Independent Opinions, News, and Reviews of Graphic Novels, Manga, and Comic Books
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The second volume of the manga adaptation of Rainbow Rowell’s novel Fangirl is out now. New this volume is a change to the credits. Still illustrated by Gabi Nam, the adaptation is now credited to both Sam Maggs and Rowell. (Maggs had solo credit for volume 1.) That may be related to the promotion that this book includes “all-new scenes by Rainbow Rowell.” I’m not sure which those are — I did a page-by-page comparison for the first book in […]
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It’s been forever since I’ve thought about John Kovalic’s Dork Tower. I read the comics in the early 2000s, when they were coming out as issues and collections, but it’s been more than 15 years since then. (I liked that they, for being a gamer comic, were still understandable to non-gamers. They were typical of the era, a bunch of guys with a token girl, but they talked about interpersonal interaction, not just collectibles, and they were likable enough. And […]
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The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a classic young adult novel, written over a hundred years ago. There’s something beautiful to the story about an orphan girl finding new family and friends through resurrecting a forgotten garden, but it’s also quite dated. (A bereaved child ignored? Someone sick and disabled simply being shut away? The foreboding housekeeper? Magical healing? The class issues?) Ivy Noelle Weir (Archival Quality) does a brilliant job adapting the familiar story into the modern […]
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I am thrilled to bring you the cover art for the upcoming Sherlock: A Scandal in Belgravia Part Two issue #2. (And how happy am I that Mycroft gets a cover!) The second issue of the four-issue miniseries from Titan Comics will go on sale September 14 at 48 pages for $4.99. Based on the script by Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss, the comic is illustrated by Jay, and the plot features Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) and John Watson (Martin […]
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What Unites Us: The Graphic Novel is an adaptation by Tim Foley of Dan Rather’s best-selling prose book (written with Elliot Kirschner). Since the appeal of the comic format was recognized by larger, more traditional publishers, resulting in the graphic novel boom, there have been any number of non-fiction comics released. Some of them focus on education to the exclusion of anything else. That makes for dry, unappealing works that don’t take full advantage of the medium, or worse, illustrated […]
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What Did You Eat Yesterday? volume 18 is another outstanding example of my favorite manga series. It’s the story of Shiro, a lawyer, and his partner Kenji, a hair stylist, and the meals they have together. But it’s about a lot more than that — Shiro and Kenji are now firmly middle-aged (over 50), and so they deal with conversations about inheritance after one of them passes, complicated by the differences in legal status of a gay couple (as marriage […]
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Volume 6 concludes the series Wotakoi: Love Is Hard for Otaku. And this final volume is everything a fan could want. It’s half the size, as the other English volumes each had two books’ worth of content, and this is just one. But there are color pages and an adorable flashback to the lead couple’s first meeting as school kids and character pinups and an afterword where the author, Fujita, has a few thoughts on the characters’ futures. I didn’t […]
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