Hi-Fi Fight Club is Lumberjanes meets Empire Records with a strong overlay of first girl crush and a sprinkling of Scooby-Doo. (The series was renamed Heavy Vinyl after the first issue and for the collection.) It’s 1998 New Jersey, and 16-year-old Chris has her first job at the record store Vinyl Mayhem. She’s uncertain and worried about what’s cool, but since everyone she works with falls in that category, she’s loving the situation. Maggie is cute and friendly; Dolores tough […]

When comic art works well, sometimes it becomes invisible, making it easy for readers to concentrate on the events of the story. When it doesn’t work, though, the comic falls flat, and readers may not even realize why. I liked the first Slam! series, written by Pamela Ribon and illustrated by Veronica Fish. It had character-driven action and an intriguing cast. Then the series was restarted with a new artist, Marina Julia. Unfortunately, as seen in Slam!: The Next Jam […]

In our world of prolonged adolescence, it’s refreshing to read a comic about people having to grow up. (I’ve said before that this is one of the many things I like about Giant Days, that it’s “exploring what it means to be an adult and take care of yourself”.) Previously, Susan, Esther, and Daisy set up housekeeping together, moving out of college dorms, but now it’s been a year, and in Giant Days #32 (written by John Allison; pencils and […]

Reviewing a good, consistently enjoyable continuing series is hard. There aren’t any creative changes to rave or rant about and no big events in which to hide word count as plot description. Nevertheless, Giant Days remains an immensely readable, goofily funny soap opera about three British college students and their struggles with everyday life. Some of the events are crazy, but under it all, as written by John Allison and illustrated by Max Sarin and Liz Fleming, there’s a good […]

Lumberjanes #41 takes a little bit of a departure. Much of the series has focused on the campers encountering various supernatural or fantasy creatures, but this issue starts out with science, as shown in these preview pages. It’s written by Shannon Watters & Kat Leyh and illustrated by Ayme Sotuyo. Jo is building a time sensor array. Plus, we get a little insight into what she’s found valuable about her summer with her friends — a way to rediscover the […]

Brave Chef Brianna highlights the struggles of a young woman to recognize her own skills in a fantasy setting. Brianna is the youngest daughter of a chef with an empire of cookbooks and TV shows. He knows his time is passing, so he sets up a competition among his children, to start a successful restaurant. Brianna can cook, but she suffers from some mix of depression and anxiety, an inner monologue symbolized by a floating dark shape that tells her […]

Although paperback collections of the entertaining Giant Days series have been coming out, Boom! has now released the series’ first hardcover, with a nifty extra. Giant Days: Not on the Test Edition collects the first eight issues written by John Allison. The bulk of the book (the first six) are illustrated by Lissa Treiman, with Max Sarin taking over after that. These issues introduce Daisy (naive), Esther (goth object of desire and center of drama), and Susan (relentlessly practical) in […]

I’ve come to realize that the appeal of Lumberjanes for me is rarely what happens in any given issue — and sometimes, as with the mermaids, I don’t care that much for a particular plot — but instead, the cute little moments that honestly bring a smile to my face are my favorite bits. Issue #39 is part three of a story written by Shannon Watters & Kat Leyh and illustrated by Ayme Sotuyo that began in issue #37, about […]