Independent Opinions, News, and Reviews of Graphic Novels, Manga, and Comic Books
I’ve been a fan of Kris Dresen’s work for a long time now. It doesn’t look like anything else out there, and she was telling everyday stories about queer characters long before it was fashionable, or accepted, to do so. Now she’s put a whole graphic novel, She Said, online. It’s about the lifespan of a relationship, and it’s so very bittersweet, particularly if you don’t rush through it but give each panel space.
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We still aren’t ready to have in-person conventions, so as with many other shows, the Toronto Comics Art Festival (TCAF) will be held virtually again this year, from May 8-15, 2021. They are asking, this week, for programming ideas: While we work with authors and publishers to generate ideas for these programs, we’re also interested in suggestions from the larger comics industry and community. TCAF has multiple streams of programming, including: • Readings, panel discussions, interviews, and other presentations • […]
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Readers know I’m not a horror fan, but I’ve figured out how to get me interested in a story about a potential serial killer — tell it from a perspective of a cute dog. Stray Dogs #1, out February 24, is being described as Lady and the Tramp meets Silence of the Lambs. It’s the first of a five-issue miniseries written by Tony Fleecs and illustrated by Trish Forstner, both of whom have worked on My Little Pony. Sophie is […]
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Here’s a brilliant free read: How to Study Comics & Graphic Novels: A Graphic Introduction to Comics Studies by Enrique del Rey Cabero, Michael Goodrum, and José Morlesín Mellado, available online at Issuu (found via Ben Towle). It’s put out by the Oxford Comics Network, part of TORCH, The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities. And it’s wonderful, a comic that’s chock-full of information on how to read comics. It covers terminology (comic or graphic novel?), specialized terms (panel, gutter, […]
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In the new Mangasplaining podcast (updated weekly), some comic and manga heavyweights — Deb Aoki, David Brothers, and Christopher Butcher — try to convince Chip Zdarsky to read manga by talking about great titles. The first episode covers Akira volume 1. I’m eagerly waiting for the second episode, about Delicious in Dungeon.
Read moreThere are a number of reasons why posting around here is intermittent at best. The most recent, and most frustrating, is medical. I haven’t been able to accurately read on screen since fall of last year. I thought I was just overdue to get my glasses prescription adjusted, but after several exams and lenses, I am still seeing double and fuzziness when I try to focus on text. As someone who prides themselves on great proofreading, this is particularly annoying. […]
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In October 2017, Brian Fies (Eisner Award-winning artist of Mom’s Cancer) lost his home (one of over 6,000 destroyed) to a California wildfire. A Fire Story captures the events and their aftermath. This is my favorite kind of graphic novel. It gives the reader an empathetic understanding of an experience that they hopefully will never have to live through themselves, and it does a terrific job conveying the feelings and choices that go along with it. The book shares, directly […]
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Released almost a year ago, Bond Vs. Bond: The Many Faces of 007 is an updated reissue timed to tie into what was going to be the release of the 25th James Bond movie, No Time to Die. Obviously, what with the shutdown of movie theaters, that didn’t happen, but the book is still here. I was looking forward to it as a retrospective on one of the most famous characters in British popular culture. It is that, but it’s […]
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