Snow by Night Volume 2: Dissolution by Eric Menge & Brittany Michel

Devoured this in one sitting. I’m a huge fan (and personal friend) of Eric Menge’s and I strongly believe that Dissolution builds on the terrific first volume to really immerse us in the fantasy world of Corthis. This book contains chapters 5 to 8 of the excellent webcomic, as well as five vignettes that give us more background and insight into our cast of characters. I especially enjoyed the art of S. Y. Lee in the Losing By Winning vignette, but I am a sucker for garden parties and pretty dresses. There’s also a wonderful sketchbook section with commentary, as well as maps, hilarious parody panels and a list of Kickstarter backers included.

In Dissolution, Snow-by-Night grows weary of her alliance with Blaise and Jassart, our gentleman thieves in the colonial frontier town of Sherbourg (based loosely on colonial Quebec City.) Jassart, however, has grown feelings for the manitou, to the alarm of Blaise and his belle, Mathilde. While Mathilde is willing to help Jassart continue on his quest to help Snow-by-Night find her heart, Blaise has other plans that may wreck their thieving crew for good.

It was fascinating to see how the light-hearted hijinks of the first book took a decidedly darker turn here, as Blaise began to show more of his true colors (how Mathilde puts up with him, I don’t know.) And while I loved reading more of our human cast, especially the badass Vivienne, the best scenes belonged to the supernatural elements of our story. I really, really want to read more but my antipathy to reading comics electronically (as detailed in my review of the first volume here) makes it so I’ll just have to wait impatiently for the physical publication of Volume III. Is there a Kickstarter where I can help make this happen faster? If I can persuade Eric to do an interview here, perhaps we’ll find out together!