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Saturday, August 12, 2017

Fantasy Sports 3: The Green King Review Another Hole-In-One

Coming from the delightful art and writing of Sam Bosma is another tales of a mix-up of fantasy and sports in the continuing stories of Wiz and Mug. This time the sport is mini-golf with some fond memories of wrestling in the latest volume of Fantasy Sports: No. 3 The Green King.

As you may already know, I'm a fan of the series, so it's easy for me to get into another volume. Taking place right after where the last one left off we find Wiz and Mug in a new magical land. While Mug gets imprisoned it's up to Wiz to free him in a tournament with the king whose be turned into a monster. The tournament is mini-golf!

As always it's wonderful to see the blend of magic with everyday sports brought to the pages by Sam Bosma. If he were a Japanese mangaka there would be no doubt he would have had to choose between doing a sports or fantasy manga series each of which might have been going for years and only recently getting updated animes. His art breathes in the fantasy to the book by adding green fire to a putter. His ideas come out on every page with golf becoming a battle of magic and tricks.

The story is a fun romp through the game of golf with some quips that deserve praise. Such as warriors defending the monster king trying to kick our our hero Wiz for being a girl and not dressing the right way like man pompous private golf courses. A quick back-and-forth with the king that will eat Wiz if she loses the game has her explaining the rules of golf in some exposition that easily rolls off the tongue.

Each hole is another fun exploration of how to outsmart a crooked opponent and as Wiz put it in the book, "Fun."

We get a treat, well, if you're a fan of wrestling like I was in the 80's and 90's with Mug's tale of his heroes and the soap opera drama we got back then. It's a nice nod to how even wrestling holds a candle in our hearts for emotional stories. We see a few moves, but the whole nature of showmanship an over-the-top stories plays out in just a few pages.

It also briefly shows us what may be the final boss, the Archmage. It's just a few panels, but her presence is felt with her power. Even Wiz gets a nice little horrible nightmare involving her.

Fantasy Sports 3: The Green King is continuing the tale that has us wonder what sport will be next and how it will go from something mere-mortals play to those with magic will make more fun. Another adventure that makes me wish I had a dog that carried a knife in its mouth.

As of writing this it's 13.49 on Amazon from its regular $19.99 retail price

I think down the line they'll have a nice wonderful collected volume, but that may take another two years if the next volume doesn't come out until 2018 and is the ending book in the series.

Reviewer was provided a review copy from publisher