{"id":3146,"date":"2022-08-24T15:00:33","date_gmt":"2022-08-24T21:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=3146"},"modified":"2023-05-08T20:00:16","modified_gmt":"2023-05-09T02:00:16","slug":"book-city-monster-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2022\/08\/24\/book-city-monster-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK: City Monster (2020)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><u><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft \" src=\"https:\/\/i.gr-assets.com\/images\/S\/compressed.photo.goodreads.com\/books\/1585191612l\/52674642.jpg\" alt=\"City Monster\" width=\"250\" height=\"322\">City Monster<br>\n<\/u><\/strong>Year: 2020<br>\nAuthor: Reza Farazmand<br>\nLength: 112 pages<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not sure when I started reading Reza Farazmand&#8217;s <em>Poorly Drawn Lines<\/em> webcomic, but I have enjoyed his simple art style and humor for quite a while. <em>City Monster<\/em> is a graphic novel in this same, simple style with a plot that&#8217;s quite a bit longer than the handful of panels he uses to tell a joke in his webcomic.&nbsp; With all-new characters that don&#8217;t regularly appear in the webcomic, it was nice to see something different than just another adventure with bird, mouse, turtle, and maybe Kevin.&nbsp;Even at 112 pages long, it&#8217;s a quick read, and the ending is satisfying. Still, <em>City Monster<\/em> has a few minor flaws.<\/p>\n<p>Again, I love Reza&#8217;s simple drawing style. However, there&#8217;s a danger in making something look simple because some might think this book is appropriate for children. The occasional strong language might put some people off, mainly because it feels a little out of character and is added for shock value. Granted, those who have read <em>Poorly Drawn Lines<\/em> would already be prepared for this. It&#8217;s just that when a book like this could easily be made PG by taking out the language, it seems unnecessary.<\/p>\n<p>While this book is a bit longer than the roughly four panels of webcomic I normally read online, there seemed to be a lot of fluff added in to make it over 100 pages long. Yes, there is a fully formed mystery the characters try to solve, but so much of the book just felt like them walking around aimlessly. Sure, it&#8217;s on-brand, but it just felt like a graphic novel was a stretch from a creator who excels at short-form content. In the end, I&#8217;m glad I picked it up because it gave me more of the fix I get from reading <em>Poorly Drawn Lines<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>A cute mystery that could have been much shorter, I give <em>City Monster<\/em> 3.5 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<h2><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\">&nbsp;<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\">&nbsp;<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\">&nbsp;1\/2<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/bmw-the-critic\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"820\" height=\"312\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2968\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2.jpg 820w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2-300x114.jpg 300w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2-768x292.jpg 768w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2-640x244.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>City Monster Year: 2020 Author: Reza Farazmand Length: 112 pages I&#8217;m not sure when I started reading Reza Farazmand&#8217;s Poorly Drawn Lines webcomic, but I have enjoyed his simple art style and humor for quite a while. City Monster is a graphic novel in this same, simple style with a plot that&#8217;s quite a bit [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,54,3358],"tags":[2282,55,3121,1380,1496,3120,8,3119],"class_list":["post-3146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3-5-stars","category-book","category-graphic-novel","tag-2282","tag-book","tag-city-monster","tag-graphic-novel","tag-mystery","tag-poorly-drawn-lines","tag-review","tag-reza-farazmand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3146"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3150,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3146\/revisions\/3150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}