Independent Opinions, News, and Reviews of Graphic Novels, Manga, and Comic Books
It’s Hollywood in the early 1950s. Paige Turner is queen of the gossip heap, using her column to push her grudges. She’s aware of her power and wields it whenever possible, demanding the trappings of respect and declaring how people may and may not speak to her. She’s convinced beyond doubt of her own righteousness and takes people kowtowing to her as her due. She claims her bigoted pronouncements are all for her audience, who wish to know about indecency […]
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How’s this for a high concept? In Egg Story, an egg, determined to be more than breakfast, becomes a ninja. Feather and his sister Five-Spots learn early how short and harsh life can be. Mere minutes after they’re born, the farmer gathering them up throws their misshapen brother to the dog. At the supermarket, they discuss their fears. “What kind of a world are we living in?! Filled with murderers, kidnappers, thieves…” It’s easy to sympathize with the plucky young […]
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While on a three-month research and promotional tour of France and Morocco, Craig Thompson made sketches and kept notes of his adventures, now published as this travel diary. In Carnet de Voyage, his art is as lushly detailed as ever. Firm black lines with crayon or brush make up both full-page illustrations and more entertainingly cluttered pages, with thoughts and text and bits of pictures scattered over them. Always, though, the page works as a whole. Figure studies are sprinkled […]
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Vögelein is a clockwork fairy, built by a talented watchmaker centuries ago. When her latest Guardian passes away, she has to find someone to keep her wound up in order to keep her memories alive in Vogelein: Clockwork Faerie by Jane Irwin. Her antagonist/counterpart is a dark fairy, the Duskie, who’s been reshaped by technology into looking like he’s made of skeletal twigs and wire. He collects microchips and other modern mechanical detritus, causing havoc as he breaks the machines […]
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Bee, the heroine of Shutterbug Follies, is just out of high school. Until she has enough money to do something with more of a future, she’s working at a one-hour photo processor, where she’s developed a rather odd hobby — making her own copies of the weirder pictures people bring in. When a customer asks her to develop pictures showing dead bodies, she decides to follow him to find out the story behind the images. Her snooping puts her in […]
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In One Bad Day by Steve Rolston, Marie and her buddy Justin are hanging out, chatting and buying cigarettes, when she sees an old friend get hit by a van. This disturbing coincidence puts in motion a chain of events that will force her to commit acts previously unthinkable when she’s only trying to get to a cousin’s birthday party that she’s been guilt-tripped into attending. There’s also a bald hit man, his shallow girlfriend, a shady transaction, and several […]
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Although the release dates were a coincidence, Capote in Kansas is quite timely, with the Capote movie recently in theaters. However, given the intensity of the material, I find it preferable to read the story, with plenty of time for reflection on its insights. Author Ande Parks is best known for his comics inking, but based on the skill demonstrated here, I’d gladly read more written by him. Truman Capote went to Kansas to research a murder where two men […]
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The second book in Bryan Lee O’Malley’s series of graphic novels opens with a flashback to a 16-year-old Scott being dragged into forming a band by friend-against-his-will Lisa Miller. It feels similar to a Hopeless Savages story until one day, Scott arrives at school to find everyone beaten up and his geography partner kidnapped by boys from a rival school. He fights his way through to rescue her, and the two start dating. That video-game-style battle scene is typical of […]
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