Graphic Novel Review – Agatha Heterodyne & The Circus Of Dreams (Girl Genius, Book 4) by Kaja and Phil Foglio (5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult/Adult
Genre: Steampunk/Graphic Novel
Size: 128 pages
Publisher: Studio Foglio
Release Date: August 18, 2009
ISBN: 978-1890856229
Stand Alone or Series: 4th TP book in the Girl Genius series
Source: Gift
Rating: 5/5 stars

This is the fourth volume in the TP Girl Genius series. I read the first three books as an omnibus and absolutely fell in love with this series. It’s a wonderful blend of steampunk, fantasy, and humor.

Agatha’s airship crashes in the Wastelands during her escape from Wulfenbach castle. Her only companion is the King of Cats, Krosp. They are relieved when they stumble upon a traveling circus. However, the circus members have secrets of their own and they don’t want someone who is fleeing from Baron Wulfenbach drawing attention to them.

This series continues to be laugh out loud funny. Seriously I was laughing out loud for numerous parts of this story. Krosp, the King of Cats, cracks me up over and over again. For example he steered the airship to crash into land instead of water because getting wet is worse than dying in a crash!

Agatha is a hilarious character as well. I am always intrigued to see what new steampunk device she will come up with next. One of the circus members, a warrior woman named Zeetha takes Agatha under her wing. Zeetha is determined to teach Agatha that ways of a warrior (again these scenes were pretty darn funny).

My favorite character continues to be Krosp. Although I do find Baron Wulfenbach’s son Gilgamesh and his rather vicious traveling companion the pirate queen Bangaldesh DuPree to be highly entertaining as well.

The illustration is done in very bright colors which I enjoy. The illustration is a bit more cartoony than I like in my graphic novels. It also still bothers me that all of the women characters have very manly builds…they almost look like men with fake boobs and women’s heads put on top. Despite the fact that I am not completely taken with the illustration style, it does fit the zany story and quirky characters fairly well.

The graphic novel includes a “The story thus far…” at the beginning which I love. It is a brief synopsis of the story to this point and reminds of all the important story elements. This is so helpful to me because I do read so many different series (I think I am reading 80 some different series at last count).

Overall I am loving this graphic novel series. I really enjoy the steampunk elements, the humor, the adventure, the quirky characters, and the crazy King of Cats. I would definitely recommend this graphic novel series to all graphic novel fans…it is just so entertaining. I will admit I am still not a huge fan of the illustration style, but the crazy story and world definitely makes up for that. I can’t wait to see what happens next!

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Graphic Novel Reading Challenge
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge