All My Friends concludes Hope Larson’s Eagle Rock trilogy that began in All Summer Long and continued in All Together Now. Bina has formed a band with two new friends, and they’re about to play a show as an opening act. It leads to a big break, but the question of how to handle “being discovered” sensibly is a difficult one for a 14-year-old and her parents. Also, she and former best friend Austin are still figuring things out. As […]

Salt Magic is the kind of book that makes you glad to read comics. It blends fantasy and history and authentic characters and fairy tale happenings into a story of growing up and protecting those you love. Writer Hope Larson is no stranger to magical fables. I’m fond of what I think is her earliest published graphic novel, Salamander Dream, which had a dream-like quality to it. Her Mercury, a historical fantasy, is even more similar. Artist Rebecca Mock previously […]

This charming graphic novel aims to present “the original Sherlock Holmes story reimagined for a modern audience,” and it succeeds wonderfully. Mr Doyle’s Class Presents A Study in Scarlet is adapted by Matthew Hardy, illustrated by Russell Mark Olson, and published by the Portsmouth City Council, who also maintains the Richard Lancelyn Green collection. The goal is to introduce the novel, originally written in Portsmouth, to readers of all ages. A group of present-day schoolchildren are learning about A Study […]

I can’t claim to have read all the pandemic-era time capsule comics, but my favorite is Love and Capes in the Time of Covid, because I think, looking back, a sense of humor really helps. I’ve enjoyed the superhero rom-com approach of Love and Capes for a long time. This latest one-shot collects the webcomics Thom Zahler put out on Patreon. Having his superhero characters face the challenges of something you can’t punch into submission is an ideal choice for […]

The American comic industry has always had a space for small, independent publishers, and I’m glad, because it means you can sometimes stumble across something like this. Wife Gets Smart, Makes Husband Happy: Supermarket Comic Strip Ads of World War II, compiled by Nat Gertler and published by his About Comics, is odd but strangely readable. Oh, not all at once — the messages are simple and repetitive. Yet there’s a compelling charm to how some anonymous advertising writer managed […]

It’s been forever since I’ve thought about John Kovalic’s Dork Tower. I read the comics in the early 2000s, when they were coming out as issues and collections, but it’s been more than 15 years since then. (I liked that they, for being a gamer comic, were still understandable to non-gamers. They were typical of the era, a bunch of guys with a token girl, but they talked about interpersonal interaction, not just collectibles, and they were likable enough. And […]

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a classic young adult novel, written over a hundred years ago. There’s something beautiful to the story about an orphan girl finding new family and friends through resurrecting a forgotten garden, but it’s also quite dated. (A bereaved child ignored? Someone sick and disabled simply being shut away? The foreboding housekeeper? Magical healing? The class issues?) Ivy Noelle Weir (Archival Quality) does a brilliant job adapting the familiar story into the modern […]

Queer as All Get Out combines two popular comic genres — graphic memoir and non-fiction biography — in outstanding fashion. Author Shelby Criswell lives in Texas. They cope with “unwanted attention for being visibly queer” by reflecting on the lives of ten people whose stories reveal different aspects of queer experience. I could identify with their mixed feelings about liking where they live but being discouraged by Southern intolerance. Their story, and this graphic novel, is a welcome reminder that […]