“Here there be monsters.”

The Glass Scientists: Volume One by S.H. Cotugno

My Review

“I am Dr. Henry Jekyll. At your service.”

I’m not going to mince words: I love this comic. I discovered it a couple of months ago via some text interview online somewhere (I can’t remember where), and immediately fell in love.

I’ve always loved Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ever since I first read it a few years ago, and to see it reimagined in such a colorful and fantastic way was beautiful. Sage Cotugno does such a wonderful job retelling this tale, and you can tell how much they love the source material, and how much love they put into the comic.

Pros

• The characters ▼

Dr. Henry Jekyll is, of course, our protagonist. He’s kind and polite, and the idealized gentleman. But of course, he’s hiding a dark secret.

Mr. Edward Hyde is that secret. He’s everything that Jekyll wants to hide (*cough*) about himself – everything that he’s ashamed of. So, Hyde is rude, unashamed, and a free spirit who likes to go out and do debauchery nightly.

There are other characters here too, of course, but seeing as I love basically all of them, this post skins never end if I talked about them. I will say that I loved Cotugno’s interpretation of Robert Lanyon, and their new characters of Rachel Pidgely and Jasper Kaylock. They’re all very good characters.

• The story ▼

The skeleton of the comic is the original Strange Case, but all the embellishments and additional characters and plot is new. I love all the changes and stuff that has mostly stayed the same, and just Cotugno’s interpretation in general.

I also really like the setting. It’s pretty much the same kind of setting as in the novella, but the vibrant and varied colors of the art and designs really make the gaslamp fantasy aesthetic pop.

• The art ▼

The art is gorgeous, but that’s usually to be expected with a comic. I personally just really like Sage Cotugno’s art style. It really appealed to me. I love the character designs, and the 19th century London aesthetic.

The colors were all vibrant and beautiful. They were awesome in the original webcomic, and they translated really well to the physical version. They’re just as bright and striking as they are digitally.

Cons

• The waiting game ▼

I pretty much absolutely love this webcomic, and this bound book version of the first third of the story. Because of this, it’s really hard to think of something I don’t like about it.

The only thing that I can think of that is even mildly irritating about this webcomic, is that it only releases weekly. As such, it’s gonna take a few more years until it’s finished. And we’re all going to have to wait to see how the rest of the story unfolds. But yeah, that’s honestly the only thing that I can think of that bothers me about The Glass Scientists.

Final Thoughts

Before I close off this post, I just want to let everyone know that this is just the first of three physical releases of an ongoing webcomic. So if you end up liking The Glass Scientists: Volume One, or you’re interested in it but not sure if you want to commit monetarily yet, you can check out the webcomic here.

Anyway, I’ve already gushed about this graphic novel more than enough. It’s very obvious that I really enjoyed it. I definitely recommend it to people who like fantasy and sci-fi and graphic novels, but also to those who really like the original Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Anyway, as always, thank you so much for reading, and I hope you have an amazing day/night!

See ya ~Mar

---

My Links:

---