Graphic Novel Review - 'The Marble Queen' by Anna Kopp (Writer), Gabrielle Kari (Artist)

I waited literally years for this graphic novel.

After having been delayed a hundred times, 'The Marble Queen' by Anna Kopp and Gabrielle Kari has finally been published in March 2024, at least in physical form, in paperback. I had lost and gained patience. I was assured, then I was frustrated, and then I was reassured again and again of its eventual existence. I was overhyped by the time I at last got my hands on this tome.

So after all that, what are my final thoughts? My conclusions? What did I think of 'The Marble Queen' in the end?

Ehhhhhh.

Okay. I am quite disappointed.

It's by no means terrible, nor especially bad. It's just kind of uneven and clunky.

The plot basically goes as follows: Amelia is a princess with anxiety, whose kingdom of Marion is at the mercy of pirates, and near-broke. A political marriage alliance is decided with another, more powerful yet mysterious kingdom, Iliad. It turns out Amelia is not marrying the prince (who is already married with a daughter), but his sister, the queen - the handsome and aloof Salira. Both women - both queens - are dealing with their own internal issues, and all the while there is political intrigue, espionage, attempted assassinations, frame-ups, riots, shady dealings, and attempted mutiny. And a tragic past coming back to haunt the two women, in their budding, blossomy romance. A royal pain, indeed.

An LBGTQ+ romance between two queens in a fantasy epic, with an obvious 'The Rose of the Versailles' and 'Revolutionary Girl Utena' influence, sounds absolutely marvellous, doesn't it?

Unfortunately, 'The Marble Queen' contains many flaws in its execution. I'll start with:

The pacing. It's all over the place. Really, nothing happens in the first half of the book, just slice-of-life stuff in Iliad and Amelia settling there, and being introduced to the assemble cast. Then a riot and deaths happen, and Amelia moves to another place for a bit, then she has a birthday, then she marries Salira, then a framing and imprisonment happens, and then corruption and betrayals are revealed, and then a sudden move to somewhere else before we rush to the battle climax, which ends too quickly, and then the comic ends too quickly and abruptly, teasing a sequel.

Nothing is built up properly; the plot begins by moving slowly like molasses, leaving behind a saccharine syrupy trail that might be sweet and cute, but nonetheless doesn't stay with you on a deeper, meaningful or memorable level in your heart and soul. Then it rushes its action in the middle of its second half; the rapid, hasty pace only gets worse as it hurriedly battering-rams its way towards the end. It gets so bad that certain characters would be forgotten about, but then would suddenly appear in a panel and the subsequent scene later on, with no explanation. Characters keep disappearing and reappearing like ghosts of forgotten-notes past.

The beginning and middle of 'The Marble Queen' may give the reader time to breathe, relax and get to know the characters, but at the third act and denouement, we are awarded no such thing; no cathartic payoff.

The rushed elements and plot points are not given the emotional weight, impact and aftermath that is appropriate to the situation. Like, people die horribly and then it is forgotten about and followed up on with lighthearted, jokey moments. Main character deaths are not given any time to be grieved over by the other characters - they will be forgotten about too, or at least will not be mentioned again. It's rush rush rush!

This links to my problem with Amelia, our main heroine. Amelia, who is terrified throughout her story, who is supposed to be suffering from a serious anxiety disorder, and is in a dire situation where she can't go back home to her own kingdom again, doesn't know who to trust, and there are attempts on her life. With these important and potent details in mind, there is the dissonance in that she moves on from traumatic events very quickly and easily. For example, moments where people die bloodily right in front of her, and when she is sentenced to death (I won't give context since I've decided to make this a spoiler-free review). Amelia forgets about people when they are not standing directly in her line of vision. It's fairly ridiculous.

It suits the rush-rush-rush pace of the book, though. Even when Amelia is eventually reunited with her family from Marion, she takes it in stride, no weight, no stakes, no big deal, no heartfelt scenes. Oh, did she have a birthday somewhere in here? Why was that included? What was the point? What an odd detail to include right after a traumatic plot point that won't come to fruition until the end!

Amelia does train with a sword and pistol at some point in the second half of the story, but - slight spoiler - she ends up not using any weapon in the climax. It's Salira who's the action queen with a sword. No other woman is allowed to fight alongside her, apparently. No other woman is allowed to be useful in a war.

To be honest, Amelia on the whole is a pretty useless protagonist, except when it comes to finances, reading, and emotional support. She doesn't have to be a physically tough, Xena-type action girl, of course, but just because she can run headfirst into battles, conflicts and clashes with no weapons, no plans (she doesn't even use her "intelligence" in these, she's just... present), and have a gun pointed at her, and she miraculously survives all these ordeals unscathed, it doesn't mean her anxiety is magically cured! If anything it should be worse now! Her lack of PTSD is a result of the rushed pace, but is it also because she loves Salira? Love doesn't fix everything! Having a romantic partner doesn't fix everything! What is this 2000s-2010s YA romance tropes BS?

The magic element, which is exclusive to Iliad and only Iliad in this fantasy world, is a strange and somewhat pointless inclusion to 'The Marble Queen'. In one scene Salira takes Amelia, who had thought magic the stuff of fairy tales beforehand, to Iliad's secret caves, where magical stones reside, and she explains her kingdom's history, but not what the magic is, what it does, and where it comes from. It's a vaguely defined life force of some kind. Like chi, or Mother Nature, but far more vague. Is it used for fertility and growth? I don't know. Is it a kind of love-bond connection magic, given to the people of Iliad - oh wait, never mind, that's forgotten about as soon as it's suggested. It's not clear if the stones are actually worth anything; are worth the other lands stealing for themselves. The magic is there as a power symbol, as far as I can tell.

The magic stones (or life force? Which is it, exactly?) also cause outsiders of Iliad to lose their memories of their time in the kingdom once they leave it, hence why no one outside of Iliad knows about the magic, and how Iliad has managed to keep its secrets. And why Amelia can't go back home, or else she'll forget about Salira. But don't worry, this isn't important. It's only bought up once later, and isn't a huge issue at all.

The pirates issue ends up being no big deal, too. They're barely a part of anything. They're dealt with off-page and explained away in a single line of dialogue, with no details given, it seems, when they were such a threat at the beginning and were the reason why the plot happened in the first place. WTF?

If you are coming into this graphic novel expecting pirate action and adventure, yeah, no, you will not find it here. What a letdown.

I will mention that Salira is a cool character. Complex, multilayered and with a deep, dark, distressing secret past. Gorgeous, refined, regal and badass on the outside, and kind and 100% respectful to Amelia and her boundaries. This shouldn't be such a high bar to reach in terms of decency, but unfortunately, it is, so there you go.

Salira's face also literally cracks a few times in the comic, whenever she is stressed, or at her lowest point, which I think is meant to be symbolic of her cracking under pressure. It's an understated detail to her character. And I think it is the reason why the book is called 'The Marble Queen'. Marble symbolism, in many ways! Or it could be just a very odd, random artistic choice. It even looks comical in places - in dramatic, tragic scenes, where it absolutely should not look stupid and laughable.

Speaking of: the artwork. Let's talk about the artwork.

I'm going to come right out and say it - the cover art is much better than what is inside the book. For the actual art in 'The Marble Queen' is... not very good. It's not horrible, and some panels on their own are fine, and it is colourful enough, but there is a haphazard, slapdash mixing of different styles. There's a pastel, childish look and tone to the whole thing; not clean and polished. It's mostly cartoony and manga-esque, which I did not expect. I expected art that is more richly detailed, and smooth and flows effortlessly from one panel to the next, based on the cover, and the historical-lite, regency setting with a fantastical touch (another thing not found in the real story; again, the "magic" element is a small and completely superfluous addition).

I swear, 80% of the panels have no backgrounds, with the characters drawn to look simple, silly and manga-like in the forefront, and it feels less like a stylistic choice and more like laziness, which is shocking for a comic like this. Movement arrows, with descriptions, and descriptions of sounds and facial expressions, are included, which is helpful, given the lacklustre art that doesn't convey action properly a lot of the time.

Heck, in the scene where Amelia is at a ballroom for her engagement party, there is one particular error where a big front strand of her hair, which is down when the rest of her hair is up, disappears in one panel! It's impossible not to notice. How did that get past the editing stage? In a book that has been delayed numerous times!

Plus, nearly all the male characters look the same. I could hardly tell them apart, and I had to go back and doublecheck who was who several times. I like most of the character designs, however, and some of the facial expressions are well drawn and convey emotion well.

How Amelia's anxiety is depicted and expressed, through symbolic purple thorns growing around her, is a good, effective choice.

*sigh* And we have yet another regency/historical fiction story where the queen - in this case I mean the queen of Marion, Amelia's mother - is a horrible, uptight, one-note, conservative shrew who is borderline abusive towards her daughter, while the king is kind and more openminded. Amelia's mother is a haughty, controlling, homophobic, bourgeoisie narcissist. As little as she appears in the book, it is clear she is responsible for a lot of Amelia's anxiety issues. 'The Marble Queen' wants to make it clear to the reader, more than once, that the marriage of the king and queen of Marion was arranged, neither of them had a choice in the matter - because why else would anyone marry such a bitch, amirite?!

I'd thought that pop culture, mainstream media would be careful and thoughtful in this modern era. By now we should be aware enough to subvert harmful stereotypes, not perpetuate them. Like, say, depict queens who are good and not evil; who can handle power without going mad.

But I guess since Salira technically counts as a good queen (debatable, given the decisions she made in her dark, complex past, and how we scarcely see her actually perform any queenly duties), we have licence to throw other queens under the bus to make her look better in comparison!

Amelia doesn't have much in the way of positive, non-romantic female influences and companionship. Most of the other female "characters" don't appear much in the book, and are fundamentally useless. If I was being generous, I would say that maybe Amelia's maid from Marion, Mina, and her sister-in-law Anita, are nice, supportive friends to her. Iris, Amelia's bodyguard and guide, is cool like Salira, although the potential of her character is utterly wasted. I can't elaborate due to spoilers, but I am miffed by how she's treated and what ends up happening to her.

It is also made clear near the beginning that same-sex couples are common and normalised in Iliad, unlike everywhere else, apparently. But we only see evidence of this in the engagement party scene - after that, apart from Amelia and Salira's courtship and relationship, there is otherwise a bubble of heteronormality. Anita's, and then Amelia's, three court lady "friends" all have husbands, and are man-crazy (BTW, they vanish without a trace after appearing in a few scenes, they don't amount to anything vital to the plot). Salira's brother and Amelia's brother both have wives and children. Amelia and Salira's relationship is nice, if a little rushed and insta-lovey, typically, but they can't be the only queer couple in 'The Marble Queen', surely? One sapphic queen pair is cool and awesome, but give us other queer couples, too, especially if they're supposed to be normalised in the world you created and the story you're telling! It's part of the show don't tell rule of writing.

I think that does it for this review.

I should have loved 'The Marble Queen'. It contains nearly everything I love, and I waited years to get my hands on it, so I desperately wanted it to be worth it. Sadly, it was not to be.

It is not a bad graphic novel, and there is stuff to like about it, certainly. But after finally reading it, and after a few days of distancing myself from it, finding what exactly it is I remember about it, and how much I actually enjoyed it, if I did enjoy it at all, I'm afraid I'm going to have to come to the conclusion that, to my eyes, it is mediocre.

Maybe my standards are too high, but I've been reading graphic novels for over a decade now, and my seasoned, jaded self sees no problems with having high standards nowadays. I know what is good, I know what I enjoy. I know what I like, and what is worth keeping and remembering. 'The Marble Queen' falls just short of this Artemis Crescent moon estimation.

At the end of it all, I am glad I read it, if that's any consolation.

Keep on drawing and writing, and telling stories, everyone. Keeping being creative and artistic. Keep demanding your voice, your work, your heart, your soul, be heard.

Take care and be kind. Look out for one another always.

Final Score: 3/5

EDIT: I just noticed another thing: Since 'The Marble Queen' hasn't met a negative older woman stereotype it didn't like, we have the nagging, fussing, disapproving mother-in-law in Lady Rhea, Anita's mother and lady of one of Iliad's provinces. She is only in a few pages, but like with Amelia's mother, we get the full picture of her one-dimensional prop-ness (to call her a character would be inaccurate) right away. After Rhea unabashedly finds flaws in Anita and Amelia upon seeing them, Salira's brother Mateo says to Amelia that his mother-in-law is hard to impress, and he's accepted long ago that he'll never be good enough for Anita in Rhea's view. HE'S THE FUCKING PRINCE OF HER COUNTRY! HIS SISTER IS THE QUEEN! HIS DAUGHTER - HER GRANDDAUGHTER - IS THE OFFICIAL HEIR TO THE THRONE! IS THAT SERIOUSLY NOT ENOUGH TO IMPRESS HER! WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE!