My Take on Danger and Other Unknown Risks

Author(s): Ryan North and Erica Henderson

Illustrator: Erica Henderson

Genre: Coming of Age / Fantasy / Adventure / Young Adult

Length: 206

Story

This story is about Marguerite, a teenager who was told her whole life she was chosen to save the world, and Daisy, a talking Chow Chow. According to Uncle Bernard, the world ended on January 1, 2000, splitting it into different realms by dark magic that grows more unstable over time. It’s up to Marguerite and Daisy to collect totems from 3 different realms in order for Bernard to cast a spell to put everything back to what it was.

Main Characters

Marguerite

The writers did a great job making a believable main character, Marguerite. Every action and reaction she has is something I could see a modern day teenager having in such a fantasy setting. She’s mostly upbeat, has a thirst for excitement and adventure, yet takes the responsibility of saving the world seriously. I also like how animated she is and aware she was of her situation. A big pet peeve I have with characters in general are ones that will do or say something that would feel forced or slightly out of character for the sake of moving the plot forward. I didn’t feel that all with her.

“I’m a talking dog,” said the talking dog.

Daisy

Some would consider him a co-protagonist but I mostly saw him as a sounding board for the Marguerite and the story as a whole. He has a few funny lines but most of the time he is either spouting exposition or giving filler/commentary dialogue. What do I mean by “filler/commentary” dialogue? Do you ever been chat it up with a group of friends and one of them feels like they HAVE to say something every minute or two even though it doesn’t contribute to the conversation? That’s kind of how I feel with Daisy. But despite my (picky) gripes about Daisy, I eventually saw the value of him in the story as Marguerite’s best friend. By the end of the novel, I saw his doltishness, exposition, and occasional non-contributing quips as adorable since it works with his personality.

One of my favorite pages in the novel too.

Art

It’s great! The artist, Erica Henderson, is known mostly for being the artist the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and Jughead comics and doing animation work for Venture Bros.. I mentioned how I love how animated Marguerite is, personality wise, but I also love how animated all the characters are, art wise. To the right is a page that that gives just a small example of the kind of facial expressions in the novel. Their body language/gestures/whatever are really good too.

I didn’t notice this until reading the novel a 2nd time, but Marguerite has a different outfit and hairstyle for every realm she’s in. Except for the last one, which is the same as the first realm, but that gives it a nice “going full circle” feel. Each realm also has its own preferences of colors. Not necessary a specific color palette, some of the same colors are in different realms, but how they’re presented for each of them which gives each realm more personality. This isn’t limited to just the realms, the colors are also influenced by the mood of what was going on. Erica also did a great job of contrasting scenes by using only 2 or 3 colors for one and then hitting me with a plethora of them in the next.

There are a handful of splash pages that are also very well done. Detailed, vibrant, and amazing completments to the scenes they’re in.

Verdict

The word I’m going to describe this graphic novel is “depth”. The world, story, and characters all had it. This is even more impressive that it’s within one book. I actually would love to see this story as a series rather than a one off book. Either by expanding the current story or continuing off of it.

So if you like fun, fantasy, adventure type stories, give this book a read.

Random Thoughts (SPOILERS)

Dialogue

This is more of my nitpickiness showing but if I had to point out anything that I would have liked done differently, I’d say some of the dialogue and the ending (more on that later). Like I said earlier about Daisy, the dialogue is a little expositiony in the first few chapters regarding the quest. But once the “saving the world” speeches stop, the dialogue is a lot smoother. These aren’t glaring problems and I can also see why it was done that way. This book is only 206 pages so being given a crash course on the the gravity of saving the world gets it out of the way so we can enjoy the journey of the story.

World

Every realm shown in the story is unique; how Marguerite’s trigger spell works, how magic is perceived and practiced, what kind of society lives there, etc. Because of this, I found myself wanting to know about each of them.

Plot Twist

They definitely got me. Throughout the story it’s shown that casting magic has a price. Granted it’s never explained how the mugger could use teleportation magic so abundantly or how Uncle Bernard could cast a series of powerful spells like magic armor, setting stuff on fire, repairing the jar, and knocking everyone out but they passed the icebox test for me so I’m fine overlooking them. The first twist is Cullen pointing out to Marguerite the spell that’s supposed to save the world will cause her uncle to die. But then when getting the last totem, the mayor explains that this “save the world” quest has happened multiple times, like some kind of loop. Me at that point having a “wait, what?” moment showed the plot twist was marinating real nice. It’s fully revealed that Uncle Bernard’s spell is actually to send himself back in time at the cost of everyone’s life in the current time. I was still slightly confused on why this was Bernard’s plan all along but it was still palatable. But that made reading the story a second time even more enjoyable because of all the breadcrumbs of implications and foreshadowing of the twist. That’s a sign of a great plot twist, right? That classic “It was right in front of me the whole time” feeling.

Ending

On the surface, I found the ending a little anticlimatic. Being able to stop Bernard with the locking spell just felt a little too easy. I know the part right before it was exciting, the trio working together to use the storm spell on Bernard. I also understand the trigger spell was using the Chekhov’s gun principle. So the ending does work. I was just hoping for a showdown that was a little bit more intense. Maybe the authors wanted to emphasize a commentary on people that are stuck in the past (mentally) should just stay in the past (physically), separate from the rest of the world? Or hopefully…it’s a setup for a sequel?