Independent Opinions, News, and Reviews of Graphic Novels, Manga, and Comic Books
In Superman vs. Meshi by Satoshi Miyagawa and Kai Kitago, Superman loves the food in Japanese chain restaurants. He uses his powers to jaunt around the world to get lunch and still get back to work at the Daily Planet an hour later. This is the kind of superhero comic I can get behind! I know the genre exists to fight battles for justice, but sometimes, I get tired of all that punching. If I was a superhero, this is […]
Read more
Murder on the Orient Express: The Graphic Novel is a faithful adaptation of the famous Agatha Christie novel, adapted and illustrated by Bob Al-Greene. With one odd exception: Hercule Poirot is completely bald, with an exaggerated mustache that continues into his sideburns. Regardless, it’s an entertaining way to re-experience the story at one’s own pace. The frequent use of full-page horizontal panels captures the claustrophobic feel of the train cars, even when they’re divided into panels to more easily guide […]
Read more
Thank goodness we still get book collections of webcomics, or I’d never have stumbled across this heart-warming and reassuring collection by Beth Evans. Some might quibble with the term comics as applied to this style, but simplicity can be deceptive. In Thinking of You (But Not Like In a Weird Creepy Way), each panel is a page, and each features the most minimal lump creatures (as seen on the cover). The insight is impressive, however. A simple illustration accompanied by […]
Read more
The Science Comics line continues with The Periodic Table of Elements: Understanding the Building Blocks of Everything, an introduction to the basics of chemistry by Jon Chad. Mel is anxious about her upcoming chemistry test on the elements, because pressure makes her nervous. She dreams herself into the Land of the Elements, where the elements take on the forms of various blobby creatures. Her help is needed to defeat the Elemancer, who wants to destroy the world, and — what […]
Read more
Two of the biggest trends in graphic novels over the past few years are graphic memoir (biographies and autobiographies in comic format) and non-fiction comics (particularly those about scientific topics or history). I love both, as I find them both educational and a terrific use of the combined textual/visual nature of comics. Nothing gives you a better way of sharing someone’s experience or understanding new material. I thought Washington’s Gay General, by Josh Trujillo and Levi Hastings, was going to […]
Read more
Deya Muniz’s The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich is a wonderfully silly romance with plenty of cheese puns. You probably already know from that description whether you’d like it or not, but let me elaborate. Count Camembert has a daughter, but she cannot inherit. So the two of them decide to have her become a man, since she doesn’t want to marry because she doesn’t like men that way. With the aid of beloved servant Feta, the young Count […]
Read more
I don’t really know how to sum up Young Agatha Christie. It’s got a number of interesting features, and together they make for an enjoyable read, but I would never have predicted all of them in the same graphic novel. It’s by William Augel, translated by Benjamin Croze, and published by Humanoids. Some of the full-page, nine-panel comic strips feature a morbid girl, as when she has one doll give another arsenic at a tea party. These have the humor […]
Read more
Andy Warner, the author of the entertaining popular history Brief Histories of Everyday Objects, returns with a similar, animal-focused book, Andy Warner’s Oddball Histories: Pests and Pets. Readers discover when and how certain animals were domesticated and some of the beliefs held about them. Some of the animals are eaten, some die in war, some are pampered, some are fads. He’s divided this collection of interesting facts and explanations into three categories: “Creatures We Find Cute” goes beyond dogs, cats, […]
Read more