Cover Image: The Circle

The Circle

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Member Reviews

This is a really cool graphic novel. Loved the art style and the story.

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An interesting read and while the main tone and theme is horror it depicted them in such a way that you understood what had happened without it being drawn in front of you. I would recommend this to mature teen readers.

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Kid whose mom dies moves with dad to a new town. Depressed enough, he finds the new school so bad even something as simple as trying out for the basketball team gets him beat up. The castoffs are mean to him too, but he’s accepted, and he’ll take that. They go hang out in an abandoned mine shaft, and eventually it turns into an occult thing. Then it really gets horrible. His only hope is the scary old lady who lives upstairs.
In the end I ended up not liking this very much. It’s a mean story full of mean people without even an ounce of hope. And it ended without wrapping up the main plot point, especially now that everyone who could exonerate him is dead. I had to go listen to uplifting music for three hours to get rid of the sudden depression I felt from finishing this.
There’s a lot of sepia, which can be beautiful but in this case only makes everything look dull. The faces are all drawn to look sad; the main kid I can understand, but the rest. . .

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A deliciously dark and creepy little gem.
Following the death of his mother, Christian and his father move to a new town, but settling into a new home and new school is never easy. Having fallen afoul of some of the school bullies, Christian is delighted to finally make some new friends, but everything is not as it seems, and these new friends prove to be more dangerous that any bully.
Both story and artwork are great, and the creepy angular style and orange and dark tones really add to the horror feel of the book, which is one of the best of this kind I have read in a while. I also loved the pacing, the action was well distributed throughout the book, building to a dramatic climax. While this book tells a complete story, without any annoying cliff hangers, I am sure it would be possible to continue Christian's tale, and I for one would be happy to read more.

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I really struggled to get through this graphic novel given the rampant misogyny, poor character development, unsubstantiated plot points, etc.

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The Circle is a horror soaked youth comic about wrong choices and bullying. After Christian's mom dies, he moves with his dad to Shell bay where he finds himself alone and bullied. He meets this group of misfits that make him a part of this occultist ritual that involves death too. To avoid his fate, he tries to salvage the situation only to meet an even worse situation. The plot is surely interesting, but the beginning is slow and the end over too soon. There's a balance problem and Christian ends up in the weird rituals all too easily. There's hardly any pondering about the situation, any fear and the deaths are too easily overlooked by the characters. A better balance would help make this more coherent and the characters should have more persona to make this suffocating, which would be perfect. This is hardly scary on any level.

The art is somewhat crude and the line art is thin. Both work well, even though the comic looks like it's made with computer and it's not necessarily the greatest thing. The autumn-like colors soaked in darkness compliment the story and even the panels look good and work with the story well. The panel structure is a bit stiff from time to time and facial expressions aren't the greatest either, but otherwise this is OK. Clark's style reminds me of Tony Sandoval a bit actually. The cover is nice and The Circle is a good try and enjoyable at times even.

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An interesting story with a nice twist however I would have liked there to have been more story, more gore(I'm morbid I know) and I wish the ending hadn't been so abrupt. Would like to see more of this though.

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I was expecting something creepy, but not crazy non-sense shit.. Nothing is explained: the kids's motives, lifes, the lady's, the unrealistic reactions of the father, the school, etc: "Kill'em all and you make it back to me safely. I love you!" - really?!
The only star is for the art, especially the cover, that is amazing and made me want to read this..

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The art drew me in but The Circle has the potential to become an epic story. This compilation of issues 1-5 and follows Christian as she tries to adapt to his new home after his mother dies. In an effort to escape the local bullies, Christian falls in with the local weird kids. But Christian gets in deeper than he ever imagined. Ending without the typical horror story troupes, it's truly creepy and leaves you unsettled. I hope there are more.

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Great, just great, and the kind of great that could have been better or that should have (needs as a mandatory "must") a sequel.
The story is not that original, not that it surprised me to see what happened, but has many elements that I love, and many readers do as well, which looked really good together. This is one of those cliché stories you cannot but love.
I literally started it and could stop until I was done with it, what it was that made me fall under that spell I cannot say, but hell knows that this was a kind of experience I haven't had in a long time, which means I'm more than interested in reading something else from this author and artist, if it has both of them in the same work, even better!
As a hardcore fan of Burton, it was great to see the same kidn of drawings and style. Somehow, they made me feel like I was a child once again, watching Jack taking over Christmas for the first time. Contrary to what some may think about similar and obvious styles, it worked nicely in this case, was one right piece for the overall picture.
What i disliked was that it all seemed to happen really fast. I would have liked a little more content or maybe more of those dark pages, and yes, I still feel like there were a lot of cliche topics on the script, only forgieable since it seems this is the first time for the author.
This could work greatly as a movie in the vein of dark-fantasy style that I'd like to see more often. in the market (although with a lot of more effort in the script the next time, seriously.)

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This was going along pretty well until that incredibly stupid ending.

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Interesting concept, and it started off pretty strongly, but became harder to swallow as the story progressed. The end part in particular had a lot of characters behaving in so extremely unnatural ways that it totally destroyed my suspension of disbelief.
Decent read, and it's worth noting that the artstyle is great, in my opinion, definitely this graphic novel's strongest point.

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This was a a pretty good story but if you read/watch a lot of horror books/movies it's not really anything you haven't seen before. Pretty much your standard group of stupid teenagers messing with evil magic, although there was a bit of a twist at the end I wasn't expecting. Also I really liked the artwork, the style really helps give a creepy feeling to the entire thing. Enjoyable if you're really into horror, but don't expect anything especially mold-breaking.

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I had a really hard time getting into this one. The artwork was fantastic, the story not so much. The friends Christian makes are anything but, and they do some pretty despicable things in it. Come to think of it, Christian's father is the only likable and redeemable character in this whole thing, mostly.

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Nuova città nuova scuola, nuovi compagni: dopo la morte della madre Christian si trasferisce col padre, con l'intento di lasciarsi il dolore alle spalle e riprendere a vivere.

Ma le cose non vanno bene: preso di mira a scuola dai bulli d'ordinanza, si trova attirato in un gruppo di ragazzi ai margini che lo coinvolgono in un rituale spaventoso...

Horror classico che vanta nella veste grafica il suo principale motivo d'interesse, è per il resto privo sia di originalità che di approfondimento: tutti i personaggi sono veramente di carta, senza motivazioni per le azioni, anche le più orrende, che compiono, e la trama è tremendamente affrettata.

Rimane il dubbio che, nonostante la scarsa originalità della trama, qualcosa di meglio sarebbe potuto nascere se l'autore si fosse preso una trentina di pagine in più, danno carne e sangue ai personaggi.

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I started and finished reading this in an hour. The first thing I noticed about this graphic novel is its cover illustration. I think it looks pretty amazing and mysterious too. Upon reading it, I was hooked after the first chapter.

I have to say, there isn't really anything out of the ordinary with the plot. In fact, I had already anticipated the rather predictable twist in the story.

However, I genuinely enjoyed reading this. It's a fun read, in my opinion.

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