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 […]

I adore First Second’s Science Comics line. Most all of them are terrific true-life graphic novels about interesting topics. Not only are they educational, they’re entertaining, and well worth reading. Now the publisher has expanded their non-fiction line with the new Maker Comics, which are similar, but focused on craft and skills instead of intellectual knowledge. The first two books are very different in topics, but both are equally informative and practical, covering things most people would benefit from learning. […]