by SpikeWhile I still enjoyed reading it, I found this volume collecting the sublime webcomic Templar, Arizona, to be a little frustrating. The firmly established main characters, Ben and Reagan, are barely present, and the two characters that got the most space in the book, EJ and Elliott Bigelow, were ones I could barely remember from earlier volumes.
At the same time, Spike's strange world of Templar is a pretty fascinating one. She is using her characters to reveal more and more of the world, as the Jakeskin go after Elliott, causing him and EJ to go on the run, and we get a better sense of what has been going on with Pippi, who is a bit of a mess. Moze is having a good time with Tuesday, but she is still more concerned with what other people are broadcasting about her. We also learn the meaning of 'Churchyard' in Templar, and it's not what Ben thought it was.
This time around, Spike gave us some more information about other parts of the world in this alternate timeline. Most interesting is the explanation of what happened to Australia after the Japanese ran a more successful Pacific campaign during the Second World War. Her notion of an indigenous insurgent army only helped strengthen the comparison in my mind between this book and Carla Speed McNeil's Finder.
I found this to be a quicker read than some of the other volumes of Templar, but haven't checked the varying page counts. While I did find this volume to be a little frustrating, I would gladly pick up a fifth volume, if such a thing were printed. As it stands, I may have to start reading this on the web, which is not my preferred method of reading comics.
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