written by C.S. Pacat
drawn by Johanna the Mad
colored by Joana LaFuente
It's been a long wait, but the saga of Fence, C.S. Pacat and Johanna the Mad's absorbing look into the lives of a prep school fencing team and their aspiring members finally continues with volume 2, which collects issues #5 to #8. Unlike the previous volume, which ended on a somewhat infuriating cliffhanger, this story wraps up quite a few loose ends even as it keeps the saga of Nicholas Cox and his rivals chugging along.
In this volume, with the exposition and character introduction out of the way, quite a bit happens as the fencing team tryouts continue in earnest. Highlights of the compilation including a stunning match involving high school fencing wunderkind Seiji Katayama, and series lead Nicholas Cox getting a much-needed confidence booster. Tension builds as the roster of hopefuls for the team narrows, and the final candidates begin to emerge. Wills and skills are tested and many of the aspirants come to learn the hard way that it will take a lot more than just determination to get onto this squad. What's clear, though, is that the real challenges are still ahead.
When I read the first volume after having consumed an almost-exclusive diet of superhero comic books, I was struck by how different in storytelling it was. It wasn't the R-rated fare that usually doesn't make it into the pages of a mainstream comic book and yet it wasn't the larger-than-life adventures of men and women in tights (though it did feature plenty of teens in tight outfits). It was a series focused mainly on teenage insecurity, framed against a backdrop of a hyper-competitive sports setting. The first volume introduced us to Nicolas Cox and the various characters in his school, and I would have rated it much more highly had it not ended on a complete anticlimax.
This story isn't just better because it actually finishes what it started, but because it really goes into the heads of its characters. Team captain Harvard Lee, for example, who previously seemed vaguely modeled after Takenori Akagi from Slam Dunk, managed to get his own proper arc, showing his own insecurity and fears, and surprisingly, even Aiden, the established bad boy from last issue, gets character moments that don't dwell on his "villainy" or weaponized sexuality. Seiji's biggest fan, Bobby is still, well, Bobby, and hasn't much moved forward from the last arc. As for Seiji, the sort-of-archnemesis of the hero Nicholas Cox, writer Pacat teases us ever-so-slightly with a look into his "secret origin" but doesn't go any further than that. The coach, the series' only strong female character, remains Pacat's number one tool for exposition, though to us non-fencing experts it is somewhat welcome.
Of course, this is still Nicolas Cox's story, and his moments of redemption are somewhat satisfying, even though they kind of get to his head, as they would with most teens. It was gratifying, though, to see other characters in the series get some page time.
Johanna the Mad continues to impress, though as before, I wasn't really thrilled with her "super deformed" characters, because they distracted from her slick linework and storytelling prowess. This series is definitely strong enough to break free from the manga that inspired it. Also, unlike many manga/anime artists, Johanna knows how to draw black people.
This series has about four issues to go before they switch format to graphic novels instead of floppy issues, and, judging by how this story has gone so far, there's a LOT of story left to tell, but it's gratifying to know that Pacat (or whoever is editing this series for collected edition format) was considerate enough to give us a story that satisfied, rather than leaving just about everything unresolved, even as she has us looking forward to the next installment.
8/10
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