With Revenge of the Librarians, Tom Gauld returns with another volume of witty, insightful cartoons about books, writers, and readers, following You’re All Just Jealous of My Jetpack and Baking With Kafka. The humor requires a certain level of literacy, but the feeling of “getting it” is addictive, reminding us of the joy of books. Gauld’s comic strips often make readers feel clever for getting the reference or feeling better informed after reading. There’s a wonderful, warm emotion of “oh! […]

The original, unabridged text of the founding document of the United States is presented in comic form, with each clause or section of the Constitution illustrated in a single-page panel. Author R. Sikoryak uses the original spelling and punctuation, so, for example, “choose” is “chuse”, reminding us that this is a historical document. End notes tell the reader which clauses have later been superseded. There’s also a list of when the amendments were proposed and ratified. Constitution Illustrated is educational […]

Following in the mold of her earlier The Mushroom Fan Club, Elise Gravel has created a wonderful book about her fascination with bugs in The Bug Club. The hardcover feels like a glimpse inside a personal scrapbook, as though a knowledgeable and devoted friend is sharing their interest with the reader. Gravel’s enthusiasm is contagious. It’s a quick read, but packed with content and well worth rereading. Tons of bug facts are accompanied by friendly, cartoony images. The story is […]

If I was to describe the concept of Rebecca and Lucie in the Case of the Missing Neighbor, I would say “what if a mommy blogger wrote Rear Window?” Rebecca is a new mother, about to end her maternity leave. She’s up late feeding baby Lucie when she sees someone loading something into a white van. Then she hears that one of the neighbors is missing. She decides to investigate and starts asking people questions about him and what happened, […]

The League of Super Feminists has an eye-catching title, but it’s really a scrapbook-style collection of pieces covering media literacy and political awareness. It covers the kind of topics more young people should be aware of, including sexist stereotypes in popular entertainment, the Bechdel Test, the lack of role models for female friendship, unequal emotional labor, the focus on appearance and sexual portrayals, gendered expectations of behavior, and an explanation of intersectionality. Written and drawn by Mirion Malle (translated by […]

Darryl Cunningham‘s latest is a well-done, depressing read. Billionaires: The Lives of the Rich and Powerful combines three brief biographies: the stories of Rupert Murdoch, the Koch Brothers, and Jeff Bezos, key players in our new gilded age. Cunningham wants to examine the changes the super-rich have made in our politics and our world, for the worse. Murdoch’s media empire started as an inheritance from a privileged background. He expanded from Australia into UK newspapers (made popular through “sex, scandal, […]

Guy Delisle is best known for two kinds of comics: travelogues, where he works (often in animation) in a lesser-known country, such as Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea, and parenting comedy. Factory Summers, which is due out in mid-June, is a surprising change of pace. It’s a memoir, a story of three summers of manual labor in a paper mill, before he gets his first animation job. He’s a teenager, and he draws, in straightforward, simplified fashion, the various […]

Department of Mind-Blowing Theories is the latest collection of Tom Gauld’s cartoons. I’ve loved his literary-themed comics, because they’re funny and smart. (Drawn & Quarterly has put out two previous collections, You’re All Just Jealous of My Jetpack and Baking With Kafka.) There are plenty of cartoons out there about family life, for instance, but Gauld really emphasizes the life of the mind, whether it’s writers and their solitary pursuits or gags that require knowledge of literature (or at least […]