BOOM! Studios releases a sci-fi comic that comes with a female superhero with a Sailor Moon inspiration in Save Yourself the graphic novel.

Whatever happens, if you watched My Little Pony, while you squeezed that rainbow juice out from the sky, and then releases a carnage by evil monsters and unicorns have transformed into female warriors and then recreate it as a PC game for Steam, you’d get this comic right out of your Amazon’s wish list. There’s nothing more to expect anything with this comic, and for some reason, this comic almost looks like a webcomic material, but why Boom! Studios? Probably because this comic is also represented as an LGBTQ material as well when it comes to magical girls. The comic is written by Bones Leopard and illustrated by Kelly and Nichole Matthews. Bones is a twin and nonbinary writer and artist who resides in Los Angeles, and even in his experience, he has worked on small personal projects to working in some large teams on major licenses, meaning he has been working to write and illustrate some projects such as Clean-Ups from CCP Comics and some other Kickstarter projects. However the Matthew twin sisters, there’s not much to talk about, because I almost feel like looking back at the art of The Dark Crystal because what I witnessed so far after looking at this comic, something is different from their art.

First of all, this front cover art, you know what this cover reminds me of, is the seventh issue of Seven Secrets by Daniele Di Nicuolo. Even looking back at this cover art, the atmosphere is similar to both. It actually makes you think that this is another sci-fi comic. The composition seems very accurate, but what I’m concerned about is the girls on the upper side, they seemed menacing and all, it almost looks like the characters from some Isekai anime that I suffered so much from laughter, I do get the design looked similar, but those things on their chest, are they’re playing cards in human forms? Why am I seeing a poker card symbol of a spade, club, and diamonds? Am I reading a superhero comic or you’re going to play some poker? In the middle, you’ll see the main characters of the story which are a muscular mohawk girl and a geeky one. But that’s not important, let me tell you something, maybe you have been going out all night over drinking and playing cards at the bar, or maybe you just woke up from a nightmare last night, but one certain that you think that I’m joking. But no, I’m dead serious, the biggest cringe around here is this comic THAT HAS SOME PLAYING CARD GAME SYMBOLS. This is the first time that get to see a comic that included some card symbols, if you’re lucky enough, you’ll get a prize, a prize to spend your eternity in hell.

So the story starts when some geeky gamer girl named Gigi, who is playing a game called “Lovely Trio” which is the quality of the game graphics is all pixels, I mean if this game gets a Nintendo Switch digital software, my friend would play it. However, the way that Gigi complains about the game’s intro almost reminded me of Angry Video Game Nerd who actually gives a crap about waiting to continue Castlevania Symphony of the Night while waiting for that Game Over screen all, because of PlayStation loading time. Anyway, at some point, she stayed locked in her apartment until she got a phone call who said that she needs her to cover the register. The next that she ran into is some shemale with pink hair, followed by a green man with a spade sign on his jacket, right until he dropped some strange insignia. While everyone is mingling, a monster suddenly attacks the city, the Lovely Trio tries to stop them, however, the enemy was no other than that person that Gigi bumped into on her way to work. She’s is being attacked by the Lovely Trio and she managed to escape with Gigi for safety.

I feel like watching another Rick and Morty episode because the next scene became too weird to begin with, Dianthus took Gigi and her brother to some stronghold right around the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, as it confirmed that Agent Mia is an Axolotl as a human form, while everyone else at the base is all sea creatures. They reviewed that the Lovely Trio is one of the most dangerous aliens on the face of this planet, which they seemed to be crazy OP to begin as if you think Goku and Vegeta are a threat to their universe. However, in the end, everything that Gigi thought of them was a lie because she saw how a human being just incinerated right in front of her which is more terrifying. This comic is really nuts. I’ve never read any other comic that can be so ironic that your friendly neighborhood heroines were actually villains the whole time.

The comic is more insane than I can think of, I think that coming up with a story where the hero actually helps everyone, eventually betrays everyone, and attempts to destroy humanity. There are some comics like those with some anti-hero interactions, but this one has a number of unexpected moments in comic book history. Alright, now I want to talk about the art, from the moment when I read The Power of the Dark Crystal, every other character on that comic looked exactly like the puppet from the movie, but when I see the character design of this comic, I noticed that their art style has changed, probably it’s more of self-importance that they want to change their style and turn it into some anime inspiration combining with some webcomic material. I’ve been told by someone who read my webcomic that the storytelling and the art are great, however, I need to check out the facial and body viewpoints which are showing how the anatomy works that way, which I’m drawing anatomy and using a 3D doll program for poses.

This comic shows something similar to my art style which makes me remind of myself and my work lately. Because they like to draw comics and made it more fun for them, well I also love to draw comics and it makes me motivated and I’m having fun doing my work, that’s how I know. Back when I reviewed The Power of the Dark Crystal in 2019, I was hyped about the movie, so I thought of reading it. Up until then when I looked back at that comic, I thought that the characters of the comic would change the moment when I read this comic because the Dark Crystal was illustrated to be more cartoony and realistic just like the movie, but when I witnessed after reading this comic, their art style suddenly changed into a Webtoon material, not thinking that this is actually a normal comic book. Also, as I mentioned in that review that illustrating those characters as if you’re observing the character design of a creature or a human-made something possible to develop their art style, but I didn’t think that they could change it a few years later, as if to say “I don’t like my art style, let’s change it.” It’s almost what every other beginner artist thinks that their art style sucks, but it’s fine that way because you’re developing slowly just to grow yourself as an artist. But their way of thinking is relevant to any other artist that I know. The story and art are great, but overall it’s a great read.

By Kevin Bermeo

I'm a New Yorker Artist, and I traveled a lot. I enjoy making comics, illustrations, paintings, and digital art. Besides drawing, I'm also a writer, I used to be a Gamer, and I love adventures, food, and dragons.