I’m going to be up front and tell you that I didn’t enjoy Sweaterweather in the least bit. I am not a fan of reprint collections in which the author goes back and adds commentary because it really breaks the flow of reading the story. That and there was a choice to have the author Sara Varon’s commentary before each comic which spoiled the reading experience utterly. This put me in a difficult spot as I’ve never read a First Second Book that I didn’t like or love. I mean their line of books is pretty damn incredible. They’re some of the best freaking comics created in the last decade so to read this and be disappointed with it… it was honestly heart breaking.

I read it a second time just to see if I caught it at the wrong time, but no. It just wasn’t for me. Most of the stories are wordless which is fine, but they don’t really go anywhere. They’ll have a quick conflict and the characters always seem to have the solution. While that wasn’t too bad at first, it got old rather quickly. The stories are incredibly short. You don’t have time to be invested in them before they’re just over which paired with the other problem makes for some frustrating reading.

The art is enjoyable. The animals that populate the stories are recognizable with Cats being the only creatures that looked a bit off from the rest of the world. I enjoyed the art and liked that it was colored usually with one hue per a story. The worlds created look good.

This book is quirky and weird and should have been for me. But it tires a bit too hard to be quirky and weird which is part of the problem. The other problem is the author notes. I get that these are mostly reprints, but for me, it was my first time reading them and it was pretty much ruined by the notes. Even after I stopped reading them I knew they were there and it really altered the way I looked at the stories. I wasn’t left to interrupt them with my own eyes, but rather what the author wanted and that just wasn’t any fun.

I’m not really sure who this collection is for, but I hope there’s someone out there that finds it and enjoys it. It just definitely wasn’t for me and I have a hard time recommending it to anyone to check out as it seems like a collection of online comics that were better off left online.

Score: 2/5

Sweaterweather & Other Short Stories Creator: Sara Varon Publisher: First Second Books Price: $19.99 Release Date: 2/2/16 Format: Hardcover; Print