May 25, 2020 Johanna DC / Vertigo Leave a comment

DC Super Hero Girls: Search for Atlantis

DC Super Hero Girls: Search for Atlantis is the last of the graphic novel line by the original pair of creators, writer Shea Fontana and artist Yancey Labat. It’s also the first tie-in release, as the first few pages, introducing Mera to the school for superhero students, reference the animated movie DC Super Hero Girls: Legends of Atlantis. (In short, Mera was a bad guy, manipulated by her sister Siren so she can obtain the magical Book of Legends.) In […]

May 24, 2020 Johanna Drawn & Quarterly Leave a comment

Baking With Kafka

Tom Gauld’s second book of collected cartoons, after You’re All Just Jealous of My Jetpack, is Baking With Kafka. As with the previous volume, these comics are funny, all the more so for tackling literary and cultural topics. There are plenty of daily life strips out there, where the humor comes from a shared recognition of everyday behavior, but sometimes they feel a little easy. Gauld’s work aims in a different direction. I love it in part because it entertains […]

March 8, 2020 Johanna Action Lab Leave a comment

The World’s Strongest

The World’s Strongest debuts on Wednesday as one of Action Lab’s “digital-first” (which may or may not mean it ever comes to print) titles. It’s $3 for 24 pages, which makes it a short read, but it touches on some insightful points. It also widens the superhero genre from its traditional focus, both in its black female hero and in the concerns it addresses. It’s written by Juan Ponce with art by Matthew Gallman, colors by Jon Yuen, and the […]

February 27, 2020 Johanna First Second 2 comments

Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Lucy Knisley with a baby carriage. Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos captures the graphic memoirist’s experiences with pregnancy and childbirth — which went about as not smoothly as you could fear, since she almost died during the process. From reading her previous autobiographical graphic novels, I knew she’d dreamed about having children for a long time. As she says in her illustrated introduction, the book covers two years of “what […]

February 25, 2020 Johanna First Second One comment

Pumpkinheads

Author Rainbow Rowell (Fangirl) and artist Faith Erin Hicks (The Nameless City, Friends With Boys) team up for a lovely seasonal story about friendship and crushes and moving on to a new stage of life in Pumpkinheads. Josiah and Deja are working their last night at the Pumpkin Patch (which is more like a minor amusement park, with food booths and attractions and a giant corn maze). It’s Halloween, after which the patch shuts down, and they’re getting ready to […]

February 17, 2020 Johanna Other Publishers Leave a comment

Breaks

Emma Vieceli writes (with co-writer Malin Ryden) and draws the webcomic Breaks, which can be described as “what if Archie and Jughead starred in a boys’ love manga?” It’s been running for four and a half years and is still going, updating weekly. The first storyline has been collected by Soaring Penguin Press, which is how I was introduced to the series. I was glad to meet these characters, but I found the book not quite as satisfying as I […]

February 17, 2020 Johanna Graphic Universe Leave a comment

Stage Dreams

We’re living in a bonanza period for graphic novels — there are comics for everyone, including those who might be interested in, in this case, a young adult Western with queer and trans characters. Stage Dreams is an historical adventure in which Flor, a legendary outlaw with a trained hawk, robs a stagecoach and kidnaps Grace, a trans lady running away from having to become a Confederate soldier in the Civil War. Grace wants to make it from Georgia to […]

February 16, 2020 Johanna Titan Comics Leave a comment

Adler #1

Although I wanted to give Adler #1 a fair shot, the reliance on cliche and overly familiar elements made it just another forgettable action thriller. It’s written by Lavie Tidhar and illustrated by Paul McCaffrey, and I previously posted some preview pages and covers. I liked the idea of teaming up a bunch of women who transcend the expectations of their era, but I object to most of this first issue actually being about Jane Eyre, who’s pulled from watching […]

1 2 3 … 145 »