Lorena Alvarez’s Nightlights was a gorgeous, unsettling story about art and nightmares. Now there’s been a sequel announced, Hicotea: A Nightlights Story. The young artist Sandy returns and On a school field trip to the river, Sandy wanders away from her classmates and discovers an empty turtle shell. Peeking through the dark hole, she suddenly finds herself within a magical realm. Filled with sculptures, paintings, and books, the turtle’s shell is a museum of the natural world. But one painting […]

Expanding from the comic series, collections, and prose books (and even a film in development — that would be a fun casting game), Boom! Box put out a Lumberjanes original graphic novel, The Infernal Compass, recently. Now they’ve announced a second, The Shape of Friendship, by the same creative team, writer Lilah Sturges and artist polterink (aka Claudia Rinofner). It is due in stores next November, but the first chapter will be printed as one of Boom!’s Free Comic Book […]

While the conventions will remain Wizard World (wherever), the parent “pop culture events company” has decided to rename itself Wizard Entertainment. CEO John D. Maatta said, “Wizard Entertainment is a name that more appropriately captures the breadth of initiatives we are planning as we head into 2019. In addition to our successful live events across North America, the name reflects our additional opportunities in other regions such as China, location-based entertainment initiatives, and participation in strategic M&A opportunities.” This doesn’t […]

Out now is the collection of the Doctor Who: The Seventh Doctor miniseries from Titan Comics. “Operation Volcano”, written by Andrew Cartmel and illustrated by Christopher Jones, collects the three previous issues. Optimistically, it’s subtitled Volume 1. I’d like it if there were more. As I said in my reviews of issue #1 and issue #3, this series did a lot of things right. The official description: An unknown alien intelligence in orbit around the Earth. Astronauts under attack. A […]

At the 2018 Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF), I had the pleasure of attending a panel on “How to Launch a Comic Book Club”. I am part of a comic club in Madison, Wisconsin, so I was curious to see how this was similar and different. Led by Philippe Leblanc, the panel was more of a discussion group, which I appreciated. It was informative hearing the questions others had as well as Leblanc’s suggestions. Unfortunately, co-moderator Helen Anderson, who hosts […]

This past summer, IDW started changing up its leadership team. The CEO and founder was replaced. The head of the entertainment arm left. Now comes news of more changes: President and Publisher Greg Goldstein is stepping down so that former Editor-in-Chief Chris Ryall can return to IDW Publishing as President, Publisher, and Chief Creative Officer. Ryall “will be charged with ongoing creative expansion efforts within the company, as well as continuing to work closely with partners and licensors.” The chairman […]

Copperhead was a space western series written by Jay Faerber, illustrated by Scott Godlewski, and published by Image Comics. It launched in fall 2014, and I kind of liked that its lead character was a woman sheriff new in town. I drifted away from the series, though, as it started wandering into political conspiracies, con artists on the run, and other elements I found overly familiar. There have been four collected editions so far, each reprinting four or five issues: […]

As with last year, I was honored to be one of the judges putting together the “Top 10 Graphic Novels 2018” list for School Library Journal (since I blog for their Good Comics for Kids site). Here is their list of this past year’s top ten (with links to my reviews where I’ve covered them — clearly I have some catching up to do!). Aquicorn Cove by Katie O’Neill Be Prepared by Vera Brosgol Check, Please!: #Hockey by Ngozi Ukazu […]