We've gone over their signing around LA, now we have some reviews on their books. First Second's had some new books to pick up this fall.The Rise of Aurora West is a prequel to the Battling Boy book by Paul Pope. We really enjoyed Battling Boy and are waiting for much wanted new chapters in the series due next year. This is a prequel story featuring Aurora West and her back story. For a prequel not featuring the main hero from the series it entertains with a mystery over Aurora's mother's death and a glimpse again into her upbringing as a city superhero. They mystery connects to a deeper revenge thread as a monster who helped in her father's death, in the main book, is connected to her mother's death. An intriguing mystery flows from the book and a bit more of the customs and world are brought into view of the Battling Boy story. What monster use for trade is gross and delightful. Aurora is a strong heroic girl and we see how she could be tapped to be more than a side character.
In Real Life takes the tale of gold farming into a love story... not really... a story of understanding other cultures and the empowerment of better working conditions? Anda is so good at playing an onlie game she gets chosen to be administrator warrior in-game dealing out justice to gold farmers. She befriends one, a big no-no and is shunned by her group of warriors in-game and out. Befriending this gold farmer doesn't have the best benefit to him either as she learns about his terrible working conditions of mining the game for real world currency and get him in trouble for asking for health benefits. Not really the romantic story you were looking for and not really a story you care to hear about with China's problem with farming games. The art was so passive it really didn't need to be a comic, maybe a short story in a collection of: Internet themes that start off to great plots of romance, then don't.