Independent Opinions, News, and Reviews of Graphic Novels, Manga, and Comic Books
Bad Luck Chuck caught my attention due how interesting the premise was. It kept my attention by wrapping the concept in intriguing layers of story. It’s written by Lela Gwenn and illustrated by Matthew Dow Smith. Chuck Manchester has really bad luck. Like “the building burns down around her” bad luck. So she’s made a business, “Disaster on Demand”, out of it, hiring herself out as, for example, an untraceable arsonist. She’s just been hired to bring a daughter back […]
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Turns out a lot of people disagreed with me about the Captain Marvel movie — it was a blockbuster success! It made over a billion dollars in ticket sales! And it’s now available for home viewing. Captain Marvel launches today on your favorite digital platform, with the disc version coming on June 11 in either the 4K Cinematic Universe Edition (4K UHD, Blu-ray, and Digital Copy) or a Multi-Screen Edition (Blu-ray and Digital Copy). I’m looking forward to giving the […]
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Just saw an article about changes in the sales and marketing department for Humanoids, the publisher working on expanding beyond its traditional reprints of European sci-fi graphic novels. They’ve brought in an experienced person as new director of sales and marketing, but this is what struck me about her description: Ailen Lujo, former DC Comics executive director of book trade marketing… She began her career at Soho Press, and during her tenure at DC she was instrumental in launching its […]
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Melanie Gillman (As the Crow Flies, Stage Dreams) is currently publishing their experience at a wilderness artist residency in a series of diary pages at TCJ.com. Gillman is known for their colored pencil work, and the soft shades work well with the sparse desert landscape. The first page was May 20, and they will run for 10 days. You can follow new pages at the site’s author page. My favorite so far is the one with the dog:
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This happened a couple of months ago, but I just found out about it. I don’t know that it will have much practical effect, but there’s an historical component that made me nostalgic. F+W Media is a publisher of hobby and specialist magazines, books, and price guides, including Writer’s Digest, Goldmine, Antique Trader, Old Cars Weekly, Numismatic News, and Impact Books (which put out volumes on how to draw manga and comics, among others). (This field is known as “enthusiast […]
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The third in Terri Libenson’s series of connected middle school graphic novels, Just Jaime tackles the difficult question of how to react when “friends” decide they don’t want to hang around you any more. As with Invisible Emmie and Positively Izzy, the format is unique, with interspersed chapters alternating between the illustrated diary format and full-out comics. (The lead characters from the first two books also appear here, tying the three together into a richer picture of young teen life.) […]
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The eighth book in the imaginative series by Dana Simpson about a girl and her unicorn best friend is also the second original graphic novel (after Phoebe and Her Unicorn in the Magic Storm; the others reprint comic strips), making it a never-before-seen longer story. In Unicorn Theater, Phoebe is headed to drama camp. The unicorn Marigold accompanies her but is distracted by a visit from her sister, making Phoebe jealous and a little lonely. All of her other friends […]
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From 2006-2010, Nancy Springer wrote six YA mysteries about Enola Holmes, the younger sister of Sherlock. The Case of the Missing Marquess by Serena Blasco, from IDW’s EuroComics imprint, adapts the first. Enola has been living with her mother, Lady Eudora, in the country. On her 14th birthday, her mother disappears. Upon notifying her much older brothers Mycroft and Sherlock, who haven’t visited for ten years, she’s told she will be sent to boarding school to become a proper young […]
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