Zack Whedon

Dr. Horrible and Other Horrible Stories

Reyna Wren

I think there might be some vague spoilers in here if you haven't watched Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog... which you should totally 
  
    drop everything and watch right now
  
 watch, by the way.

So, I've had this in by TBR for awhile now... and then I saw it. Just sitting there on the shelf of the library. 


How could I not check it out? I mean, it's 
  Dr. Horrible.


I was really hoping it would be amazing...

But, alas, I mainly just enjoyed the final story in the set.

I mean, the intro was fun and sassy, and the colours were spot on and beautiful, and I quite liked the lettering, most of the time, but the art just wasn't what I personally like. Some people may totally disagree, and that's fine. 
I was wholly disappointed at the art of the first story (especially Captain Hammer's proportions... what was happening with his head/hair?) and the art of the second story was just vaguely creepy and made me feel kind of uncomfortable. Penny's story was mostly just depressing, and I kind of felt like it sort of diminished her character rather than adding to it. (view spoiler)[Like, seriously, when you finish the story with the only glimmer of hope being your MC talking to the cute guy at the laundry mat... You know you need stronger characterization and better plot lines. (hide spoiler)]
The Evil League of Evil... we're not even going to really discuss this one. What the heck was going on with "Johnny Snow" and "James Flames"? We don't know them, and we don't ever get to know them, because we only see them for all of, like, 5 pages. There's no time to develop character sympathy or emotional connection, it's just "who the heck are they?" and then "oh, okay. it's over."
The last story though. It was on pointe. I really liked the art direction of this one, and it was really fun to see Billy's world in a more expanded way, and we even got some shenanigans along the way! If the entire book was just a more developed version of this comic, I would have given it at least 4 stars, maybe 5, but as it stands I can only credibly give this book 3 (3.5, if you squint) stars.
Anyways, ranting over. Time to go take over the world!