Firefly Original Graphic Novel

★ ★ ★ 1/2 (rounded up)
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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WHAT'S FIREFLY: THE STING ABOUT?
While Mal and the Serenity are tied up, Inara takes Zoë, Kaylee, and River to a luxury spa. The ladies are having a wonderful time when they're essentially taken hostage by Yo-Saff-Bridge who wants them (or at least Inara, Zoë, and Kaylee) to help.

It's a great scheme, even if she has to threaten the lives of the rest of their crew to get their cooperation.

After the setup, we get four chapters showing how Saffron's plan goes, each chapter focusing on one of her accomplices. While we see them carry out the plan (and as it goes horribly awry, as all plans we see with this crew do) we get the chance to get into the minds of the women of Serentiy. Zoë and Wash are having some troubles as they consider having a child (more her troubles than his at this point) and she's thinking about what they're going through. Inara's decided to leave, but she can't bring herself to tell Mal. Kaylee's focused on her friends, thinking about them.

The best chapter is River's chapter (which is a tautology, I realize). Part of that is because that's the action's climax and River gets the chance to shine, part of that is because it's about River.

HOW WAS THE ART?
There was a different artist for each of the five chapters, which was an interesting approach. It kept things from getting stale, it helped ensure that each chapter was easily distinguished from the others, and you could probably make the case that each art style used was the best way to capture the primary character for that chapter.

I didn't love all of the art, but a couple of the chapters blew me away, the characters have rarely looked better.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT FIREFLY: THE STING?
I appreciated this approach to storytelling and Dawson has a good handle on each character, and captured the voices perfectly (I could really hear Jewel Staite's voice as I read Kaylee's thoughts/speech bubbles). I'm not sure it was the best story, but the way that Dawson and the artists told the story more than made up for it. And it's always fun to see Yo-Saff-Bridge try to dig herself out of trouble.