Independent Opinions, News, and Reviews of Graphic Novels, Manga, and Comic Books
I appreciate how much work goes into a well-crafted graphic novel, but darn! It’s so hard to wait for a good story. Bloom, a charming coming-of-age romance by Kevin Panetta and Savanna Ganucheau published by First Second in 2019, will have a followup. This story of two young men falling in love at a family bakery while thinking about how to start their “real life” is a slow rise, much like bread. It took a while to grow on me, […]
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Here’s a great thing to watch. Leila del Duca talked with Anina Bennett and Heidi MacDonald in March about Friends of Lulu, the non-profit formed to get women and girls into comics that existed from 1995-2011. The group was incorporated May 25, 1995, and its tax-exempt status was revoked as of May 15, 2010. The news that the group was defunct came out a year later. If you’d like to revisit the early days, I’ve posted the first year of […]
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I’ve been looking forward to this installment of Maker Comics — I’m really curious about learning how to Survive in the Outdoors. As told by Mike Lawrence, Sophia and her younger brother Alonso are spending the weekend with Grandpa, who’s going to take them fishing. They just want to stay on their phones and video games, but he manages to involve them in preparing for their trip. There’s an air of danger to all this. Typical of the series, the […]
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Darryl Cunningham‘s latest is a well-done, depressing read. Billionaires: The Lives of the Rich and Powerful combines three brief biographies: the stories of Rupert Murdoch, the Koch Brothers, and Jeff Bezos, key players in our new gilded age. Cunningham wants to examine the changes the super-rich have made in our politics and our world, for the worse. Murdoch’s media empire started as an inheritance from a privileged background. He expanded from Australia into UK newspapers (made popular through “sex, scandal, […]
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The Secret Notebook of Sherlock Holmes is short, silly fun. It’s got almost 30 stories in about 90 pages, and as you can see from the math, most are only two or three pages. Some involve Holmes being surprised or not exactly distinguishing himself in deduction, but the jokes around settings and details of life in his times are amusing. Guest stars include Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, and Irene Norton. Holmes solves mysteries involving the queen’s dogs, a missing ambassador, […]
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Lincoln Peirce, the author of Big Nate, takes us to a fantasy land in a sword-and-sorcery tale with kid protagonists, told in the popular mixed-media format of short text sections interspersed with comics, in Max & the Midknights. Max is voyaging with Uncle Budrick, a struggling troubadour. As an apprentice, Max is supposed to become a traveling entertainer, just because of family expectations. However, Max is more practical, smarter, courageous, and very competent, which makes her (yes, her) the perfect […]
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After I wrote about Cutaway Comics last year, they got in touch to see if I wanted to check out their comics. Of course, I said yes, so they sent some digital copies to review. As I mentioned previously, Lytton was a mercenary who appeared in the 5th Doctor story “Resurrection of the Daleks” (Tegan’s last episode) and the 6th Doctor story “Attack of the Cybermen”. Lytton #1 (written by former Doctor Who script editor Eric Saward, art by Barry […]
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I’ve greatly enjoyed reading A Curious Collection of Dates: Through the Year With Sherlock Holmes, one day at a time. It’s an almanac, where every day of the year has one or more entries related to Sherlock Holmes. Some are capsule biographies of people who’ve played Holmes, or John Watson, or a Moriarty, noted on their birthdays. Or those who were significant to the publishing of the Canon. Some are dates from the Arthur Conan Doyle stories when cases began […]
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