These are the two Firefly comics that were released after the movie, Serenity:
Serenity, Vol. 1 – “Those Left Behind” by Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews and Will Conrad
Publication Date: January 2006
Number of Pages: 80
ISBN-13: 978-1593074494
Serenity, Vol. 2: “Better Days” by Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews, Will Conrad and Adam Hughes
Publication Date: October 2008
Number of Pages: 80
ISBN-13: 9781595821621
In the past I’ve had trouble reading comics because they’re a bit too disjointed at times. The order of the speech bubbles isn’t always as clear as they could be, or sometimes there’s one off to the side that I miss. Either way I end up reading things out of order. I didn’t have as much trouble with these comics but only because I remembered to read slowly – much slower than I usually read.
I don’t really have a sense for artwork so other people might have a different opinion about the quality, but I liked the art in both. The characters were recognizable enough and other images were good – though some might consider them to be somewhat graphic in terms of violence. However, if you’ve seen the show it’s no worse than that. Both comics were enjoyable and seemed to fit right into the established canon of the show – of course they’re written by the show’s creator so naturally they fit right in.
“Those Left Behind” is set prior to the movie sets the stage for it, explaining a few things that the movie didn’t have time to do. I liked the way everything what handled and what happened to lead up to the movie made sense for the characters involved.
“Better Days” takes place sometime during the run of the show – somewhere in the middle of everything else without really having a set time frame – a missing episode if you will. It’s a bit crazy but of course it’s their brand of crazy. Lots of the usual fun and chaos that’s familiar from the show.
I’d definitely recommend these to anyone that’s seen both the show and the movie and wants more of the Firefly ‘verse.
