- Maiden Voyage: this tells the story of a young Serra, joinging the crew of the Sheva-Nova. It’s a fun little story involving mermaids. It was fun to see that even then Serra was saved by “Jared” in the form of seagulls.

- Clothes Call: this is a short prequel to Tellos vol 1. We learn why Koj and Jarek are going to Jeffsport.

- Last Wishes: this is a prose story with illustrations by Ringo. I really liked this story, it takes place right after the end of vol 1, and it’s about Serra and Rikk’s relationship. DeZago manages to go deeper into this relationship, while also giving us some action and a mystery about Serra’s tatoo that she got in Tellos vol 1.

- The Last Heist: this short story is about Rikk’s heist of a mirror, which involves classic Tellos fun. But it also involves Tom and Brad during Tellos issue 7. At the end Rikk sends the mirror to Serra, so that she can finally see her tatto. This story crosses not only with Tellos #7 but also with another short story or two.

- 6 1/2: this is a short story about Koj looking for his lost people. Not much is revealed here.

- Night Flight: this tells the story of how Rikk and Hawke met Serra. As usual lots of fun action, but it was also very sweet seeing Hawke fall in love with Serra.

- Jealous Skies: this is probably my favorite short story. The origins of Hawke. This is one of the biggest mysteries left unsolved from Tellos vol 1, so it was very nice to finally read the answer. I loved that we are misdirected at first, thinking that ulf to be Hawke. Great story.

- Rites of Shadow: this expands on what Rikk saw in The Last Heist, and it’s a very important plot point. This is the birth of the new villain.

- Precious Cargo: Serra vs Dyn Jessa, lots of cool chicks fights, but what’s important is that Jessa sees the tatoo and leaves. We also learn a bit more about Jessa’s clan of assassins.

- Not So Happily Everafter: this is a prose story with illustrations by Craid Rousseau. It’s about how Rikk and Hawke met. A funny little story about theft.

- The Mage of Shades: another spin off from Last Heist, Tom goes to Malesur, but it discovered and imprisoned in an amulet.

- A Walk in the Woods: a wordless short story with the gang walking, Koj at the back is attacked by a group of evil-doers, but slays them all (very gory). Nobody even noticed it. Great art by Bruno Bessadi.

- The Legend of Oge K’Tion: this tells the story of the ancient city of Bely-Elem-Sol, city of superior warriors, where Oge became the last D’Jinn, the warrior of the Light. There were hints of this story in vol 1, but here are all the details.

- What Dreams May Come: and this is the beginning of the actual sequel to vol 1. For the first time we see Jared in the “real” world, doubting Tellos. I liked the fact that his father actually believed in Tellos and tells him to believe also. The end sees Jared go back to Tellos, which was supposed to continue in the next Tellos story with Ringo.

Overall these stories are entertaining, some of them would be good back-up stories. Only a few are essential reading, answering some mysteries, or keeping the overall story going. The art overall ranges from good to great, but it’s still not Ringo.

Story-wise I would love to read the further adventures of Jared and Koj vs the new villain. Not to mention the possible return of Hawke, or the mystery about Serra’s tatoo. However I don’t know if I want to read it without Ringo’s artwork.

Maybe a novel would be a compromise, they could put in sketches by Ringo. It worked fine for the 2 short stories. On the other hand Tellos is all about the fun action and designs of the places and characters.

I am very conflicted about this, but I don’t even know if Todd DeZago is thinking about continuing the story. I guess I am ok with whatever he decides.

The bulk of this magazine is a long interview with Ringo, conducted by his friend and collaborator Todd DeZago. The interview goes in chrnological order, first talking about Ringo’s childhood, through the beginning of his career up to his recent Spider-Man run.

They cover all his important runs on various series, and we get a clear understanding of how Ringo felt about each of those. There is obviously a big section on his work on Tellos, even going into details on the structure and creation of a few sample pages. These pages are included in the magazine, both pencils and inks versions.

And there are a ton of sketches, covers, images of anything Ringo has worked on. These should be enough to satisfy your curiousity about Mike’s art.

After reading this magazine, I am going to go back and read Mike’s important runs:

- Sensational Spider-Man, where he met DeZago. They had fun on that run, even though there were a few crossovers in the middle.
- Fantastic Four, written by Mark Waid. Probably his best work at Marvel/DC. I can see his style being suitable to the sci-fi part of that series.
- Spider-Man/Fantastic Four: his most recent published work. Jeff Parker seems good at writing fun entertaining stories.

I really like this series of Modern Masters, I am looking at getting other issues.

This collects the 10 issues of the Tellos ongoing, as well as all the short stories drawn by Mike Wieringo. Todd DeZago writes it all. He also wrote an afterword, which as he said is much better than an introduction, because he can talk about the story without worrying about spoiling it. There are also sketches and character designs, as well as all the covers.

The story is great. It’s a fantasy story starring Koj and Jarek, with lots of colorful characters/animals and many different cities, all with their unique look and feel. This is a great action/adventure story that has lots of humor and great characterization. But it also has many mysteries regarding the background of these characters.

The central mystery is of course about Jarek and the villain Maleseur. The mystery of what makes Jarek so important, the “chosen one” of the story, even though they don’t use that expression. The resolution to this mystery is what makes this story so powerful to me. I won’t spoil it here, but even I really liked it.

Even without that revelation, this is a fun action/adventure, with humor, drama, romance and tension. It is clear this was a labor of love, it came from the fertile imagination of DeZago and Wieringo and they created the best work of their career. Unfortunately they stopped the series even though there were many mysteries that weren’t revealed yet. They always planned to come back to it one day, sadly that won’t happen due to Ringo’s passing.

But this volume is perfectly self-contained, and it gives an excellent closure to the story. So much so that I always wondered if I would enjoy the eventual stories as much. As I said there are still a few minor unsolved mysteries, and there are so many good characters and places that they could tell a lot of stories. But the main mystery is already known, so that would probably take away from the overall feel of this universe. I am being cryptic to avoid spoilers.

The art by Ringo is simply stunning. I’ve always liked his art in Flash and Spider-Man, but he was born to draw this title. The character designs are incredible, he managed to make them feel real, even though many of them are human bodies with animal heads. And they created so many cool characters, many of them barely had a cameo.

The environments he created are just as fantastic. Each place is different from the other, but their structure makes sense (it makes sense that a floating city has water pipes to capture water and retain it underground), and it also helps with the action.

The storytelling has never been better. All the action is fun and it flows easily. Whether it’s jumping from rope to rope, flying, sliding down a water pipe, hand to hand fight, it all reads very well. When it comes to conveying emotions, Ringo also delivers. Especially towards the end, there are a lot of emotional scenes that don’t necessarily have much action, but I was gripped emotionally.

This is definitely one of my favorite comics of all time, and I can’t wait to read it to my kids when they grow up.