Reviewer is Shiv Johnston (aged 8), assisted by Gordon Johnston (aged 40)
Gordon: So we’re going to be talking about The Legend of La Mariposa which is a web comic that we’ve been reading for the last month or so…
Shiv: And there’s also spin-offs in between them.
Gordon: So why don’t you really briefly summarise what The Legend of La Mariposa is all about?
Shiv: Okay so the first chapter of The Demon Gauntlet is where La Mariposa basically asked to join, but Ojo Tercero Jr sends her on like a quest…
Gordon: Maybe start by saying who La Mariposa is?
Shiv: Okay so La Mariposa is a wrestler who um, she really likes her suit, and one of the spin-offs it’s really funny because her suit gets wrecked and then she goes like really mad.
Gordon: So she’s a Mexican wrestler; a Luchador. And the Sons of Justice are a group of Luchador superheroes that she wants to join at the very start…
Shiv: And so she gets sent on this quest, and it’s a 5-parter story. There’s 4 demons and there’s a surprise guy at the end and it’s really cool.
Gordon: Who was your favourite of the characters then?
Shiv: Either La Mariposa or, em, Murcielago (shown below).
Gordon: Yeah, you thought Murcielago? ‘Cause he was quite a sympathetic wrestler, wasn’t he?
Shiv: Murcielago was one of the demons.
Gordon: He was one of the demons, but he was a bit more 3-dimensional, there was a bit more to him. What did you think of the art?
Shiv: It’s very cartoony, I really like it.
Gordon: Do you think it would work as a cartoon; as an animation?
Shiv: Yeah
Gordon: And what did you think of the wrestling scenes?
Shiv: Oh yeah, that’s really cool. It’s really cool how they make it look like their hands are actually grabbing onto each other
(Shiv holds up hands and interlocks fingers with Gordon)
Gordon: Oh, they were grappling you mean. You really liked the grappling sequences? Yes, they were really authentic. You saw some real wrestling moves, and you really believed in the battles, didn’t you? So it felt very high stakes, but was also very funny and humorous and exciting.
And as you said there were three spin-offs (The Climb, The Grip of the Gruesome Grappler and Night of the Chupacolossus – available in print).
Shiv: There were four or five, I think, cause there were some in [the web comic], remember the cooking one?
Gordon: Oh yes, and there were the little one-off strips as well. So there was a lot going on there, lot’s of stories to get through. So you would recommend it to other people to read then?
Shiv: Yeah.
Gordon: And you think you’d want to buy the print version when it comes out?
Shiv: YES, DEFINITELY!
Gordon: Okay well, we’ll keep an eye out, and hopefully they’ll do some more La Mariposa.
Shiv: And if you want to look up the webcomic, you just need to go onto Safari and look up longlivelamariposa.com
Gordon: Yeah, and you recommend everyone does that; everyone goes online and reads the webcomic, and then buys the spin-offs and then buys the print comic?
Shiv: Yeah.
Gordon: Well thank you very much Shiv.
(The Legend of La Mariposa is written, drawn and self-published by James Lawrence)