GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: Onion Skin by Edgar Camacho
Onion Skin by Edgar Camacho is a new graphic novel about a pair of plutonic business partners who decide to run a food truck and come perilously close to self-actualization along the way.
Read MoreREVIEW - Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes
By Bruno Savill De Jong — Over 30 years later, the events in Tiananmen Square still hold a powerful resonance. Those widespread protests seem particularly resonant given the current resurgence in support for Black Lives Matter. Even if Tiananmen Square’s demonstration are not exactly comparable, they still function as an important cautionary tale. Often the protests are only remembered for their tragic end, when the Chinese government violently dispersed the gatherings and continued to eradicate them from their official history. But in Tiananmen 1989, Lun Zhang, with assistance from journalist Adrien Gombeaud and artist Ameziane, provides a first-hand account of the inner-workings of the protests, detailing the political tensions within Beijing as youthful hopes for reform were dashed against the hardened and uncompromising state.
Read MoreA Radical Shift of Gravity - Graphic Novel Review
By Bruno Savill De Jong — As the first pages of IDW / Top Shelf’s graphic novel A Radical Shift of Gravity remind us, perspective is a funny thing. It begins with journalist Noah Hall interviewing people, finding how “where they were when ‘it’ happened” shapes their entire worldview afterwards. ‘It’ is an inexplicable selective “Shift” in human’s gravitational pull (other objects being unaffected), reducing it to roughly the same as the Moon.
Read MoreThe Lab by Allison Conway - GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW
By Ariel Baska — This is a harrowing and relentless debut from Allison Conway, and it follows a newly-minted big-headed biped on a twisted journey through a sinister lab. Notably, the narrative is completely silent of commentary, except for the pathos wrung from our protagonist’s small, pained eyes. Those eyes are the first lights we see in the cross-hatched gray and black nothingness from which the vision of the lab emerges.
Read MoreA Letter to Jo - GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW
By Bruno Savill De Jong — For many the past is another country, and war is a different world. WW2 is a thoroughly-documented period, but one fast fading from living memory, remaining unknowable to those not there. Joseph Sieracki adapts his grandfather Lenny’s real-life letter home from the frontlines in A Letter to Jo, a January graphic novel from IDW / Top Shelf. Sieracki does so to revive WW2 from being a historical artifact and illustrate his frontline experiences, becoming a bridge across time and continents. Lenny had only just graduated high school before he enlisted, as well as gotten engaged to Josephine, Sieracki’s grandmother and the letter’s recipient. Like these young men, A Letter to Jo is admirable but also premature, taking readers to the frontlines of warfare, but not crossing beyond them.
Read MoreRASCAL by Jean-Luc Deglin - TRADE RATING
By d. emerson eddy — Let's get one thing out of the way, I am thoroughly biased when it comes to approaching this review, because I love cats. I spent my early years growing up on a farm, so I love all animals, but I really love cats. At any given time there could be ten to twenty of them and I loved every single one of their mewling, furry little faces. I still love cats. And have one currently staring at me expectantly to mention her here. Or she wants food... Yeah, probably that latter. Anyway, I love cats. Which makes reading Rascal by Jean-Luc Deglin (translated by Edward Gauvin and lettered by Tom B. Long), a tale about a woman who receives a cat from her mother, an enjoyable and relatable undertaking. Published here by Top Shelf, Rascal is an English translation of the first book in Deglin's series Crapule, published in French by Dupuis.
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