Jeff & Taylor #2: Race Junkies

In sports the term "blow it up" is used when a team as currently constructed isn't performing at a high level and a complete change of direction is needed to save a sinking ship; I'm afraid that may be the case with Jeff & Taylor. Just because a comic is aimed at a younger audience does not mean that the material itself need be unsophisticated in content. The most glaring issue with J&T is that it comes off as an idea conceived by a preteen that never evolved past the stage of its conception. The character designs are downright baffling at times. I'll use David as an example. The choice of hairstyle perfectly illustrates the overall juvenile quality of the work. It comes off as hastily thought up and applied. A rough draft never given the dignity of a re-write (or two).Speaking of writing, this is easily the weakest point of the comic and is the clearest indicator that this series is suffering from arrested development. The flimsy and uninteresting concept of teenage girls feeling compelled to challenge two complete strangers to a go-kart race is bad enough, but throw in, out of the blue, a murderous stuffed animal and you're truly testing the patience and charity of your audience. This brings me back to my criticism of issue one: J&T doesn't know what kind of comic it wants to be, or more accurately, Mr. Mojica currently doesn't have the chops to pull off the kind of comic he intends it to be.My sincere advice would be to "blow it up". Go back to the drawing board and start from scratch. Meaning, recommit to the fundamentals of drawing and character development/design. Take some creative writing classes and consume media made by professionals and breakdown how they tell their stories and development their characters. There's no shame in missing your mark; the only shame is being too proud to take the necessary steps to ensure you hit it in the future. Though it may not seem like it, I am rooting for you, Mr. Mojica. Best of luck.

Love Ashley’s confidence and the fact that she kept the same energy through the comic.

I thought it was a short, fun read with charming artwork and characters.

This is the second remake from JFM, and like I said with the first remake, I'm still excited to see what has changed and what has improved! So aside from improvement with the art, and excellent quality in printing of the book, I love how future characters that are introduced in this episode, have more depth to their characters and aren't just there for joke purposes compared to JFM's original editions. I don't want to spoil anything, but I love Ashley's backstory now. It's simple but to the point and doesn't make you feel like anything was "hamming it up" for drama sake with her background. From my perspective, you get a bit of an idea on her family life and why she is the way she is, which helps polish her as a character and we don't just get to see her flaws but see that she's still a person too, she just has some issues. Plus, we get to see consequences play out and not be forgotten, which shows that continuity is always a sign of good writing! We have more clever foreshadowing to future villains that I know make other appearances thanks to reading his first editions (again, not gonna spoil anything), and overall, the jokes were better, the humor still made me smile, the characters had some fun exaggerated facial expressions, and there were clever little "easter eggs" references that JFM drew in the background in some of his panels! Overall, this was very entertaining, and some plot holes from the original editions were fixed & patched right up, so I'm happy to see JFM improving in his comic work!