A review by arianappstrg
Silk Cotton by Colleen Douglas

adventurous challenging dark informative mysterious sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

Prefacing this by saying, my reviews are more of a reminder to myself more so than reviews people should be influenced by. I have short memory (as well as fuse) so, oftentimes, a whole year passes by and I don't tend to instantly recall the things I have thought or felt towards a specific story. This is me reminding myself what to look out for in 2026 when I revisit my year (and potentially only talk about it with my significant other, lol).

  • The story has merit. It has a solid basis to span over a million pages and be super engaging no matter the length. I can vouch, for my part, I was super engaged.
  • However, I was also uncertain at times. Monsters, keepers of the balance, Caribbean culture all wave off so many green flags for me as I love learning about cultural history and mythology. And would you believe it? This is actually my first time ever that I'm learning about a different culture and its story-telling traditions though a comic! That's exciting! However, the story suffers from writing that veers into the abstract and lacks sufficient exposition to know what's really going on and the art, sometimes, does not help clarify the events taking place. Art is brilliant and vibrant but oftentimes convoluted. Sometimes, I couldn't distinguish what was taking place in the present or the past, what was a story, a myth, or part of the young boy's narrative, what was a dream and what was reality. Perhaps that was intentional at times which I'm all for but still think that it shouldn't cause that much confusion. Oftentimes reading this I felt that there was no varied pace as transitional panels seemed to be missing here and there. Chunks of what I assume would have been exposition were thrown together on a single two spread which made it overall very busy, especially, since the rest of the story doesn't give you a lot in terms of main character interactions, it's more abstract and poetic and the only well-established communication is between Churlie and the boy. I suppose that's the one that matters the most, it just feels slightly disproportionate to the other relationships. I thought all the characters showed potential to have extraordinary interactions with each other and wanted moooore.  
  • A shinning positive is that all characters have distinct voices which add to the way they carry themselves and how they go about problem solving and monster taming. That was gold. The characters are very down to earth and developed but they get a little lost in a world that almost feels like a Jenga puzzle more than a solid structure.
  • I also have an adorable memory forever tied to the reading of this comic. I entranced a young kid with this on the train home. We were reading together, sort of, until he got off the train and that was really pure and inspirational to see him get hooked by the colours and, I suppose, the representation as well. He was coming back from, clearly, having seen the Lion King on the West End, as he was dressed in a giant Mufasa head piece. Every time he would finish a page, he would lean away on his seat and pretend he was resting, uninterested, and every time I would turn the page, he would sit up again. Now, was it morally alright that I was breezing and flipping through pages of tits and gore... probably nooooot, but he liked it so... I like to think he will now grow up to like comics and to constantly pester his mum to buy him some. 

That's it. That's the review. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings