Cover Image: The Lost City Explorers Volume 1

The Lost City Explorers Volume 1

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The Lost City Explorers Volume 1 is the first book I have read from this author. Loved the graphics. There were some parts that were a little difficult to follow. However, overall it was a fun read.

In this book, a mysterious expedition is disrupted by their professor gone missing. It seems supernatural forces were responsible. This book was provided by Netgalley in exchange for my honest opinion.

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The graphics are amazing. Loved it! There are a lot of actions in the book. Adventurous as expected. It's a cute plot. Definitely will read the next book of the series.

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I thought this particular graphic novel was difficult to follow. There was a lot of action that the pictures didn't aptly portray. I liked the premise and have heard good things about this book so I was disappointed when it turned out to be far less engaging than I originally anticipated.

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Atlantis adventure, comic-book style!
Thanks to NetGalley and Aftershock for the opportunity to read and review The Lost City Explorers Volume 1 by Zack Kaplan and Alvaros Sarraseca!
Graphic novel full of gorgeous backgrounds, realistic illustrations mixed with a bit of the supernatural and a high stakes adventure! A father is presumed dead but may actually only be missing. His young adult children go with a group of friends to search for him and what they find is more than they bargained for! First volume in an Atlantean adventure series! Journal entries at the end of the graphic novel add to the mystery and built my curiosity for the next book. 5 stars for the action-adventure graphic novel series!

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I received a free copy for honest review from the publisher, Aftershock Comics, through Netgalley for honest review. Thanks so much to the publisher for letting me give it a read.
I enjoyed The Lost City Explorers, Volume 1, I thought it was okay. It was a very, very quick read. Almost too quick in a way. I liked the art. The style was good, the colors were vibrant. The story was interesting overall.
If I'm being honest, it didn't leave much of an impression. It was fun overall, but I feel like it needed something extra to really grab me. It was just way too quick of a story. The mystery was there, the interest was there, but everything just got resolved way too quickly. The ending was also kind of meh. The build-up that it did have just fizzled out at the end. The satisfaction of finding this lost world was just thrown to the side and forgotten. If I had ended up in the Lost City of Atlantis, I definitely would have wanted to explore it more instead of turning around and going right back home.
I'm happy I got the chance to read The Lost City Explorers, Volume 1. It was an interesting story. It has great art style. I just wish it had a little more oomph to it.

BOOKCITEMENT LEVEL 3.3/5
Fast

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The Lost City Explorers volume 1 was like watching the first season of a CW TV show, aka a must-buy for pretty much all teen graphic novel collections!

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Helen (aka Hel) Coates just lost her father when she and her older brother is approached by a rep from Sagan Labs offering a big settlement if they sign a release that their day died in an unexplained gas explosion. But then Hel is approached by a former co-worker of her dad's that claimed he might be alive, but trapped in Atlantis. Being a rebellious teenager driven with college anxiety, Hel recruits her friend, her brother and his girlfriend, and a hacker they know to infiltrate Sagan Labs. This adventure leads them underground in NYC to the location where their dad disappeared. Can they make contact with their dad or will Sagan labs or ancient protectors end their quest? A nicely done adventure that looks like it may turn into a series.

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I liked the overall story, but there's something to be desired with some of the artwork and some character development. But teens/college students searching for hidden/secret cities under Manhattan? That scratches an itch for me.

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I honestly had trouble actually reading this book. I received this graphic novel as an ARC, via NetGalley. Unfortunately, reading adobe digital with comics is a right pain - I've yet to figure out how to appropriately size the pages of comics to my computer screen, and scrolling through a single page is difficult and frustrating. It's unfortunate I keep running into graphic novels that can't be sent to say, Kindle. I might give this whole thing a second chance in hard copy, simply because the reading experience was *so* frustrating, I didn't actually spent much time absorbing the story.

That said, the plot was sort of intriguing and I like the idea of adventure comics, but I find the likes of Delilah Dirk comics to be more fun and appealing. I thought the artwork was nice, but very dark on screen, and I don't think any of the story is actually unique, but then, that's not really the point. "Indiana Jones" adventures don't need to be original, they just need to be told well. I feel like this is sort of average.

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Maybe I should have listened to my gut and not read this book, but I had already downloaded it and the premise seemed interesting. The story is revolved around the mysterious sunken city and has very pretty art. There is also some casual diversity which is of course nice.
But the story was very predictable, cliché and I didn’t like the characters. Helen is reckless and kind of stupid. The rest of the characters were shallow and flat. It’s unrealistic how they would just share all their problems (which they are aware of but don’t fix?) with each other suddenly.
Sadly I didn't enjoy this one.

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The Lost City Explorers is a nicely illustrated but ultimately frustrating read. Very flawed characters/antiheroes can be exciting/fun but in this case, they were just annoying and not someone interesting to follow. As well, the story was a bit too fantastical and, while this volume resolves a complete arc, the world building didn't feel believable or fleshed out enough. I expect the Atlantis mystery will be explored more in future volumes but I'd really need at least one likeable/interesting character in order to want to continue with this title.

Story: Hel (Helen) has a chip on her shoulder due to a single father whose research into ancient cultures is more interesting than his family. When her father disappears during a research project, she is told he died in a gas explosion. But Hel finds evidence that it wasn't an accident - and hope that her father is still alive. Along with her grounded brother, his girlfriend, Hel's best friend, and another friend, they will follow her father's research into the bowels of Manhattan - to track him down to Atlantis! But not only is her father's research company trying to stop them, so too are the defenses of Atlantis itself.

I really had a hard time getting into the very needy and self centered characters. Hel spends most of the time pitying herself despite having a much more privileged life than her best friend. Hel's brother Homer (Helen and Homer - get it?) has even less personality and just wants to avoid his sister's crazy antics and hole up with his online blogger girlfriend. The girlfriend, meanwhile, just sticks her cellphone in everyone's face as she blogs their adventures. They were all so self obsessed and their personalities so over defined within incredibly narrow confines that I felt like I was getting hit on the head with "I'm going to write unusual characters/situation!" It's all so dreadfully earnest.

The artwork tells the story well and it is easy to follow. The lines are clean and colors vibrant. Certainly, it must have been a fun assignment for an illustrator since most of the story takes place underground and with fantastical Atlantean elements.

There is a complete arc here and room for more at the end. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

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I enjoyed this volume, though I had hoped for a bit more of the actual lost city the story was about. I know it's basically just an introduction to the characters and what not, but it just fell a bit flat for me. I am going to pick up the next volume when it comes out because I'm curious for the other lost cities these characters may discover! The art style was really nice and I loved the colours!

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I received a copy of this book from NetGalley for a honest review.

This was a fast and fun read. It’s in essence an adventure story with a mix of discovering a lost civilization plotline. The characters were great and more than made up for what I felt is a plot that has been overdone. It was a typical parent is thought dead and his child wants to find out what happened and then sets off with friends to find the truth kind of adventure story. It’s trite and overdone but still a fun adventure story that easy to read and set down. Each character is different and felt natural and realistic. I wasn’t too enamored with the main character Hel as at times she was annoying but she fit the story that was being told and she did come to grow on me as the story went. I did have issues with the end of the book where I could not believe that the characters would join up with the corporation that was essentially their enemy throughout the story. The ending was a bit unrealistic to me.

I loved the illustrations and the art is awesome showcasing some great scenes and talent. I especially loved the depictions of the “secret” city and how throughout the graphic novel they depicted the water showcasing it and bringing to the front of the readers mind how important a role it played.

Overall it was fun to read and while I felt the plot could have been a bit more I would go on to read more and see what happens next.

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I like the idea of a scientific breakthrough with something seemingly magical and this has done that well, but I'm interested in the fact that we were obviously going to be following different characters from the characters we were first introduced to and I was worried that it would feel a buit slash dash, but I'm glad it was executed smoothly and made sense as to their connections, etc.

So far I'm liking the bit of diversity going on in terms of ethnicity and sexuality, but the characters themselves are pretty forgettable. June, for instance, was incredibly annoying and some of the scenes in the middle portion did feel a bit too fast. Hel was an odd type of character. she mentions something that was super conflicting and made no sense; why is lecturing in college, like her dad, boring, but being a teacher, like her mum, is considered helping people by her standards?
Aren't they the same thing? From the brief encounter of their dad, he sounds so selfish, but I like that in his journal entries, through the extra content in the back, we are given a more factual basis of the literature and theories surrounding Atlantis (found it fascinating that there was mention of underground tunnels across America, as I had just seen the movie US and that was a big point).
I'm hoping my views on the characters is something that would change after a few more volumes, getting to know them on a deeper level.

The colour palette is really nice. It perfectly set the tone of the story and was most efective in bringing across the importance of water through the whole thing.

The portion of the story with the whole easily hacking things is also way too coninient, like a top tech organisation being hacked into by a 16 year old, despite him being good enough to have a scholarship for uni already, just doesn't make sense and although I feel bad for saying this, this sudden "we're all alone" thing bothered me. Once again, it's too convenient that they are all feeling this way, I mean yeah you get people that feel outcasted, but I just don't think it was done in a believable enough way for me to fully feel invested in them.

I had to read this on my PC because it doesn't seem to like my tablet, but I found the layout to be really frustrating. Sometimes I didn't realise I was supposed to read across until I found it making no sense and then I had to keep scrolling back and fourth to get an idea of the full picture/conversation and then sometimes the page didn't change so I ended up missing a page that finally showed itself when I went back (which tended to happen in between chapters/issues). So, digitally it is pretty awkward to read through. I'm saying that because it did effect my overall enjoyment, unfortuantely, but I am still interested to see what becomes of this story.

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*Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read this book*
It's one of those books that would make a perfect adventure movie. There's a girl, who just lost her dad (sort of) and she wants to find out what happened. So she and the band of friends are setting out for an adventure into the unknown. It was fun to read and it was pretty gripping. I'd happily read more of those series.

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A passable teen comic, where a disparate band of kids (cute, fiery one, bitchy girlfriend one, phone-addicted Muslima one) go through some incredibly well-lit subterranean worlds when they suspect the lead one's father did not die as his bosses insist. It's a lot of hokum, but it's not offensively bad. I just don't see me rushing to return.

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I have to say that the story is interesting. The graphics are a bit dark but still engaging. It's a perfectly fine story. I would recommend this to most ages. And it would totally be something that middle school me would have read over and over again. I am rushing through this review part here because the book is fine. It's not a stunner in anyway as a story.
However, I loved this book for so much more. I was an archeology nerd as a kid. I, especially, loved the mythical cities. Atlantis was my crack. This book feeds a huge dose of that. My brain is racing with all new ideas about flood theories, locations of Atlantis, and tons of other archeology quips.
If you love that sort of thing, this is an amazing piece of fodder. More of the "high" comes from the end pages where you get several diary entries from the main characters' father. It talks about theories and "facts" that lead them to discover the missing city. Do I believe they are right? Not necessarily but it is a lot of food for thought and that is what excites me.

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I didn't care for this. It wasn't bad, it was just very cliche. I've read/seen dozens of other stories with the same basic plotline, so nothing seemed fresh or even that cool. That's a shame, because the art was actually pretty good, especially for the Atlantians.

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Received via NetGalley for review.

Unfortunately, the beautiful illustrations are all this graphic novel has going for it. The plot and the characters are predictable (except for the unpredictable ending, which I did like) and unlikable, and the pacing was off. This is the first part of a series, but I don't think I'll be seeking out the second.

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This could've been so epic but it was just so disappointing. I didn't like any of the characters and I didn't even care for what happened to them. The plot was predictable. The ending was lackluster. It doesn't make me want to continue on with the series.

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