One of the benefits of a digital-only publisher like Europe Comics (particularly one republishing works that already have a track record, but in English) is that they can experiment with a wider range of story types and subjects. Aude Picault’s Limited Edition has strong appeal to a market under-served by traditional American comics: the adult woman. It’s the story of Claire, an over-thirty French woman who wants to find the right guy and settle down to raise a family. Most […]

The best thing about Valentine, by Vanyda, is that it foregrounds the experience of a teenage girl as worth viewing. The worst thing about it is that absolutely nothing happens. There is no story here. Valentine is a teenager in school. She hangs with her friends and goes to a party where one of them gets sick. Her big accomplishment is walking by the house of the boy she crushes on. Just because something is realistic or true to life […]

I have just found a completely different type of comic, and it is just what I needed after wrapping up a busy week before a holiday. Ambient Comics by Nadine Redlich is a collection to induce meditation and quiet observation. Each page has six panels showing an object as time passes. For example, as shown here, the shadow of a stick moving through the day, or a banana aging. Some — such as the house on fire or the field […]

There’s a tendency, when working with a favorite property, to want to include all the well-known bits all at once. But in this case, the result is more like a checklist than a story. Many of the elements that fans know from the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle — a name that nowhere appears on this comic, by the way, although the incorrect line “Sherlock Holmes TM & © 2018 Dynamite Characters, LLC.” is in the indicia — […]

As part of a graphic series on self-care and mind/body understanding, Steve Haines (a chiropractor who teaches Trauma Releasing Exercises) writes and Sophie Standing illustrates Anxiety Is Really Strange. (They have also done Trauma Is Really Strange and Pain Is Really Strange, while Forgiveness Is Really Strange is written by Masi Noor and Marina Cantacuzino.) It wasn’t what I expected. It’s a 32-page comic on heavy paper that reads like an illustrated essay, with related quotes as footnotes on almost […]

Iron Circus’ newest book of erotica was a disappointment. I loved the idea of a varied bunch of fans hooking up at a convention — I was hoping it would be as fun as Dramacon, but with actual sex scenes — but I never got enough information about most of the cast to care about what they were or weren’t doing to each other. Niki Smith originally serialized the chapters that make up Crossplay online at a pay porn site, […]

If you’re interested in comics that show you what it might be like to live a different kind of life, you should check out Nico Harriman’s Diary of a Douchebag (available on ComiXology). It’s the story of a frat guy. Willie is the type of character that gets a lot of denigration lately, blamed for all kinds of regressive, abusive attitudes. And here, he deserves it, but by letting us see what happens to Willie in comparison to how he […]

Gothic Tales of Haunted Love is Hope Nicholson’s (The Secret Loves of Geek Girls) latest Kickstarted anthology, now available for order through your local comic shop. And it’s a great concept — inspired by the short-run early 70s comic genre of gothic romance, which featured spooky old houses, tragic young women in danger, and the potential of ghosts, a variety of creators have created new stories with today’s attitudes. There are 20 stories included, co-edited by S.M. Beiko, plus some […]