An Enola Holmes Mystery: The Case of the Left-Handed Lady by Serena Blasco is the second graphic novel adaptation from the YA series by Nancy Springer, following The Case of the Missing Marquess. Unfortunately, the concept is not growing on me. The idea of a young, smart, adventuresome heroine is a great one, but using the Holmes name and characters without bothering to capture what made those stories so well-loved is frustrating. I’m reading this series because I’m a fan […]

From 2006-2010, Nancy Springer wrote six YA mysteries about Enola Holmes, the younger sister of Sherlock. The Case of the Missing Marquess by Serena Blasco, from IDW’s EuroComics imprint, adapts the first. Enola has been living with her mother, Lady Eudora, in the country. On her 14th birthday, her mother disappears. Upon notifying her much older brothers Mycroft and Sherlock, who haven’t visited for ten years, she’s told she will be sent to boarding school to become a proper young […]

I loved the concept of Tara O’Connor’s Roots, and I appreciate her flowing line and art style, but the result was disappointing, in large part because I disagreed with the result. Which is weird to say about an autobiographical story, but that’s my main feeling after reading it (several times, since it turned out I’d bought a previously self-published version of the same story at a convention several years ago). After an unhappy divorce, Tara is aimless and depressed. She […]

What a luscious cocktail of naughtiness! In the early 1980s, Trina Robbins adapted and serialized a terrible pulp novel from 1919 by Sax Rohmer (who created Fu Manchu, and whose ridiculous ideas about foreigners corrupting the English are similarly on display here). This collected edition of Sax Rohmer’s Dope is the first reprint of the work. It’s the story of a young actress who becomes addicted to drugs provided by a racist Asian caricature and his wife, Mrs. Sin, a […]

When Them Zahler announced his newest project, Time and Vine, I called it “drunk time travel” to be silly, but the series turned out to be much different than I expected. Zahler is best known for his creative takes on romance (superheroes in Love and Capes, travelers in Long Distance, cursed geeks in Warning Label), but this story tackles different kinds of caring. It’s a more adult piece, one that explores memory and how it affects mature love, the kind […]

The premise of James Albon’s Her Bark and Her Bite intrigued me. Painter Rebecca struggles to be discovered and have her work recognized, only to become Victor’s girlfriend and one of his hangers-on, seduced by going out and being popular. Then Victor transfers his affections to a new dog. Unfortunately, the execution was as superficial as the milieu it describes. Rebecca’s a dishrag and Victor a self-centered bore. All he does is drink and talk about ideas for creative projects […]

Today’s leading exhibit of “You can’t go home again” is Bloom County: Episode XI: A New Hope. The most interesting part of the book, to me, was Berkeley Breathed’s introduction, explaining why he started the strip again, but everything went down from there. I was excited when the comic returned two years ago, but reading them all together in this collection reveals too much reliance on nostalgia (a feeling of remember, you loved these characters) and redundancy (way too many […]