Bonnie Lass #1 (of 4)

Michael Mayne & Tyler Fluharty

Bonnie Lass is a happy-go-lucky outlaw pirate who, along with two goofy sidekicks, is notorious for kicking butt and causing trouble.  After delivering a statue to a client, who tries to trick her into delivering a valuable scroll, she demands compensation, and when she doesn't receive it, she keeps the scroll and continues on her way, this time with a crew of cutthroat thugs on her tail.  But with some creative nautical maneuvering and some upgrades to her ship, Bonnie leaves her pursuers in the dust, happily on her way toward more adventure and (hopefully) treasure.  This story is full of action and competently introduces a fun set of characters, however there's nothing here that we haven't really seen before, and the art is the kind you'd more likely see in a webcomic than on the printed page.  It just looks messy despite the nice cartoony expressions of the characters.  I actually like how every so often a panel will sort of look like a stained glass window, nicely laid-out and kind of pretty, like that cover, but those panels are few and far between, leaving the rougher, clumsier art to illustrate the rest of the tale.  This book is obviously very influenced by manga, from the rubbery faces of the characters, to the over-the-top personalities, to the super-deformed scary Bonnie seen in one panel.  While Bonnie Lass is sort of charming in a way, it's just not unique enough to set itself apart from other pirate comics, with inconsistent art and a generic quest that just makes you wish you were reading something better in this vein of story, like One Piece or Cursed Pirate Girl.  Yeah, you should just read those instead.