Cover Image: Manticore

Manticore

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Member Reviews

Manticore by Keith Miller.
Aryan race warrior. A Mexican drug lord. A Korean hit man. A career stick-up man. The wrong guy at the wrong place at the wrong time. 
A brilliant read. I loved the illustrations and story. 5*.

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Unfortunately this was not at all what I expected. I feel it would be unfair for me to critique. It is well done for what it is.

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Manticore is a story that takes place in a prison. The prison staff are abusive and tests experimental medicines on the inmates. The graphic novel follows Steven a white-collar criminal who is scared of being put in with murderers and child molesters. All the prisoners are forced to take medicine with their meals. Why? The medication gives them nightmares. Later that night a prisoner is brought in, masked guarded by military guards. That night a prisoner is murdered. Who did it? Simon is asked by the murderer to keep his secret. Will he?

The art style is interesting. It's done in black and white colors. It only makes me wonder why the story ended. I was captured by the author's style of writing besides the illustrator's drawings.

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Neat concept, poor execution. Simon is the new prisoner on the cell block with a bunch of hard cases. Shortly after a prisoner from Gitmo arrives in the middle of the night, inmates are horrifically murdered in their cells by a manticore. As more convicts are killed, the prison spirals out of control. This is where this thing falls apart. The art is not very good and most of the inmates look the same to the point where I couldn't tell who was who. I'm still not really sure what happened at the end. Out of the blue someone turns up from a pharmaceutical company and I guess the experimental drugs the prisoners were given were the culprit. I don't know. It made no sense.

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As this turned out to be a graphic novel (probably my fault that I didn’t see this in the description) it was not readable on a kindle.

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Illustrations where basic and captions where hard to read and I feel there was too much swearing in it some one other then my myself my enjoy reading this but I for one did not.

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A fairly good cryptozoological jaunt. Makes a good summer read.

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Well I've tried my best - following this comic through its quarterly issues and then seeing the fifth and final installment in this trade - but whatever I said hasn't really helped. The lettering is awkward, the reading order is jumbled, and most heinously the artwork is so mediocre that even by the end when all the proverbial has hit the fan you don't know who the baddie is, who has survived, or what has happened. It's an intriguing premise - something mythical killing off inmates in a corrupt prison wing, but it doesn't ring true in the end, and ultimately the execution isn't on a par with the ambition. I found the separate issues sometimes good, sometimes frustrating - the trade doesn't change my mind on that, and the netgalley really doesn't allow me to plump for the former, however much I wanted to.

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This one leaves a lot to be desired visually. The cover art is outstanding, which builds false expectations because the interior artwork was sub-par. I ended up not finishing it because of the lack of visual appeal.

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A dark tale of a brutal prison with a possibly supernatural prisoner of unknown but lethal power. The main protagonist is a possibly falsely convicted white collar criminal placed into a high security prison filled with violent and murderous felons. He is brutalized. The guards are corrupt. Prisoners attack each other. Guards beat the prisoners without cause. Enter an unknown prisoner sent by authorities higher in the beaurocratic food chain. Some of the most dangerous prisoners start dying, torn to shreds. One suspects superhuman powers.

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Truly horrifying!

Manticore is set inside the worst unit of a maximum security prison. Fish is the newest prisoner until a transfer from Gitmo arrives. Then the bodies start piling up. Why are the prisoners given experimental, and possibly psychotropic, drugs? Does that explain the deaths?

This is a good psychological thriller with horror elements. I believe that one image in particular will stay with me for awhile. The artwork is fine. The plot is fantastic. The characters are clearly defined and most of their back stories are shown. However, some of the lettering was too small and blurry to read on my Kindle or iPad.

This graphic novel would be good for fans of The Walking Dead because both are plot-driven horror.

Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for a free digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

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Cool art style throughout and a great story to go with it all.

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