Serenity

Publisher
Realbuzz Studios
Writer
Buzz Dixon
Artist
Min Kwon
Country of origin
US
Year
2006

Serenity Volume 2

By David Rasmussen
7th Oct 07

After a few months of waiting and speculating it has finally come to pass.
Realbuzz Studios has finally launched with it’s new publisher, Thomas Nelson.

Now that we’re heading into the 2007 first gen launch titles of this faith based company let’s see how it’s first launch came up (as of September 2007, the premiere month of second first gen title Goofyfoot Gurl).

Rule #1 - Yes, I still still still still believe the title should have been spaced out
No, not that way (again).
There is just something so… soulless about throwing all your volumes out at once at the same time onto the marketplace. Sure, it might have worked maybe with Serenity (because it’s a 2nd print relaunch of a title that first saw print with Barbour Publishing sometime back) but it just didn’t seem to work well in my opinion when it came to this month’s release of Goofyfoot Gurl (but you can read more about that in that review).

Also the way Thomas Nelson releases the books I don’t expect to see any heartwarming surprises (Christmas specials, anthology magazine, whatever) out anytime soon. For a company seemingly trying to get people to give a damn and become hooked on their new AmeriManga slash OEL Manga line? Well, maybe before you expect other people to give a damn about Realbuzz maybe you should act like you yourselves give a damn about Realbuzz before expecting others to do likewise about said line.
Anyway what’s the hurry? The printers going to turn into pumpkins if you don’t publish quickly?

Rule #2 - Homophobia? Not on their watch.
I guess I have nothing to worry about. If these reviews (in the upper range of scoring) are any indication there is nothing to worry about in this regard.

Rule #3 - Refer to the scores this first gen of reviews got and stick with that.

Rule #4 - Shelf thy preconceptions before judging Realbuzz
Yes, it is a Christian Faith Manga, but if you are willing to shelf your preconceptions about that sort of thing you may find that this isn’t another disappointing disaster like King of Kings. Far from it.
In fact check out Goofyfoot Gurl’s review and get a truly surprising shock… but more on that in that review. Anyway let the review itself speak of the title and why it’s getting the score it’s getting.

Serenity Volume 2
Previously in “Bad Girl in Town” we are brought to James A. Madison High School as new girl Serenity Harper has just stepped off the bus, and heck is following close behind (with a press statement denying all responsibility for Serenity’s actions after this point you first meet her).

Through circumstances seen in this volume, Serenity becomes the pet project of the school‘s Prayer Club, which is in itself a cavalcade of misadventure in teaching Serenity to cuss not, also Serenity learns that stealing is wrong as she steals money meant for an Animal Shelter only to guilt trip herself into sneaking back into school at night to return the money which leads to a messy ending (only not the way you think).

As Volume 2, “Stepping Out” begins we learn there is yet another bad skeleton in Serenity Harper’s closet that somehow wasn’t mentioned last volume… mainly the fact that, at one point, Serenity seemed to have problems with an unmentioned (and unspecified) illegal substance of some kind. Whatever her poison of choice was (and whether she passed it on to Paula Abdul at the start of last season’s American Idol) is unknown, but she is apparently clean now since she just took a surprise drug test (handed out by the principal, who, like the Prayer Club, seems to have made Serenity her own personal pet project).
This wouldn’t have been so bad if Serenity didn’t see the two guys being dragged off by the cops for testing positive for illegal substances, but she did and now the school’s zero tolerance policy has her freaked out.
Doesn’t help that she gets herself and one of the Prayer Club members sent to detention while she’s freaking out about being arrested while in the school’s library (shhh quiet!) but that’s the least of her problems.

Besides having to find a program to deal with her former substance problems it seems she has to deal with Sally, who is now black”femaling” her into being more active in the Prayer Club (which almost immediately leads into problems, as you no doubt have already surmised). Yes, the incident last volume with the theft of the Animal Shelter money has come back to bite Serenity in the butt. Top that off with her struggles over her feelings for Prayer Club member Derek hit’s a new low as she ends up in the same 12 step program with him (who would have thought he had substance abuse problems), which makes her standings with him worst as she does everything wrong in this situation. Everything.

Then the religious stuff gets weird when Serenity is knocked silly by the door wielded by the one handed teacher slash religiously synched man who has to talk to Serenity on the public sidewalk because… well… suddenly that teacher who empowered Serenity’s creativity last volume becomes a separation of church and religion zealot. Yeah. If you didn’t constantly try to overtake schools and take away everyone else’s freedoms in schools then maybe people wouldn’t hate you so much in schools. Now back off already and stop being jerks.
Anyway Serenity’s talk with the one handed teacher compels her to have a personal one-on-one talk with God in the forest… she’ll be doing this again in the future from what I understand, though not necessarily in the forest like in this volume.

Anyway Serenity gets into trouble in school with her pet spider and is almost expelled if it wasn’t for the Prayer Club coming to bat for her. This kinda puts her in their debt, though she doesn’t seem to get it as she goes to help them at the Senior Center one night and ends up behind the wheel of Kimberly’s new car… nothing but trouble can come from that as she ends up wrecking Kimberly’s car and getting Kimberly into trouble with her preacher father. The Prayer Club wants Serenity to make amends for what she did, but she isn’t so into that… so she’ll get the cold silent treatment from the club until she fixes fences with Kimberly’s family. By the end of the volume she’ll have earned back the Prayer Club’s friendship, got herself a job at a pizza shop, and learned something important (we hope).

Now then, shelving any preconceived notions let’s give it the full solid review.
Good news. The title still holds up well.
Writing is still solid, with a fine balance that doesn’t overdo religious tedium (but is beginning to get abit stronger in this volume). With a whimsical art style, and a lighter style at times of it’s writing to match the whimsical artwork, the title is not all serious drama and plot… though it is finely mixed with that as well making for a solid balance.

Now the bad news.
The religious side amps up abit, and gets a little odd (did we need a separation of church and state person in the title?) but it’s still OK… it’s not until later that I begin to worry abit more about this in the title.

Otherwise the only real complaint is that Serenity is being sold for $10 a pop.
This, however, is something that can’t be changed (even if TOKYOPOP is underselling at $6 a pop).
With the larger print page size, higher quality paper used in the print, and full color it’s only natural the title will sell for higher than TOKYOPOP’s $6 a pop 100 pager line. Not great for those of us who have to shell out 70% more on cover for a new copy of each volume, but I don’t see any room for compromise on the price considering how much print improvements there are on this over a typical TOKYOPOP print (you‘re paying for all the title‘s bells and whistles whether you needed them or not).

Overall there is more good to Serenity than bad (and once I pick up Serenity Volume 3 to 6 we’ll see if this continues on with future volumes). The title still seems to go out of it’s way to bring up the Christian equation, but that’s OK for now. Otherwise Serenity Volume 2 gets 4 crashing cars out of 5.

Now for the next time.
Once we’re through this batch we’re going to slowly pick up Serenity and Goofyfoot Gurl volumes for review. This shouldn’t be overtly hard for Serenity (at least) since you can pick up first gen Barbour era volumes of the series for between $2 to $4 a pop from used book sellers on Barnes & Noble (which means even with shipping and handling you’re shaving x amount of dollars off the cover price of each $10 cover for the series).

The next time we gather for a new launch, however, it’ll be 2008 and we’ll be talking Hits & Misses along with the second wave of Serenity volumes (7 to 10). I wrote a separate article previewing Serenity Volume 7 to 10 if you’re wondering, so check that out.

-- David Rasmussen 7th Oct 07