The Guild Clara - Mobile Edition

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The Guild Clara
By Garth the Geek
September 23, 2011 - 17:13

Dark Horse Comics
Writer(s): Felicia Day, Kim Evey
Penciller(s): Ron Chan
Inker(s): Ron Chan
Cover Artist(s): Howard Chaykin
$3.50 US

Preamble

If you haven’t yet watched the web series hit, ‘The Guild’, I have just one word for you: START.

To make a long story short, ‘The Guild’ is a free web series - yes, it’s FREE, so you’ve got no excuse not to get online and start watching - about the real (and often dysfunctional) lives of a group of people who spend far too much time playing an online game called, quite simply, The Game.

In addition to the web series, Dark Horse Comics has released a ‘Guild’ mini-series and various one-shots. Each of these has focused on a different character from the series. And up until now, the only issue that left me somewhat disappointed was the Tinkabella one-shot - not because it wasn’t entertaining, but because it wasn’t what I expected. Allow me to explain. The Guild mini-series was 69 pages about Codex. The Vork one-shot was 22 pages about Vork. The Bladezz one-shot was 22 pages about - you guessed it - Bladezz. But the Tinkabella one-shot was a mere 10 pages about Tinkabella, and 11 pages about people TALKING about Tinkabella. Hell, there were 2 pages in which Tinkabella was neither seen or referenced at all! I understand WHY this was done - at the time, Tink’s character was all about her mystery - but with Tink’s personal history coming to light in the newest season of ‘The Guild’, I would have preferred waiting and getting a true story now. But I digress…

The Review

‘The Guild: Clara’ is the latest offering from Dark Horse Comics and Felicia Day, and has become my favourite one-shot to date. It feels and reads much like an episode of the web series - if the web series had bigger budgets and multiple locations. In fact, as I read it, I couldn’t help but imagine how the scenes would have played out had Felicia chosen the web series as her medium instead of the comic. Ron Chan’s art aided in this quite a bit, as his art, while stylized, captured the feeling of the series well.

While the issue didn’t give any deep insights into Clara, it DID round her out a fair bit. But then again, I didn’t NEED insight. Clara, the Guild’s happy-go-lucky, flakey, neglectful mom, has always been pretty transparent. The kind of girl who wears her heart on her sleeve and narrates her own feelings (“Sad Clara is sad”). Finding out that Clara has always been like this didn’t come as a surprise. But finding out that Clara spent part of her childhood in France DID come as a surprise. And this was all I really wanted - to walk away from this comic with a bit more knowledge about Clara than I had going into it. What I got was a lot more knowledge - not just about her, but about her husband, too. Definitely, a pleasant surprise. And the letter from Young Clara to Old Clara was priceless.

Overall

Felicia Day has created a fun, entertaining comic to go along with a fun, entertaining web series. I’d recommend it to any fan of the series. And if you’re not a fan of the series? Take some time out, watch some episodes and BECOME a fan of the series. Then go out and buy the comic. You won’t regret it.