I've been reading Girl Genius for about ten years and, I have to say, it only gets better. Not only is the gaslamp fantasy world consistently engaging and surprising, but the story as it stands in November 2020 is expansively empathetic. It interrogates the intersection between being in a powerful ingroup (here represented as humans) and being worthy of empathy by refusing to explicitly classify clanks, constructs, and other spark-created beings’ level of earned empathy except for through Agatha’s deconstruction of other sparks’ anti-construct prejudices. It's hilarious and the art is beautiful and Zeetha and Krosp always leave me smiling. ( )

Loved the artwork and sense of humor in this one-I'll be reading more! ( )

Intro to a steampunk adventure, Agatha Clay is having a bad day, robbed then her favorite professor at Transylvania Polygnostic University is killed. Her Aunt and Uncle want her to pack up and flee the invading army. But something else happens instead.

A little short but it's an interesting story and I'll be on the lookout for more volumes in the series ( )

A graphic steampunk novel sounded great, but it wasn't. The story was confusing and puerile. The main character Agatha was inconsistent, sometimes pathetic, but sometimes brash and outspoken. Baron Wolfenbach was heartless, but his son, Gilgamesh, has some promise to become more than his father. Not sure if I will continue the series or not. ( )

GIRL GENIUS: ADVENTURE! ROMANCE! MAD SCIENCE!

I've been reading GG since I ran across the first published volume about fifteen years ago and, with some breaks, I'm still reading updates as the decades-long mad science steampunk drama is published online three times a week. It feels weird to rate something so formative and so personal so low, but the truth is that it is so long, it isn't finished yet, and it would be frustrating to start reading now that it's about 20 volumes, coming out page by page. GG has a fantastically intricate plotline that doesn't really lend itself to the casual reading of something that has to come out slowly, piece by piece, over the course of years.

I won't bother getting into personal nitpicks, as almost all of them are just matters of personal taste. I will say this: I have been on tetherhooks about various romantic entanglements in GG for over a decade and I am on those same tetherhooks today, as I write this in 2021, wondering what it means that Agatha will be sailing with Martellus while both of her prospective suitors are sent to war far away in Europa. ( )