After picking up issue one of the series at a comic con, I was extremely eager to read the entire series again.
NPC Tea is a superb comic collection. One of the things I like the most about it is how uniquely it tells the story and makes you care about the characters. Unlike some other fantasy stories, each character has a reason to act the way that they do, and they each have a voice that is unique to them, even the side characters. It's a wonderfully fleshed-out world of captivating characters and places that makes you really feel, at times, that you're part of their world and watching everything unfold.
One of the ways Sarah Millman does this is by changing the background colours. I’d never seen it done that way before, and it works beautifully here with the art on display. The changes denote the different places, points of view, and even emotions of the characters.
There are also some wonderfully heartfelt moments in the story that really stay with you after you’ve finished the story, and some very well-written LGBTQ representation as well, something that has been sorely missing from the fantasy genre, especially in the comic book world.
With its description being that it's a love letter to the Final Fantasy games and Lord of the Rings, it wears its influences on its sleeves, but in a way that really piques the reader's interest. It's not one of those overly long or overly self-indulgent fantasy stories. Instead, it really does read as a love letter to the genre and to the joy of going to a local teashop.
NPC TEA is one of those types of books that you can read again and again, noticing something new each and every time.
Now, as always, remember one thing for me. Just one.
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