Independent Opinions, News, and Reviews of Graphic Novels, Manga, and Comic Books
If you’ve been attracted by this gorgeous cover, reminiscent of some of the great creators of indy comics such as Jaime Hernandez and Adrian Tomine, feel free to jump in — you don’t need to have read the first issue to appreciate this detailed exploration of the malaise of young urban life by Ethan Rilly. (Although if you have, you’ll be impressed by how much the artist has refined his style since then.) Francis is a legal assistant with insomnia […]
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Reviews by KC Carlson Following up the first half of the week… Batman #1 Upfront: Writer Scott Snyder is just coming off a fan-favorite run of Detective Comics. Penciller Greg Capullo has been drawing acclaim for his work at Image Comics — mostly on Spawn-related titles. And Bruce Wayne is Batman. Perhaps you heard about that. I knew I was going to love this new Batman run when I saw “the building that looked like Batman” in just panel two […]
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Be prepared. This manga by Takashi Murakami is not so much the “heartwarming” tale it’s been promoted as; the word I’d use is “heartbreaking”. It’s still worth reading, but I found it emotionally wringing, something I kept thinking about long after finishing the book. Stargazing Dog begins with a Titanic-style “everyone winds up dead” scene, as officers investigate an abandoned car with two dead bodies inside, a man and his dog. Yet it’s surprisingly tranquil, opening with gorgeously drawn dragonflies […]
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Renaud Dillies’ dreamlike meditation on creativity and finding value in life is not understood so much as succumbed to. Charlie the Mouse is a writer and guitarist, and as the book opens, he’s telling us how wonderful his solitary life is. It comes across as protesting too much, as though he’s trying to convince himself as well as us. His town is preparing for a Carnival, and that event draws him out of his garret to interact with a giraffe […]
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Reviews by KC Carlson Birds of Prey #1 Upfront: One of my favorite “modern” DC concepts, going way back to its Gorf/Chuck Dixon origins. Have mostly enjoyed every issue of of all the various BoP series. If you’re a Birds of Prey fan, run like the wind away from this. It’s Birds of Prey in name only. Although it promises four characters on the cover, only two appear inside — Black Canary and a character named Starling, who’s supposed to […]
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After enjoying Made for Each Other and being disappointed by Under His Spell, I had put off reading this entry in the My Boyfriend Is a Monster series because it was about vampires. After all, there have been SO many teen vampire romances lately, they’re their own trend. I shouldn’t have worried. My Boyfriend Bites is another enjoyable entry in the series, with its own twists and unusual takes on the genre. The main improvement is the heroine, Vanessa. Instead […]
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I enjoy Meredith Gran’s art style, with the big circle eyes reminiscent of Faith Erin Hicks or Bryan Lee O’Malley, but I wasn’t previously able to get into her webcomic Octopus Pie. I tried the first book, There Are No Stars in Brooklyn, but I had a hard time keeping all the cast members straight, and I found the subjects uninteresting. I had something of an antipathy towards apathetic Brooklyn hipsters and their druggie friends floating through life, although if […]
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Reviews by KC Carlson (with guest cameo by JDC!) Batman and Robin #1 Upfront (what you should know about my preconceptions about the comic): Not much changing here, no? Other than Bruce becoming Batman full-time again, I don’t think there’s much radically changing in the Bat-books, so there’s not much to talk about. I’m intrigued by writer Peter Tomasi making some tiny (but potentially huge, psychologically) changes to Batman’s way of thinking in regards to the death of his parents […]
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