Mae, Vol. 1

When Abbie Fortell was a young girl, she discovered a gateway to a another world populated by anthropomorphic animals, monsters, and other fantastic elements, and abandoned her earthly family in favor of swashbuckling adventure as the hero Ahni. Her younger sister, Mae, has been unaware of Abbie’s fate, but when Abbie turns 21 and returns home, followed by creatures from the other world, Mae is dragged into the fantastical conflict herself, and gets to experience what her older sister already went through. The strength of this story is Ha’s (Top Ten) always inventive artwork, though this time much of the heavy lifting is left to the colorists, whose tones fill in many of the details. The story itself is a fairly conventional portal fantasy, but future volumes should expand on the world. (Feb.)