Independent Opinions, News, and Reviews of Graphic Novels, Manga, and Comic Books
Scarlett Johansson guest-starred on Saturday Night Live last night, so the show created a fake trailer for the Black Widow movie fans are asking for. Only, in a case of “be careful what you wish for” and an example of how women are often treated in Hollywood, it’s a romantic comedy with every possible cliche.
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Noelle Stevenson’s Nimona debuted as a webcomic before being reworked into a graphic novel. I find that it reads better — or maybe I’m better able to keep up with it — as a collection. Pages have been revised and a new epilogue added for this edition. Although it’s set among knights and battles, it’s a very modern-feeling story, because Nimona is a very young and current character. She’s a shape-changing teenager with all the attitude and lack of respect […]
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Kate Beaton, acclaimed cartoonist who portrays history and literature with welcome sarcasm and lack of pretension, has two new books coming this fall. Step Aside, Pops from Drawn & Quarterly is a followup to Hark! A Vagrant, with similar strips and topics. It’s due in September. You can get a sampling in the Drawn & Quarterly Free Comic Book Day 2015 book, with a neat range of subjects. The Princess and the Pony is more of a departure. Beaton puts […]
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Justice League: Gods & Monsters, based on the sneak peek, sounds like a refreshing take on the DCU original animated movies in that it’s a new concept by Bruce Timm. Unfortunately, it’s also promised to be incredibly violent, and it has a vampire Batman, so it could be a mixed bag. Still, new (instead of adapting an existing comic) will be appreciated. Here’s the trailer for the movie, coming out July 28: It’s described as follows: Witness a divergent reality […]
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Batman vs. Robin is a sequel of sorts to Son of Batman, in that Damian is struggling with what it means to be Batman’s son. Only there’s also the Court of Owls interfering, as Talon offers Robin a chance to be his heir as part of a devious scheme, as described in the movie plot description. Damian is torn between his training by Ra’s al Ghul to be ruthless and his sometimes harsh treatment by his father for his own […]
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I liked Princess Decomposia and Count Spatula so much that I was thrilled to discover that there were more comics about them! First, there will be a short story in Defend Comics, a Free Comic Book Day giveaway benefiting the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. This year, that day is Saturday, May 2. Next, there’s the blog tour Andi Watson participated in recently. At several of the sites, he contributed illustrated fantasy recipes, such as these: underworld dirt pie rock […]
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Out this week is a reissue of The Baby-Sitters Club: Kristy’s Great Idea, this time in full color. If you’re wondering why, a key clue is the top line of the book’s cover: “A graphic novel from the bestselling author of Smile, Raina Telgemeier”. The author of the original story, Ann M. Martin, has swapped places with her. Before, the idea was to move a beloved series of children’s novels to a new format; now, Raina is the hottest thing […]
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Julia Wertz’s Drinking at the Movies revitalized the graphic memoir genre for me when it came out in 2010 from Three Rivers Press, a paperback imprint of Random House. However, it’s now out of print from them, to be republished by Koyama Press, who put out Wertz’s followup, The Infinite Wait and Other Stories. The new edition of Drinking at the Movies will be out in November for $15. They’re promising “brand new material from Wertz” and, as you can […]
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