Lady Mechanika, Vol. 1: Mystery of the Mechanical Corpse

Pros: gorgeous artwork, interesting characters, good story

Cons:

Issue 0 is a prequel story that takes place about a year before the main comic. It features Lady Mechanika hunting a ‘demon' that's been killing children.

Issues 1-5 comprises a story about a young woman, found dead in a train station, who has similar mechanical arms to Lady Mechanika.

I LOVED the artwork. The colours are rich and bold, the backgrounds lush, and the characters vibrant.

Lady Mechanika is portrayed in a sexy fashion without showing much (or sometimes any) skin. I loved her costumes (particularly her Victorian style dresses), and the occasional steampunk elements of it. She's intelligent, no nonsense, and kickass.

The supporting cast are also well dressed and appropriately quirky. I enjoyed the fact that there's history between Lady Mechanika and the two lead antagonists.

The story was pretty interesting, though there was one scene where the antagonists had an expository conversation meant for the reader rather than each other.

This volume is self-contained, with a quick mention of what will begin the next volume.

I received this through netgalley, but all thoughts and opinions below are my own

YES!!! I am in L.O.V.E with this series. There is no way around it, I will have to read more!

Criticism first just to get it out of the way. Sometimes clothing would be torn in one frame then not in the next. Literally only noticed because adobe digital editions is so so so soso slow. I really have to stop requesting books that only do it in this format, but I don't know how to tell beforehand.... I digress. I also thought it could get a little wordy and the text was small – again this might have only been an issue because I was reading on my laptop.

Okay, good stuff. I absolutely LOVE~ steampunk and this comic does it so well. The illustrations are beautiful and I literally wish I could own all of Lady Mechanika's outfits. All of them. I feel like the plot is moving along at a good pace and even with this current arc being over, there are still many more mysteries to be solved. This is a comic so beautiful I really wish I could hold it in my hands and just stare at the drawings...

Do I recommend this? HECK YES! If you like steampunk, you HAVE to give this a try. If you like sci-fi and/or comics I think this might be worth checking out. So far, I think this might be okay for young adults and up.