Life is Strange: Tracks review (SPOILER ALERT)

For anyone who hasn't read them yet, here are links to my reviews for the previous arcs of the Life is Strange comic:

• Life is Strange: Dust
  
• Life is Strange: Waves
• Life is Strange: Strings

After several months of waiting, we are back yet again to talk about the latest adventure of Max Caulfield and Chloe Price, featuring Rachel Amber.

Although these 4 new issues are technically parts 13-16 of the series, it was decided that that they would be the opening phase of a "new season" subtitled Partners in Time. According to one article on Titan Comics' official site, the original release date was supposed to be April 15, 2020. When Issue 12 was released, Comixology claimed the release date for the new season had been moved to May 13, 2020. Those dates came and went without anything. Then on June 23, 2020, the author finally gave an update on Twitter:

#lifeisstrange #comic readers: I know I've been asked a bit and can now safely say that yes, titan have confirmed officially that the fourth arc will be starting in October. Apolgies for the unexpected pause. Nobody's ideal choice. The pandemic has hit things badly.

As much as I've been a harsh critic for the past issues, I hope that the author and the rest who are making the comic series are safe and sound during these trying times. Their wellbeing matters.

With the new season delayed, I felt the need to find yet another point of comparison besides the fanfics, my brother's "Super Max" stories, as well as a couple of anime shows and films from Japan. Thus, I went on a little search online for an ongoing comic series decried by its critics as "trash", but still with a loyal following. Something polarizing. My search eventually brought to my attention a popular manga series in Japan called Kanojo, Okarishimasu (known in English as Rent a Girlfriend, also called Kanokari for short). While it's primarily a romantic comedy with no supernatural aspects, it has slice of life elements that also tell a somewhat unconventional coming of age story. One major similarity between it and the comics series is that it has been criticized by some of its readers as having a story that crawls at a snail's pace, if not that of a glacier. That didn't stop the manga from getting an anime adaptation in 2020 and from selling over 5 million copies... and counting.

Kanokari contains several panels that are so meme worthy that I've decided to use them for this review (and possibly future blog posts). And with that out of the way, let's get to the review.... SPOILERS FROM HEREON OUT.

The more things change, the more they stay the same

The first issue (Issue 2.1) opens up with Chloe in some room. Unfortunately the peace of the comic was shattered on the next page when the band showed up. Again. 😱

A pointless conversation with Tammi and Friends ensues, establishing that they in the middle of a trip. It is revealed that Tristan was in the same room as Chloe (on a different bed of course, you pervs) - signaling that the original timeline will be shown in conjunction with the alt timeline. On the next four pages, we return to the alternate reality, with Max, alt Chloe and Rachel hiking. They talk a bit on photography and about enjoying the scenery. Their little quality time is interrupted when cast members of Rachel's upcoming play stumble upon the trio. The play-actors decide to take a photo, when one of them slips off the ledge of a cliff. Max sees this and rewinds to before the fall. We then return to the original timeline, with original Chloe hiking up the same trail where Max walked upon in the alternate reality. Alas, the band tagged along with her. They soon find someone down on a lower ledge - the actor who fell off the cliff in the alt timeline wasn't saved by anyone in this reality. We then see Tristan waking up, trying to figure out what happened while we are treated to a small cameo of Victoria Chase. Max and alt Chloe have a little talk on the next four pages, where Max declares "In Chloe Price I trust. Both of them." The issue ends with Tristan and original Chloe presumably coming up with a plan to get Max back.

Issue 2.2 starts off with our 3 main leads on the van. During their little chat, Max yawns out of the blue, causing Rachel to react. This moment was noteworthy for me due to my brother's initial reaction to this particular panel. My initial reaction to it was that I was feeling exactly like Max - bored and sleepy. My brother drew a different conclusion. For some reason, he interpreted Rachel's reaction as her hitting on Max. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

The next page has Tristan trying to show his power to original Chloe, with a little bonding time that gets interrupted when one of the band members tells them it's time continue on with the road trip. Meanwhile, Max and Rachel are in a public restroom changing outfits. And it's not as titillating as it sounds, thanks to the forced perspective of this scene where we only get to see two closed toilet stalls punctuated by speech bubbles. Which is a shame because this conversation was perhaps the best one for this particular issue, as Rachel makes clear that her Chloe is not the original Chloe. Rachel even apologizes for (presumably) giving the impression that she didn't want to accept the truth about Max's relationship with the original Chloe, saying that Max is "the strongest person" she has known. On queue, Max gets out of her stall and hugs Rachel. Now that emotional beat is out of the way, we return to the original timeline, where Chloe, Tristan, and the band are in Tombstone, Arizona. After four pages of mostly filler, we jump back to the alternate reality, to at least three more filler pages. Jumping back to the original timeline, Chloe bumps into Victoria. The pair catch up on things, with Victoria claiming she quit taking photos. The issue's last two pages have a water gun fight happening in both realities. My initial reaction to this part, what should have been a moment of awesome, was of apathy and detachment. Also, Victoria calls it quits after this particular issue.

Issue 2.3 with the original timeline, the band's van stopping in the middle of nowhere due a flat tire. The blue hijab girl takes this time to question Chloe, seeing Tristan as someone suspicious for whatever reason. We jump back to the alternate reality with the trio in a dinner drinking milkshakes. Then Rachel says that her iCarly channel right now is focused on Shakespeare, as if to address one of my nitpicks for the Waves arc. Max makes a comment that "most phones don't exactly cover cross-reality networks". Hmm. Why did she say "most phones"? I'm curious to know what kind of phones exist in the Life is Strange universe that do allow you to send messages to an alternate timeline. Do they happen to need a microwave and a CRT TV to permit cross reality communications? This has to be a Steins;Gate reference, right? But before we expand on the topic of messages being sent across different worldlines, Rachel sees that a customer accidentally dropped something, who is revealed to be one of the characters from Life is Strange 2, the Seth Rogen lookalike. Back in the original timeline, Tristan attempts to use his power again, before being interrupted by blue hijab girl, who brings in him to the venue for the band's upcoming gig. He talks with Chloe, and they realize that since she knows Max best, they can guess where's she's headed. We jump back to the alternate reality, with the trio back on the road during the middle of a rainstorm. The van is forced to a stop as a tree falls onto the road. Then we get a shot of what could have been the best thing in this arc:

For a brief moment I thought the impossible had occurred: were Tammi and Friends finally out of the picture? 😍 Sadly it was not to be, as Max impulsively decided to rewind time in a move I felt was made by the author to troll readers like me who have no love for her pet characters. Ironically, before she does, Chloe and even Tristan raise objections to Max's seemingly selfless act. The issue ends with the accident never taking place and Max alone on the road. 😭

Issue 2.4 kicks off in the alternate reality, to the events just prior to the accident. Rachel and alt Chloe realize Max wasn't around. Max was still at the middle of the road where the accident occurred, worried that her Chloe was killed. She then gets a call from alt Chloe. Meanwhile Tristan wakes up at the back of the band's van, presumably in the original timeline. Fearing that the accident would still occur, he tries to get the attention of his traveling companions, but to no avail. For whatever reason, he could no longer undo his invisibility cloak at will. Back in the alternate reality, Max gets picked up by alt Chloe. However, alt Chloe then has a realization that leads to a dramatic outburst that was rather surprising, given how docile she normally is. Long story short, she didn't like that Max doesn't seem to trust her, that Max uses her powers unilaterally, and erases events without thinking things through. As alt Chloe says, "you don't get to just choose what gets kept and what gets thrown away." Then the next two pages has the band again from the original timeline, ugh. We see blue hijab girl having a strange look on her face when she couldn't find some bag, as if someone had taken away her drug stash or something. The band goes back on the road with original Chloe. They stop upon stumbling onto the tree that feel to the road, where the accident originally happened. Tristan remains invisible, and original Chloe realizes his absence. Then, for reasons that likely will be revealed in the next arc, blue hijab girl notices Tristan and reaches out to him. And this where the Tracks arc ends.

Unnecessary Serialization

One of the biggest problems I have with the comics right now is that its a serialized story. To explain the problem, I'll be quoting a couple of interesting comments I found from two different Star Trek fans:

You can easily skip the worst of the season and still enjoy the rest... And that is the pitfall of serialized storytelling, you’re either all-in or all-out. There’s no diversity in styles and stories since there’s only one story.

TNG season 1 is not great but there around 10 episodes I can watch and enjoy even if none are my favorites. Discovery it’s about 3-4 tops. And yes when everything is so serialized it makes it even harder to pick out the ones you like.

A Gizmodo article titled Serialized Television Has Become a Disease also makes a couple of relevant points:

And that’s the other thing lost with the push to serialization: variety. The connective tissue was the characters we knew and loved. The seasons had a lot of tonal shifts but no one really complained that it wasn’t “realistic.”

Everything is so intertwined that you can’t tease out a single episode that’s fun to watch on its own merits.

Despite Titan Comics declaring that the series is in a "new season" called Partners in Time, what we are getting is merely a direct continuation of the past 12 issues. The same old story is still chugging along. Why wasn't the main dilemma of the series resolved before moving to a new season? It makes me wonder if there's some stipulation for either the writer and/or Titan Comics that if Max and Chloe are finally reunited, do they immediately loose the rights to print out more money with the Life is Strange IP? Is that the real reason why we haven't gotten a completely brand new story? Or is the writer scared that no one will buy the next "season" because she has no hook to entice us into continuing our subscription? If it was due to this final supposition, I'd say that Max and Chloe's presence alone should be good enough to pique my interest.  Call me old fashioned, but I'd prefer if I can read a chapter that feels like it has a self contained beginning, middle & end. Maybe it's a side effect of having The Adventures of Tintin as the only comic series I actually read when I was a kid.

Closing: Max and Chloe will (not) be reunited soon

A few days ago, Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States. A new administration to herald a new year, another chance to make things right. There are concerns that the new Biden presidency will only bring about "more of the same" from the pre-Trump era. As to whether or not that will be the case ultimately remains to be seen. The same can't be said for the Life is Strange comic series though.

After waiting for nine months, the longest delay for the series thus far, and all we get is this?! 😡 Despite the release date being pushed back three times last year, the delay did not manifest itself through the quality of the writing. It's as if the writer really had an April 2020 release in mind, and did not bother take advantage of the 6 month delay to significantly improve the story. I feel that whatever was finished in time for the April release date was left virtually unchanged. If there were any "improvements" made during those 6 months, they didn't stood out to me at all. The following image can sum up my feelings for this current arc:

The one image I really hope I won't have to use ever again when reviewing future comic issues.

This latest arc overall has that "more of the same" feeling from previous chapters. If you are someone who hasn't batted an eye for the past installments, then good for you. But for others like me who expected far more, it's yet another disappointment. Barely anything truly worthwhile happened. This arc has one major similarity to the Waves chapters: they both feel like filler. It was honestly a chore to get through each new issue and write down what happened. I could barely point out anything interesting during this current arc.

Tristan is (predictably) the only new character trying to move the story forward in any meaningful way. The band is useless as ever, along with the other supporting characters. And yet the author increased their screen time! How much you ask? 41 out of 88 pages. Roughly 46% of the current arc! Yikes! With that in mind, it's no surprise why I was bored while reading these latest installments. The supporting cast are like carbon dioxide in a confined airtight space with limited oxygen, and that oxygen supply was decreased to almost half in this instance. Despite having the same number of pages as previous arcs, the author thought it was a good idea to almost triple down on her new characters. Their side stories at times effectively overshadow and stall the main plot. Whatever "momentum" the series had tends to slow to a crawl whenever they talk for more than half a page. Remember that water gun battle from Issue 2.2? I feel that because it involved characters I had no emotional connection towards, their presence utterly ruined the moment. It was a moment I felt was unearned, and should have been only with the trio, Tristan and Victoria even. Yet the supporting cast had to jump in and spoil the fun. The likes of Warren and Kate were more deserving to partake in that moment, not the largely irrelevant side characters the author created.

With the amount of time that has passed since the release of the Strings arc, I decided to go out of my way by reading a few interviews with the comics' author. In one interview, she commented:

I’d also have to say that introducing new characters into the world has been a thrill. Whenever I see a tweet or a message online mentioning a member of the High Seas or Tristan it really makes me happy. LiS was never a game about two people. The surrounding cast made that first game special for me; a community to immerse in.

In another interview, she says:

Not every new character is going to become a featured role in the story. But for me, they have to be real, even if they only appear briefly.... though the Hamlet cast that Rachel joins is too large for every one of them to become well known to us, I can still tell you their family situations and backstories.... So I really do put a lot of effort into giving every character a full and compelling personality and backstory. They all have very human and real attributes that make them feel real in general.

"Every character" huh? Last time I checked, among the new characters, only Tristan was given a backstory. And no, I don't want to know the backstory of Tammi and Friends, because doing so will simply reduce the presence of Max, Chloe and Rachel. And that's not why I'm here in the first place. When asked "Other than the main ones from the games, what other characters have you had the most fun writing?", her answer was:

Well, Tristan is an obvious choice. But I think my softest spot is for the High Seas crew. I love how, though we’ve only had a small amount of time with them, they each have their own mindset and viewpoint. I enjoy the emotional beats more than anything when I write… they’re what I loved in the game too....

Well, the above quote only confirms what I suspected last year: Tammi and Friends are indeed the writer's pets. Ugh. Realistically speaking, it seems they won't be going away anytime soon. 👎😡😭 But that doesn't mean I won't stop raising my objections against them. If a vocal group of Pricefield shippers can keep on claiming Warren Graham is nothing more than a horny stalker, then I also won't stop on harping on the band until the comic gets back to a more focused storyline that deals solely with Max, Chloe, and Rachel... you know the main attraction for most readers of this story?!

Apparently I wasn't alone with my sentiments for the newer characters. Usually when a discussion about the comics drops online, the band doesn't get much attention. But recently, there have been some concerns raised by readers on the sub-Reddit. One post started out with:

The story seems to be moving at a snail’s pace and it just feels like they’re going to be dragging out the build up to the Max/Chloe reunion for another twelve issues. I also don’t care for the music band that the writer keeps pushing on us either. I remember being really excited when it started but now I’m seriously considering canceling my subscription.

If anything the comics just make me appreciate the games even more. I even miss the ‘bad’ dialogue that everyone hates so much. 

Woah. Someone else finally felt that the uninteresting side characters are being forced upon us?! Shocker. Another fan commented:

There are a few good moments in the comics, but coincidentally every single one of them features only Max and Chloe. Every character and idea original to the comics seems... artificial.

Hell, even one fan who seemed okay with the series had this to say:

I am still very much on board with the story because the share moments between Max and Chloe feel so very much like the game itself. I don't care for the rest of the cast, they are a road block to what I want from that comic.

Ouch.

The current state of the comics has gotten so bad for my brother that he has lost all hope for any future issues. His feelings can summed up by the following image:

You know something has gone horribly wrong if my brother would rather sit through a 12 episode series that's been labeled as "Simp: The Anime" by its detractors instead of enthusiastically reading the latest adventures of Max Caulfield. And it's doubly worse when he's more open to future seasons of said anime as opposed to eagerly anticipating to future issues for this comic series.

There has been little debate whether or not the current pacing is beneficial to the comics' overall quality. One reader commented that:

Hell, by comic standards, things are actually moving along pretty quickly, with the whole 4 issues per arc thing, and us being on our 4th arc. The amount of things that have gone down in 15 issues so far, would typically take 30 or more issues normally, comic-wise.

Now if you ask me, the problem isn't necessarily the number of issues, but the amount of time it took us to get here. As a friendly reminder, the series started on November 14, 2018. The last issue for this current arc was released January 20, 2021. During that time we got a mere 16 issues. Kanokari on the other hand, managed to churn out a whopping 105 chapters during the same timeframe. Also, Kanokari somehow released 47 chapters in 2020 - despite the pandemic. Some will say that this is an unfair comparison, given that the Life is Strange comics have 3-5 people working on them while Kanokari's mangaka has a (slightly) bigger team to help him out. Yes, things are made easier when the artwork is just black and white. But when it comes to the writing, I strongly feel that the Life is Strange comics has yet to surpass Kanokari. While I agree with the notion of "quality over quantity", the quality of the writing in the comics is not simply worth the wait. Yes, Kanokari also has tons of its own problems when it comes to the writing, but at the very least the chapters for the manga are normally released on a weekly basis. Given the quality that the comics has delivered up to now, a 7 day wait per issue is far more bearable when compared to a 30 day wait per issue that automatically goes on hiatus for a couple of months after every 4 issues. Simply put, that time difference sets the wrong expectations or a sense of false hope that 22 colored pages that took about a month to publish will somehow be better than 19 manga pages that took a mere week to produce. While it's very unlikely to happen, Titan Comics needs to get its act together and take a page from the Kanokari publishing team, as they are somehow managing better in this pandemic. When it comes to the number and quality of issues that has been published over the past two years, this panel from Kanokari perfectly illustrates my feelings:

As a final blow to this latest arc, my brother took the initiative to write two brand new "Super Max" stories while waiting for classes to start during this pandemic. The first draft for his last story was finished on December 29, 2018. This time around, he managed to write two more stories, with a total of 240 pages that was completed on August 22, 2020. While I haven't finished yet the second story, the first story he wrote last year felt far superior to the Tracks arc's 88 pages of mostly filler. I'm proud to say that a high school student once again managed to deliver both quantity and quality with his own fanfic and outdo paid professionals.

So, should you get the Tracks arc? For anyone that didn't like the direction the comics has headed into, my answer is a resounding no. You can skip them, and you'll barely miss anything important. I can only recommend this in good faith to anyone still feeling good about all the previous chapters. Even then, I do not recommend anyone buying these new issues at full price.

As usual, not everyone was pleased with these new chapters. As indicated by the below quotes I found on the sub-Reddit from different fans:

I think they have some amazing emotional beats, but that ultimately the world-building additions and character choices of Issue #4 have damaged the entire product and it can't ever really get right again unless or until we have Max and her OG Chloe together again in the same universe.

I'm not a fan of OCs and the last 3 arcs have them in abundance, so while I've read them, I haven't enjoyed them. I don't really care about what is happening to Pixie and Tristan on an emotional level...

As a hardcore Baer and Pricefielder, I find them really bad. Many liked them tho. Maybe instead of buying them completely blind, try to get some info about the plot (and Rachel's character) first; you may avoid getting heavily disappointed. They are not canon btw, they're licensed fan fiction. Personally I suggest you to read LiS fan fictions on archiveofourown.org instead, lots of good stuff.

Page 29 of issue 2.4 says that the next issue is expected to arrive sometime in March 2021. However, the next issue's Comixology page claims that the release date is not March, but July 7, 2021. So what is it really? But a bigger concern for me is that this upcoming issue is currently priced at $5.99. 😲 👎 WHAT!!! Why???!!! Since the series began, a new issue costs $3.99 upon release. Now Comixology is claiming that the upcoming chapter is going to have a price hike of $2? Yes, while $2 isn't much in the grand scheme of things, it is excessive considering the quality we've gotten for the past 16 issues. 😡 Will the newest installment be twice the length of a normal chapter? Is this a "temporary" price tag until the final amount is set in stone? And why do I have a bad feeling that the wait and price tag won't be worth it in the end? I seriously hope that they stick to the March release date. That way I won't be as disappointed yet again.

The tedium I experienced while reading these latest issues feels like a straw that broke the camel's back. I won't be expecting that the author will turn things around substantially enough to win me over in future installments. I feel very confident that what we have right now is the best we'll get from this point onwards. I'd love to be proven wrong. I'll still be reading the next issues, but don't expect me to even recommend them halfheartedly if I see no significant improvement. I'll still keep my subscription, if only to make any negativity feel genuine as opposed to some freeloader hopping on the hate bandwagon. Someone has to keep this series in check, and no amount of Max and Chloe alone time can turn off my brain to any problems the comics will still have. Square Enix ought to take away exclusive rights from the Titan Publishing Group to publish Life is Strange material, and grant access to publishers in its native land. Given that Japan already has a niche market filled with established authors who have written far superior stories of "teenagers dealing with supernatural phenomenon", I'm surprised that this has not happened yet. The authors of works such as Erased, Kokoro Connect, and the oddly named Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai are creative talent I'd trust the franchise with instead of renewing ties with the comics' creative team. Hell, even throw in the writer of A Silent Voice while we're at it. If you love reading, those four titles are far better options than the comics to get your Life is Strange fix (assuming you don't want to read fan fiction for some reason).