REVIEW: Constantly by gg - (Koyama Press)

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By Kirin Xin — With a beautiful history of comics released by Koyama Press and Kuš!, gg is a powerhouse known to many a fan of visual storytelling. Debuted officially in 2017, her work presents itself as an artistic delicacy. Soft pinks and greys reminiscent of 1940s French illustrations pool against refreshing whites and crisp lines of black and navy. This simple palette effectively pulls viewers from peaceful mediums to cloistering lows with striking aesthetic contrast.

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TETRIS: THE GAMES PEOPLE PLAY - Review

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By Bruno Savill De Jong — William Blake once wrote of seeing the world in a grain of sand. It is unlikely he was referring to the video game Tetris, but Box Brown’s documentary-comic Tetris: The Games People Play capitalizes on his principle, building outwards from the simple puzzle game to detail its complex history, touching upon developing technology, international relations, and the nature of gaming itself. Everyone recognizes Tetris, but Brown’s book excavates the various threads contained beneath those colorful tetromino tiles.

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Bleed Them Dry #1 - Vault Comics REVIEW

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By Jarred A. Luján — Cyberpunk vampire ninjas is one hell of an elevator pitch, and it’s also the best way to describe Bleed Them Dry, the new book from Vault Comics, due out at the end of this month. Created by Hiroshi Koizumi, written by Eliot Rahal, drawn by Dike Ruan, and colored by Miquel Muerto, the series is set in the year 3333, in a world where vampires and humans have co-existed for centuries. Unfortunately, someone begins killing off the Immortals and a police detective is caught in the middle of the conspiracy.

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Kill a Man Graphic Novel - TRADE RATING REVIEW

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By Zack Quaintance — Kill a Man is an original graphic novel coming this year from AfterShock Comics, which has done a really underrated job of releasing complete comics stories like this one since its launch a few years back. Indeed, AfterShock has perhaps been at its best when releasing graphic novels and novellas, be it the excellent Garth Ennis/Keith Burns air warfare story Out of the Blue or the very scary and personal The Replacer by Zac Thompson and Arjuna Susini. They don’t seem to get much credit for it, but AfterShock has done a great job with these contained books.

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Kairos by Ulysse Malassagne - TRADE RATING

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By Zack Quaintance — Kairos by Ulysse Malassagne just got a new North American release and translation courtesy of publisher First Second. The book — which hit our stores this year in a pretty little hardcover that’s smaller than most novels — was first released in Malassagne’s native France as a three-part series. It is, essentially, a subversion of the damsel in distress narrative that has long been so pervasive in fantasy stories.

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Adventureman #1 by Fraction and Dodson — REVIEW

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By Zack Quaintance — There’s a lot going on in Adventureman #1. First, the book is heavy. Literally. Written by Matt Fraction (Hawkeye, Casanova, Sex Criminals) and illustrated by Terry and Rachel Dodson (X-Men / Fantastic Four), Adventureman #1 clocks in at 56 pages (an absurd bargain given the price tag is the usual $3.99). It’s nearly triple the length of a standard issue. I suspect there is significant utility in making the first issue that length, stemming from this debut reading like two distinct comics.

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Write It In Blood #1 - #4 Comic Review

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By Zack Quaintance — Write It In Blood is a four-issue miniseries released entirely online in April and May, during a time when new physical comics releases were mostly stalled out. From the creative team of writer Rory McConville, artist Joe Palmer, colorist Chris O’Halloran (Ice Cream Man!), and letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, the book was available via Gumroad, at a price point of $2 minimum, with the option to pay more. The first issue hit in late April, and the finale is available now.

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Sweet Heart by Gilbertson, Iaquinta - REVIEW

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By Zack Quaintance — If I can recall correctly (always a big if), I read the first issue of Sweet Heart more than a year ago, before this horror series from writer Dillon Gilbertson and artist Francesco Iaquinta was picked up by publisher Action Lab. At that time, I was right away struck by how this was a well-crafted horror comic, but more than that, it was a well-crafted horror comic that engaged in quite a bit of mythos and world-building.

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Corto Maltese: The Ballad of the Salty Sea - REVIEW

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By Zack Quaintance — I am, I must admit, somewhat of a neophyte when it comes to European comics. This is not deliberate, to be sure, and I’ve certainly enjoyed the few experiences I’ve had with European comics, specifically thinking here of The Incal by Jodorowsky and Moebius. But I do have to note that those experiences have been too few.

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DEAD DAY #1 by Parrott, Bornyakov - REVIEW

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By Jarred A. Luján — Dead Day is a zombie comic from Aftershock Comics, written by Ryan Parrot and drawn by Evgeniy Bornyakov. Zombie media is hard because the bar is always high. Zombie stories are so popular and so in the cultural zeitgeist that it is an increased challenge to do something fresh and new with them. Often times, zombie film/comics/games are just the same tired tropes resurrected (ha!) and rehashed.

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Disaster INC #1 by Joe Harris, Sebastian Piriz - REVIEW

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By Jarred A. Luján — New comics are finally coming back, maybe, I don’t know…does anyone know? Or are we all just latched onto whatever semblance of normalcy we can reach for in the hope in order to ignore the massive and constantly-frightening turn our lives have taken? Maybe! It’s a disaster!

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Lost Carnival: Dick Grayson Graphic Novel - REVIEW

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By Zack Quaintance — Like a high-wire performer navigating the tightrope in the circus, The Lost Carnival: A Dick Grayson Graphic Novel pulls off a delicate balancing act that thrills along the way and maneuvers deftly to its destination. For the uninitiated, Lost Carnival is the newest offering within DC Comics’ burgeoning line of comic stories for young readers. Like the rest of the line — the highlights of which include Under the Moon: A Catwoman Tale, Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass, and Teen Titans: Raven — the book takes a familiar DC Comics character, repurposing them for a new generation with a new modern OGN aesthetic.

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Year of the Rabbit by Tian Veasna - REVIEW

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By Zack Quaintance — Year of the Rabbit is a new graphic novel from writer/artist Tian Veasna, based on a harrowing true story he lived through as a child. That story is his family’s struggle to survive/flee the reign of the violent Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, following that group’s seizure of power in 1975. What emerges is a memoir comic of sorts that does not quite feel like a memoir comic. Instead it reads as a tense and harrowing story of escape, dotted with devastating-yet-important notes from a history largely unknown to many in the United States.

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J + K by John Pham - Trade Rating

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By Zack Quaintance — The first quality one is likely to notice within the new Fantagraphics book J + K by John Pham is the work’s striking aesthetic. Printed in three fluorescent pantone inks, J + K achieves a singular palette that is at once washed out and pastel-futurist. This pairs quite well with Pham’s linework, which itself walks a rarely-seen line between simple character cartooning and casual geometric patterning, evocative of an artful extrapolation of a classic video game. I’m entirely unsure whether I’ve ever seen a book quite like J + K, purely on the surface visual level.

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Batman Universe Hardcover - TRADE RATING

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By Zack Quaintance — The Batman Universe Hardcover found its way into my hands just before the COVID-19 crisis and quarantine began, taking a long path to get there. The history is that it was part of a DC Comics initiative a couple of years back (has it been that long? wow) to get superhero comics outside of comic shops and into Wal-Marts. To do this, the publisher created a series of 100-page giant comics that retailed for $4.99, consisting mostly of new-audience friendly reprint material...and a handful of new stories, one of which was Batman Universe.

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Department of Mind-Blowing Theories - REVIEW

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By Zack Quaintance — Department of Mind-Blowing Theories is the new book from cartoonist Tom Gauld, a poignant and often hilarious storyteller who in this work has turned his ample talents toward the bite-sized and satirical. The book is a compendium of single-page cartoons done for New Scientist, and, as such, they entirely skew that profession. It’s not a linear story of any sort, but, then again, that’s probably not want anyone is expecting when they pick this book up.

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Quarter Killer from ComiXology - REVIEW

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By Zack Quaintance — Quarter Killer is now my third experience with a book from ComiXology Originals, the content publishing arm of the industry’s dominant digital comics platform. I’ve enjoyed both of the other series from the imprint quite a bit — those being The Black Ghost and Afterlift — and as a result, I came into this one with relatively high expectations. Those expectations, friends, were not just met — they were wildly exceeded.

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Quarantine Comix #1 - #3 REVIEW

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By Zack Quaintance — If you’ve found your way to something so esoteric as this website, there’s a fairly good chance you know that there’s been a pause in the distribution of weekly comic books for the first time basically ever, at least for this long of a period. With American sheltering in place to flatten the curve of the virus, there have been challenges with printing comics, distributing comics, and selling comics. 

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History of the Marvel Universe Treasury Edition - REVIEW

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By Zack Quaintance — The History of the Marvel Universe Treasury Edition is a stylish book. It is in effect the collected edition of a six-part miniseries Marvel released last year. Written by Mark Waid with art by the top-tier team of Javier Rodríguez (who does the pencils and colors) and Álvaro López (who does the inks), the book’s frame is a conversation between Franklin Richards and Galactus at the end of time. Through this frame, it details as its name implies, all the major happenings in The History of the Marvel Universe.

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Sports is Hell by Ben Passmore - REVIEW

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By Zack Quaintance — During the past decade, there has rightly been a mounting examination of the problematic role football plays in society, with America’s most popular sport (and most profitable sports industry) weathering increased scrutiny. Football and the NFL have taken criticisms for a host of problems, ranging from the severe brain damage wrought upon many who play it to the way the billion dollar industry is based on a game that fosters a violent tolerance of aggression, greed, racism, and more.

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