issue #5. It made me grin cheekily.
Now when it comes to Fowler’s art with Weibe’s writing, here I have to falter in my love for this issue. Yes, Fowler’s style is great but after Upchurch and Sejic, it’s jarring. There is a noticeable difference between the two drawing styles. The faces are more feminized and uniform in Fowler’s style. I prefer Sejic’s style — his drawings highlight the absurdity and the comedy over the story. In Fowler’s, the characters look more typically feminine. I don’t have any problems with feminized characters but it seems to brush over the individual physical traits that make the characters. I’m not sure it suits the Queens’ humor. Now, let me say, I’m all for change in comics and seeing someone else interpreting characters. It happens all the time and usually I’m down with it. But I just don’t think Fowler’s style fits the expectation of the weird and not always pretty Rat Queens I’ve come to expect. I do still like the way she draws blood.
Despite my rant over the change in artists I still think Rat Queens #11 is a good read. It lets us into the bigger universe of the world and is definitely worth picking up if you’re already a fan of the series or a fan of fantasy and kick-ass female protagonists talking about sex and murdering goblins.
