Happy Anniversary, My Love Review

Relationships can be fantastic or the worst experience of your life. Brao Barbosa decided to write about a complicated relationship in “Happy Anniversary, My Beloved,” a comic that needs to be dumped like an abusive boyfriend.

Benicio and Hortencia have known each other since childhood. Benicio had been enraptured by Hortencia since he was a kid, but Hortencia has other plans. In fact, her plans are dark in nature.

It’s not an engaging story in any way. The premise is interesting: a guy is trying to win a girl’s heart despite her being uninterested. This can be handled in a way that the guy can go all out nuts in order to win her over. He can even become the “bad boy.” However, the way the story plays out leads much to be desired. The characters are not that interesting and the events are about as ordinary as they come despite one plot thread. That plot thread, an affair with another man, has been done in every single romance story.

One of the biggest things bogging this comic down is how poorly edited it is. There are words that are either repeated or spelled incorrectly. This may not be a big deal if it’s just once or twice, but it’s every other page. Not to mention there are sentences that are worded so awkwardly that they barely make sense. This is all on the shoulders of the translator, Patrick Lima. Any type of work, be it a comic, novel or movie, can be excellent, but a terrible translation will hurt it.

One example of poor editing is “I found the defendant guilty” instead of the present tense “find.” Another example is “loose” instead of “lose”. These are little things but are huge deals since this is a widely published work.

The only thing the story has going for it is the ending. It is a great twist ending that will leave you with your jaw open. It shows that Barbosa can be creative and demented.

The artwork doesn’t help much. This is some of the worst art you’ll see in any comic. The art design is of a much lower quality than your typical high school newspaper comic, the characters are all blocky, the mouths look terrible and the backgrounds look lazy. The colors used, mostly red and blue, only accentuate how terrible the art is.

“Happy Anniversary, My Beloved” is a terrible comic about people and a relationship we don’t care about. The story is uninteresting, the characters are poorly thought out and the art will only cause your eyes to bleed. This is a great disappointment after the awesome “Jesus Rocks.”