Book Review: Raising Dion by Dennis Liu and Jason Piperberg

As far as I can find there’s only one issue of this comic, which is disappointing because I would gladly have read more. There is also a short film and it’s been picked up by Netflix to make a TV series. I haven’t watched the short film yet as I wanted to review the comic on its own merits first.

My comic reading history is webcomics and The Walking Dead, so I don’t ‘have a very broad basis for comparison, so I’m sure there’s a lot here that people more familiar with the genre could talk about that I’ve missed.

The premise for this comic is a single mum and her superpowered kid, Dion. We only get about two pages of mum and kid action before we go to flashback and hear the story of how mum and dad met. It’s a shame because I liked the interaction between the mum and Dion. It was natural and fun and immediately showed us the dynamics of their relationship.

The majority of the time is spent in flashback. We meet the dad, who is supposed to be charismatic and charming, but I just found to be arrogant. We witness the events that are possibly the cause of Dion’s superpowers, but this first comic is too short to answer the question of where’s the dad now.

I can’t really say much about the artwork. I don’t know enough to tell what’s good from bad, and I have no idea about different styles and their merits. I’ll admit that I only really look at the art to keep me on track with what’s happening in the dialogue, it’s a secondary thing for me. I never looked at a panel and was unable to decipher what was happening, it was always clear and obvious. So on that basis, I judge the artwork to be good.
Based on these few pages I would have continued to read this comic, I think the story has a lot of potential. I’m worried that it will get lost among the all the other superhero type shows that are being made at the moment, but I hope it doesn’t. I look forward to watching what becomes of it.

4 out of 5 stars.

Raising Dion meets criteria eight for the 2018 Read Harder Challenge.

Have you read Raising Dion? Did you enjoy it? Let me know in the comments below!

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