Princess Ugg #1
Princess Ugg #1
Written and Illustrated by Ted Naifeh
Colored and Lettered by Warren Wucinich
I don’t know if this one lived up to the hype. Princess Ugg checks all the crosses as a piece of fantasy, but the way it immediately starts contrasting the title character with a foil princess is just not good storytelling. Princess Ugg is at least the third comic to come out in the past year with an anti-establishment “girls can be different!” attitude. It’s a popular genre, but there’s better ways to be anti-establishment than constantly, constantly alluding to the establishment to show how different the protagonist is. It’s a trend I would be all for if social-criticism comics were any good. I have read neither Umbral not Princeless, two other princess-revision comics, but I hope they’re better than this. I get what Ted Naifeh’s going for, and so will anybody over the age of four.
Naifeh’s story is simple enough. Hopefully, there’ll be some wrinkles in the story as things progress, but this first issue was very straightforward. Princess Ulga is being sent to a boarding school for princesses, and she’s amazed and unaccustomed to the new kingdom she comes to. Almost immediately, Ulga gets in a brawl with some servants of another princess. The other princess ends up dropped in the manure pile, and a big stink is made. Ulga continues gallivanting around, until she falls through a glass roof and her future headmistress sorts everything out.
Is it awful? Not by any means. It’s just not incredibly original. Is that bad? Not necessarily. But one issue in, all Princess Ugg has going for it is some nice uses of wooly mammoths. The comic looks like it’ll be a little too tame for any hardcore barbarian action, and I’m not so sure a school setting lends itself to action at all. Princess Ugg could succeed just fine on adolescent hijinks, but it’s appealing to desires I don’t have right now. I’d recommend Princess Ugg if you’re really into Nordic imagery, and/or have a serious jones-on for Wooly Mammoths. I’m being pretty harsh on a book after one issue, but as one issue, it didn’t entice me. The boarding school gimmick might be interesting to some of you too, but I’ll pass.
Written and Illustrated by Ted Naifeh
Colored and Lettered by Warren Wucinich
I don’t know if this one lived up to the hype. Princess Ugg checks all the crosses as a piece of fantasy, but the way it immediately starts contrasting the title character with a foil princess is just not good storytelling. Princess Ugg is at least the third comic to come out in the past year with an anti-establishment “girls can be different!” attitude. It’s a popular genre, but there’s better ways to be anti-establishment than constantly, constantly alluding to the establishment to show how different the protagonist is. It’s a trend I would be all for if social-criticism comics were any good. I have read neither Umbral not Princeless, two other princess-revision comics, but I hope they’re better than this. I get what Ted Naifeh’s going for, and so will anybody over the age of four.
Naifeh’s story is simple enough. Hopefully, there’ll be some wrinkles in the story as things progress, but this first issue was very straightforward. Princess Ulga is being sent to a boarding school for princesses, and she’s amazed and unaccustomed to the new kingdom she comes to. Almost immediately, Ulga gets in a brawl with some servants of another princess. The other princess ends up dropped in the manure pile, and a big stink is made. Ulga continues gallivanting around, until she falls through a glass roof and her future headmistress sorts everything out.
Is it awful? Not by any means. It’s just not incredibly original. Is that bad? Not necessarily. But one issue in, all Princess Ugg has going for it is some nice uses of wooly mammoths. The comic looks like it’ll be a little too tame for any hardcore barbarian action, and I’m not so sure a school setting lends itself to action at all. Princess Ugg could succeed just fine on adolescent hijinks, but it’s appealing to desires I don’t have right now. I’d recommend Princess Ugg if you’re really into Nordic imagery, and/or have a serious jones-on for Wooly Mammoths. I’m being pretty harsh on a book after one issue, but as one issue, it didn’t entice me. The boarding school gimmick might be interesting to some of you too, but I’ll pass.
A Look Inside
