The art in this was absolutely stunning, I can’t state in words how much I loved it, but the story although it started out well just got chaotic and confusing, so 3 stars and that’s for the beautiful illustration

In the coastal town of Kote, young Lupa spends her days getting pushed around by her sister and leaning on her mother for support. One unfortunate day, Kote is attacked by the Inner Light, leaving her all alone. She is found by a wolf named Cora and guided by the Goddess Lupina, Lupa sets out on a journey to take revenge on those who killed her family and destroyed her home.
This is an action-packed start to a fantasy series. It's light on dialogue, which lets the beautiful art tell most of the story, and keeps some mystery around Lupa's destiny. The time jump confused me for a minute and there are a ton of implications around Lupa's origins without giving too much away. I enjoyed it but maybe a little more dialog would have helped flesh things out. 3.8 out of 5.

Thank you so much to net galley and the publisher for sending me a copy of this graphic novel! This was a stunning story and the art was beautiful! I would love to read more. I’m hooked!

I can’t remember why this book attracted me but I didn’t manage to get to it before it expired in my NetGalley library unfortunately.

Lupina follows the story of Lupa a little girl who suffers terrible loss before embarking on a journey with a lone wolf and is guided by a goddess. The reader is made to understand that there have been political shenanigans and that Lupa is destined to restore justice and order to this world.

It is beautifully illustrated and convincingly conveys the small child, and its world. Its effect is dramatic and emotive and I felt the bond between Lupa and the wolf leap up from the page. The writing is sparse and economical, and tells the story effectively. It is intriguing and keeps you turning the page.

This is a mythology-type tale, with a foundling child directed by the gods. Like most graphic novels, the story is told as much with the pictures as with the words - in some ways, more with the images, and the drawing style suits the story quite well. The story ends at a clear cliffhanger, and it is very obviously the beginning of a series. For those who enjoy graphic novels with gods, danger, and individual determination, this is a great example of the genre - but readers should be aware that it contains graphic violence and is not appropriate for preteens.

I am providing this review in return for being given a preview copy of the novel by NetGalley.

As a graphic novel, this book stays fast-paced throughout the book. There is a great initial hook and the story kept me engaged until the end of this volume. The writer also did well at making me interested in continuing the series while still making me feel like the main character accomplished something by the end.

Lupa is the main character of the story. She starts as four years old and gradually ages up as the story progresses. There aren’t many human characters to compare her to, but so far she seems well developed and interesting for a protagonist. The god characters are only in the novel for a short amount of time but are always interesting when they appear and I enjoyed their variety of personalities.

The setting was the only aspect of the novel that didn’t meet my expectations in this novel. Because the plot moves so quickly and inciting incident happens almost immediately, I was missing some of the world-building. We’re told that there’s an oppressive empire ruling Lupa’s village but we don’t see much about what makes them oppressive or get to understand the antagonist forces’ motivations.

The first volume of Lupina is available now from Legendary comics. The main character is well developed and interesting and the plot was engaging. I was satisfied with where the story ended but was also very interested in seeing how the story progressed. I did feel like some world buildng was missing but some of my questions may be answered in future volumes. This graphic novel is a quick read perfect for fans of lush fantasy novels.

Lupina was an utter delight to read. While the lore and world building are not explored at length, thrusting the reader right into this imaginative and well thought out world is easy to follow with new additions to the story building upon itself. The story is not only told through the text and illustrations but also with the additions of new colour, each of which represents a new aspect of our main character Lupa. Lupina is a must read for lovers of mythology and folklore influenced fantasy, and lovers of beautiful artwork. Thank you to NetGalley and Legendary Comics for providing me with an ebook to read.

'Lupina Book One: Wax' by James Wright with art by Li Buszka is a graphic novel about a young girl who finds herself being raised by a strange parent.

When a young girl named Lupa finds herself suddenly orphaned, she finds someone to help raise her in the form a she-wolf named Coras. It may also be that Lupa is the child of the moon goddess Lupina.

It's an interesting start to the story, and all the pieces don't completely make sense yet. The art starts in black and white and subtly gains a ew color with each volume. I'm not completely certain this works either as I think story lacks needed color.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Legendary Comics and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

I immediately fell in love with the art style of this comic! It's new, it's unique, and the colourization is gorgeous! Although the comic starts off in black and white, gradually the characters gain colour, and the use of startling shades is maximized to draw the readers attention to the most important subject of each page. I also found the character of Lupa to be well-written, given how young she is. Her reactions are natural to that of a terrified child and it was a relief to read about a fictional character who actually acts human.

However there were a number of negatives that resulted in me giving this comic two out of five stars. A lot of this story isn't explained, and while yes, some mystery is needed for suspense, the extent of the "mystery" in this comic just causes annoyance rather than curiosity. The wolves, which are incredibly central to the plot aren't actually explained at any point. Why they're there, why they act human, why they seem to understand everything, none of it is ever expanded on. In addition, the Goddess Lupina and her friends? sisters? are never explained either. I'm still unsure whether they are part of a religion, imaginary, real, etc. and what their purpose actually is.

Despite the intriguing plot twist at the beginning of the comic, the plot quickly deteriorates after it. Confusing lack of explanations aside, there are a number of inconsistencies that make the story feel disjointed and somewhat thrown together. If the Goddess Lupina does exist, then why did she let all of her people be slaughtered? The journey that Lupa and her wolf took looked like it would take perhaps two or three months on the map, yet we are told that it took them four years? Also, why were the snow animals at the end even a thing? What were they? Why were they there? And if they were truly made of snow, then why did Lupa bother fighting them considering they weren't real? Why did she pass out afterwards? And how did the man in the blue cloak (which we were told are the bad guys? possible? this wasn't very clear) find them just at the right moment? There are more questions than answers at the end of this comic, and overall, the "plot" itself acted more as a prologue than an actual story.

The art in this book is beautiful and expressive. I love the use of color and the choice to add only one color in each chapter. This is used very effectively to add emphasis, build up an atmosphere, and deepen the story.

My main issue is that the first volume is a little light on story. There are things that are referenced briefly, but the majority of the book is light on text, which is fine, but does result in not much being explained. I would like to know more, and I'm sure more will be revealed in future volumes.

I'm really disappointed because I wasn't able to get this to download onto my laptop. I'm still planning to put this onto my to-read list and reading it later.

This was a very beautifully thought-out book. It was just hard to read as an e-arc with the Netgally watermark. The artwork shift from the first section to the second also threw me off a bit.

Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book, my thoughts are my own.

This is a hard book to review,
I was so excited about it, I loved the cover art and as a graphic novel and comic fan it seemed like a match made in heaven. Unfortunately the story was not as good as the art.
It could be a "first book syndrome", meaning we will get all the explanation we need in future volumes, but unfortunately I will not be picking them up.
This was confusing and such a weird way to tell the story, I feel like I learned nothing, I could not even tell you what it was about. Yes her mom died in front of her, but over a hundred pages, not much happened and I feel nothing towards any characters.
It took me a while to write this review, because I could genuinely not tell you anything about what I'd read apart from the grand line, no personal thing about how the characters made me feel or certain scenes, such a forgettable story with a beautiful wrapping. All it left me with was confusion and an overwhelming feeling of emptiness, "oh it's done ?" not I want more but rather "ah moving on".
Overall it was boring, beautiful art that told a story in a poorly manner. The story telling did not do the art justice is all I am left feeling.
Such a bummer.
Hopefully other people enjoyed it.
1/5 stars

I... I've been thinking about this for days now and I still don't know what to write in this review. I usually start my reviews with a short, spoiler-free description of the book I've read, but I truly have no idea what it was about. It feels like the world building was completely skipped over, making the story hard to follow.

What I did like however, is what the artist did with the graphic novel. Where the art first consists solely out of blues and blacks, more and more colours are added. I've never seen that before and it was a very creative choice!

The concept has potential, but the execution felt a bit lacking.

3.5 stars

Lupina: Book One tells the story of a young girl who, after a major tragedy strikes her city, is forced to survive on her own with the help of a wolf and seek revenge on the people who killed her family.

The artwork is beautiful and interesting. A major aspect of this series is the phases of the moon, and with each chapter and new lunar phase, more colors are added. The colors were a bit dark so it was difficult to get the full effect of the artwork at times.

The overall story is engaging, but I think it needs more explanation. Although the heroine, Lupa, doesn't fully understand the quest that she's on either, more description is needed to at least flesh out what's happening while we wait for events to unfold. I think the jump in time could have been noted on one of the chapter pages - it's not until several pages after the jump that we find out four years has passed since the events of the first chapter.

It's a little disjointed, but I think the story concept and artwork are definitely things readers would be interested in.

Utterly confusing. I had no idea what the heck I was reading, how much time had passed, what actually marked the passage of time or any actual plot other than "girl and wolf on journey" and a lot of blood.

Four year old Lupa spends her days getting bullied by her sister. Lupa is found by a Shewolf and begins a journey to get revenge on the people who destroyed her family.

At first I was worried that I would be unable to read the book. I think it was just the review copies scan, but the art was so dark that it was hard to see the characters with the solid black background so I did miss part of the first few pages. It didn't take me long to forget that the art was hard to see. The book is mostly black and white, but the colorist does the coolest thing. Instead of chapters you have phases (like moon phases) and with each new phase an accent color gets added. This creates the most beautiful effect. The accent color added really effects the entire mood of the piece. For example in phase one the accent color is red which just emphasizes the tragedy in the first part of the book.

The story is powerful. You really feel for Lupa. It was hard to decide how I wanted to write the review because my only thoughts were WOW! I would see a page and think the story doesn't get better than this. Then the next page would prove me wrong. I need volume 2 now!

5 stars

Creative Team:
Art: Li Buszka
Writer: James F Wright
Colors: Bex Glendining
Lettering: Ariana Maher

'Lupina' by James Wright, follows the story of a girl, Lupa with her half protector, half pet wolf, on her journey and mission, she doesn't really know or understand just yet. Unbeknownst to her while on her journey she experiences the help of many goddesses trying to set her on the right path.

I actually really enjoyed this graphic novel, I thought the art style was super interesting and unlike any style I've seen before. I loved the colour palette and how the novel started in only dark shades of blue and blacks but slowly progresses and becomes much more colourful as Lupa, our main character, ages and matures.

I really enjoyed the story line although I feel as though the first volume of this novel served as a prequel to the rest of the series, not that I'm complaining at all. The volume really sparked an interest in both the plot and the character and her journey and left me needing more!

This graphic novel is a super quick, fun and immersing read, and as you can probably tell from my review I really enjoyed it and cannot wait for the next volume to be released!!

I really enjoy graphic novels, and I was so drawn in by the story premise, that I was wildly disappointed with how disjointed and incoherent the storyline was. Even for a graphic novel, it needs more exposition and explanation; I think the setting needs to be a little more established and that more captions would have been helpful. I also found more than one panel to be hard to understand the action happening in the art. For instance, the scenes where Lupa is dreaming about that other girl were not clear at all until she finally says that she was dreaming.

I do like the story and would like to know what ultimately happens, but I don’t see myself buying the sequels.