Alphabetical Index of NBM / Papercutz

Street View

Pascal Rabaté’s Street View is a fascinating art object, a creative take on storytelling that uses format to drive the reader’s attention. It’s an accordion book, a set of painted double-page spreads between two cardboard boards that can be read through one way, showing daytime scenes, and then flipped over to see the evenings. Each sheds new light on the others. Each image is a straight-on shot of four buildings. As in Hitchcock’s Rear Window, we watch the inhabitants across […]

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A Treasury of Victorian Murder Compendium II

If you haven’t had the pleasure of trying Rick Geary’s Treasury of Victorian Murder series, this new omnibus volume is a wonderful starting point. For those of us, like me, who have long recommended these explorations of sometimes-unsolved mysteries of long ago, the handsome hardcover is a delightful way to be reminded of author Rick Geary’s skill. This substantial volume contains five books’ worth of material: The Borden Tragedy, The Mystery of Mary Rogers, The Saga of the Bloody Benders, […]

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All Star by Jesse Lonergan

Carl Carter is a small-town baseball star in his senior year of high school in 1998. He’s about to get a scholarship for college ball. He knows how valuable he’s considered, and as a result, he treats those around him with disregard. He relies on his brother to do his work, ignores his father, and skates on schoolwork. His best friend Esden parties with him, but Esden doesn’t have the skills that excuse this frat-boy-like behavior. Then the two make […]

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Madison Square Tragedy: The Murder of Stanford White (A Treasury of XXth Century Murder)

Although Stanford White was murdered by a jealous husband over a hundred years ago (in 1906), the case Rick Geary portrays in his newest Treasury of XXth Century Murder, Madison Square Tragedy: The Murder of Stanford White, feels very modern. Rick Geary’s art is amazing in setting the stage in a booming New York City at the beginning of the 20th century, a growing metropolis struggling with conflicts among new money, established society, changing urban life, recent technologies, and burgeoning […]

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The Initiates

Although subtitled “A Comic Artist and a Wine Artisan Exchange Jobs”, I learned more about winemaking than comic creating in The Initiates. And that was great, because I already know about graphic novels, and the lessons imparted by Etienne Davodeau about the patience and craft need for fine wine were welcome and insightful. Author Davodeau proposed to Richard Leroy an exchange of knowledge. Davodeau will come work in Leroy’s vineyard, and Leroy will explain wine making and tasting to him. […]

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An Enchantment

The latest in the series of translated French graphic novels commissioned by and celebrating the Louvre Museum — previous volumes were Glacial Period, The Museum Vaults, On the Odd Hours, The Sky Over the Louvre, and Rohan at the Louvre — is the first that really resonated with me. In An Enchantment, Christian Durieux tells a classic story of a man and a woman, strangers to each other, and one magical night in the setting of the museum. The unnamed […]

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Lovers’ Lane: The Hall-Mills Mystery — A Treasury of XXth Century Murder

It’s always a morbid pleasure to read another Rick Geary tale of unsolved murder. His true-life story retellings are involving and frustrating — because even now, almost a hundred years later, we still don’t know exactly what happened and who to blame. Lovers’ Lane: The Hall-Mills Mystery is the perfect story for our uncertain times, one involving illicit romance, death, finger-pointing, sex leading to scandal, and no solid answers to stand on. We’ll never know the truth, and we have […]

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Geronimo Stilton Saves the Olympics

Your kids missing the Olympic Games? This new graphic novel hardcover, tenth (!) in the Papercutz series, may be just the thing to remind them of the enjoyment of the competition. Geronimo Stilton Saves the Olympics was my first exposure to the popular mouse character, translated from Italian. It’s a lot of fun, with Geronimo, as an investigative journalist, having all kinds of excuses to get involved in adventure. Here, it’s a journey to 1896 and the founding of the […]

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