Jordan is a 17-year-old who is on vacation with his parents and two younger siblings. He has a lot of feelings about being the de facto babysitter for the younger siblings and having to shepherd them around the art museum his family is currently visiting. He’s been banned from using his phone isn’t able to go to a bookstore or comic book store, and is having zero fun. He begs for some time off to go to the bathroom, and on the way he stumbles into a strange wing of the museum and straight up stumbles into another world.
Once there he quickly becomes embroidered in an adventure, there is a kingdom where magic has been outlawed, a prince who very much has magic, and the suggestion that some evil (supposedly banished) magic is once again roaming the countryside. Jordan who wasn’t exactly having the best time at home, very quickly dives into the adventure that has been presented to him.
This was cute! I don’t feel it broke new ground and felt very tightly plotted, but it was a fun, cute read. The art generally really held its own in this graphic novel, Jordan’s frustration and dissatisfaction with the family vacation, and his role as minder of his younger siblings was conveyed without words via few panels. There is a low-key nice romance that blossoms between Jordan and another character, and a lot of that is expressed via the way the character’s body language is drawn. I personally didn’t find some of the action scenes all that dynamic, but I enjoyed the quieter moments.
Plot-wise, I have read a lot of fantasy novels over the years and many of the plot points in this one felt a little familiar. There is the magic portal, the hidden magic, and a mystic seer who tells Jordan he might be there to save the kingdom. It’s not bad, and it’s written well (I enjoyed that Jordan doesn’t just transport to what is functionally a medieval world and become a badass with a sword, or an expert horseman) if just a bit on the predictable side.
I’ll keep these creators in mind going forward however, I’d like to read other things that they write and illustrate.