Mariko Tamaki and Yoshi Yoshitani’s I Am Not Starfire is the sour-candy coated antidote to adolescent cynicism - that aggressively passive inclination to say ‘no’ to everything because they’re too uncomfortable.
Read MoreEveryone is Tulip – a new graphic novel by David Baker, Nicole Goux, and Ellie Hall – is a profound study of human identity in the age of social media pressure.
Read MoreJonna and the Unpossible Monsters by Chris and Laura Samnee is an exhilarating start to what I am anticipating to be a thrilling and exuberant ode to siblinghood.
Read MoreOnion 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 MoreChartwell Manor is a new powerful and disturbing graphic memoir from cartoonist Glenn Head, who shares the story of his time as a child at a boarding school run by a predator, as well as the impact of the resultant traumas.
Read MoreToday’s new graphic novel review looks at Heaven No Hell by Michael DeForge, a gorgeous 228-page hardcover book brimming with short-form works tackling questions around how it feels to exist.
Read MoreRogue Planet, which is due out in collected trade March 10, is a tune we've heard before, but it's one I have always enjoyed and It is made even better by its powerhouse art team.
Read MoreUniverse! Vol. 1 by Albert Monteys finds grounded humor in high-concept ideas, peppering each story with snarky comments and usually building to a delicious final-page punchline.
Read MoreAdventureman Vol. 1, The End And Everything After is a thrillingly pulpy epic with dazzling artwork and strong, inclusive storytelling.
Read MoreThe new graphic novel Bionic is a conventional tale of high-school romance that operates functionally enough, but desperately needed an upgrade.
Read MorePolitics and spectacle have always gone hand in hand, and never more so (or more entertainingly) as in Chuck Brown and Prenzy’s new trade collection, On The Stump, Vol. 1.
Read MoreCan’t sleep, clowns will eat me. Ariel Baska reviews Pirouette, the new trade collection from Black Mask Studios that has scary clown things at its center.
Read MoreBy Zack Quaintance — Blue in Green — a new graphic novel from writer Ram V., artist Anand RK, and letterer Aditya Bidikar — feels first and foremost like a comic for other people who make comics. By this I mean that from the first page it is an absolute tour de force in comics craft, a book in which it feels like each member of the amply-talented creative team is working to one-up each other. As someone who makes my own comics, I was blown away upon each page turn to see how the writing, artwork, and text would connect and cohere. It almost felt like my brain (and perception of what’s possible with the medium) was slowly expanding.
Read MoreBy Zack Quaintance — Publisher First Second has, to my mind, published the most interesting fantasy comics this year. First came The Golden Age by writer Roxanne Moreil and artist Cyril Pedrosa, an allegory that translated modern issues of class and income inequality (as well as gender dynamics) to a fantasy setting. Next was Kairos by Ulysse Malassagne, which subverted traditional damsel in the distress fairy tales in favor of a meditation on the spiderwebbing nature of violence. And now comes a third book that fits into the publisher’s fantasy subversion trend for the year — The Daughters of Ys by writer M.T. Anderson and artist Jo Rioux.
Read MoreBy Zack Quaintance — Two Dead is a recent crime noir graphic novel from writer Van Jensen and artist Nate Powell, set in Arkansas post WW II and based on an actual case that Jensen essentially uncovered and wrote about during his time as a crime reporter at a newspaper in Little Rock. Powell — a towering talent who has a stack of comics and literary accolades to his name — drew the book over a period of a few years while working concurrently on work such as Come Again and March, a three part graphic memoir about the life of the late Rep. John Lewis.
Read MoreBy Zack Quaintance — There is an uncanny sense of assuredness within cartoonist Katie Skelly’s new book Maids, a supreme narrative confidence that is present from the start, perhaps even from the dedication, which simply reads To My Sister. Maids — published this month by Fantagraphics Books — tells the true (crime) story of the Papin Sisters. I won’t go into much detail about who the sisters are or what they did, noting that they were French maids entangled in a crime in the early 20th Century. The events in this book will surely be unknown to most readers, although they are of wide enough interest to have garnered their own entry on Wikipedia.
Read MoreBy Zack Quaintance — Titan, a popular French-Canadian graphic novel by Quebeçois creator François Vigneault, is getting a U.S. release next month from Oni Press. The original book was first published in 2017, following five years of work on the project by Vigneault. With that in mind, it’s striking how timely the themes and ideas in the story feel today, especially as applied to the current tumultuous moment happening (seemingly in slow-motion) within the U.S.
Read MoreBy Keigen Rea — This a fun book about a couple of old ladies fighting monsters and making some friends along the way. For me, it isn’t much more than that, but it also does what it does really well, and again, is super fun.
Read MoreBy Zack Quaintance — The NBA Finals will in all likelihood conclude tomorrow, with The Los Angeles Lakers securing a championship at the end of what has been the longest season in the history of the association. It is, on account of this, a season that speaks to the long history of the league and of the game. It is unique in that outside factors made it a scheduling aberration, yet it is traditional in that the playoffs were played in full, and when the dust cleared, the best player in the world was standing atop the heap wearing one of the two winningest uniforms in the history of the NBA — the Lakers purple and gold.
Read MoreBy Ariel Baska — Hands up, who read all 448 pages of the Mueller Report when it was released last year? Those of you who did, you feel like re-reading it? No? Well, never fear. Regardless of your relationship to the original (and redacted) tome, this graphic novel is an invaluable resource for navigating this moment in our country’s history, while simultaneously providing an enlightening, gripping, and rather hilarious take that fills in missing pieces you never knew you needed.
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