Independent Opinions, News, and Reviews of Graphic Novels, Manga, and Comic Books
Caprice Crane has written several light novels for women (a genre often dismissively called “chick lit”), including Forget About It and Family Affair. I tried a couple of her previous books, and although the premises were intriguing, I didn’t care enough about the characters or what happened to finish any of them. Confessions of a Hater was different. It’s a Young Adult book, to start, with the classic plot of “geek girl finds way to be popular at a new […]
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I’ve always found stories of media censorship and attempted restraint interesting, because what offends people can be so arbitrary (and sometimes silly). This “oral history of taboo-breaking TV comedy” (as the subtitle has it) by Allan Neuwirth presents a collection of concerns over some of the best TV shows of all time, as told by the creators and executives involved. The opening chapter of They’ll Never Put That on the Air serves as a brief history of the sitcom, including […]
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Marvel has announced that Hyperion Books, another Disney division, will be publishing two prose novels focused on “strong, smart heroines seeking happiness and love while battling cosmic evil.” The She-Hulk Diaries is clearly taking a “Sex in the City” approach, described as follows: Jennifer Walters, aka She-Hulk, juggles climbing the corporate ladder by day and battling villains and saving the world by night — all while trying to navigate the dating world to find a Mr. Right who might not […]
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Techdirt sums up a recent request for courts to declare that Sherlock Holmes is now public domain. Of course, the estate of writer Arthur Conan Doyle wants to claim otherwise, because they’re still making licensing fees from the character. And that’s what drives restrictive intellectual property — there’s nothing easier than letting money roll in from other people’s creativity, over 120 years since the character was first created. What drove this particular challenge was an upcoming book by Leslie S. […]
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Review by KC Carlson I now hold in my hands an actual copy of the first in the series of American Comic Book Chronicles: 1960-1964. I first read and reviewed this book (based on a digital preview copy) way back last August, over at the Westfield blog, and have been waiting patiently while the real thing was obviously on the slowest boat from China ever. It will finally be in comic shops this week, as well as other fine booksellers, […]
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Catchy subtitle, isn’t it? Unfortunately, the book doesn’t quite live up to two-thirds of it. It’s a great picture of the life Ruth Krauss (noted children’s book author) and Crockett Johnson (Harold and the Purple Crayon, Barnaby) had together, but the FBI bit turns out to be some files due to the couple’s politics, and the last part isn’t explained fully enough for someone not already familiar with the field. However, as the first biography of either of them, it’s […]
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Four years ago, the talented Jessica Abel and Matt Madden brought us an essential book on how to make comics: Drawing Words & Writing Pictures. Mastering Comics continues where that book left off, providing, as they term it, “a definitive course in comics narrative”. This is a topic I’m thrilled to see getting more attention, since the best-looking comics still need to have something to say. The book consists of four substantial sections: Building Stories — tools to generate ideas […]
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Fantagraphics sent out its catalog for next year, and among all the wonderful books of classic reprints and alternative cartoonists, I discovered a new prose work I’m going to be very curious to see. Trina Robbins is writing Pretty in Ink: American Women Cartoonists 1896-2013, billed as “her ultimate book, a revised, updated and rewritten history of women cartoonists, with more color illustrations than ever before, and with some startling new discoveries”. Among which is finding out that someone Robbins […]
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