First Second’s Science Comics line combines the best of everything: fascinating stories, entertaining education, and talented creators who know how to make good comics. Flying Machines: How the Wright Brothers Soared is no exception. (Previous titles include Bats, Volcanoes, Dinosaurs, and my personal favorite, Coral Reefs.) Alison Wilgus wrote and Molly Brooks illustrated this brief history of powered flight by heavier-than-air constructions. I was charmed from the beginning, with the choice to have the story narrated by Katharine Wright, sister […]

The next Science Comics release (after volumes educating us about Coral Reefs, Dinosaurs, and Volcanoes) tackles those misunderstood mammals, Bats, as written and illustrated by Falynn Koch. There’s not much story in this volume, to make more space for a thorough visual overview of all kinds of bats and their methods of nutrition. The loose framing structure features a Little Brown Bat who’s injured by humans during a night wildlife hike. He’s taken to an animal hospital with a vet […]

First Second launched its Science Comics line this past spring with Dinosaurs: Fossils and Feathers and the excellent Coral Reefs: Cities of the Ocean. Now comes a new installment, Jon Chad’s Volcanoes: Fire and Life, and it’s fun and exciting, using a science fiction story to convey its lessons. Aurora lives in the future, on an Earth where the surface has completely frozen. She’s part of a learning group trying to find sources of fuel among the abandoned houses and […]

After enjoying Science Comics: Coral Reefs, I had high hopes for the second launch volume, Science Comics: Dinosaurs: Fossils and Feathers. Writer MK Reed and artist Joe Flood previously worked together on The Cute Girl Network, and here, they present not so much an explanation of dinosaurs but the history of paleontology. Unfortunately, I already read that comic (Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards, which is cited in the bibliography). I misunderstood what this comic would be, and as a […]

Science Comics: Coral Reefs: Cities of the Ocean is one of two debut books in a new non-fiction graphic novel line from First Second, and it’s wonderful. Just as she did in Human Body Theater, Maris Wicks takes a complex scientific subject and makes it both understandable and beautiful. Our narrator is an adorable cartoon of a glasses-wearing fish who wants to show us its home in the coral reef. Five chapters cover what coral is, the different types, how […]

There is a ton of material packed into the 128 pages of History Comics: The National Parks: Preserving America’s Wild Places, with new information on almost every page. A Sasquatch introduces us to how national parks can include scenic vistas, natural wildernesses, and historic sites, answering an eagle’s questions about who creates parks and why there are so many different kinds. Along this journey, the reader visits the first parks, Yosemite and Yellowstone, and meets a wide variety of historical […]