REVIEW: Bad Mother #1, a well-made start for a pulp adventure

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By Jacob Cordas — Pulp stories are deceptively simple. They are stories that when summarized sound like so many other things we’ve seen before: a hard boiled detective needs to solve the mystery that is too close for comfort, a woman gets revenge on the men who wronged her, a monster attacks a city whose citizens must bond together to stop it. But when reduced down to this, it ignores the beauty of pulp. The familiarity is not a negative but a benefit. Knowing the beats makes each detail stand out so much more strongly. The voice of the author(s) comes through louder and clearer in all the ways they are able to play with these prepackaged toys.

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The Winter Cartoonist - GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW

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By d. emerson eddy — The history of comics is a fascinating subject. From execution of form―dating back to early pictographs from our ancient ancestors to modern digital comics―to the interpersonal lives of the creators―their ups and downs, successes and failures―with everything in between. It's interesting to see how the medium has changed and adapted over both the decades and to the demands of different countries and cultures. Eisner Award-winning cartoonist Paco Roca (he just won this year for Fantagraphics publication of The House) delves into the history of Spain's burgeoning comics scene following the Spanish Civil War in The Winter of the Cartoonist.

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REVIEW: Pulp OGN by Brubaker and Phillips

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By Benjamin Morin — The prestige of a new Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips OGN should instantly capture any reader’s attention. Their collaborations on series such as Criminal and Kill or Be Killed, alongside several OGNs such as My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies and Bad Weekend, have earned their place among some of the greatest works in the crime comics genre. Pulp is no different, as the creative duo deliver an exceptional entry into their ever-expanding repertoire of standalone graphic novels. As a relative neophyte to their works, this book served as my first foray into Brubaker’s seedy underbelly of society, and I found all the praises well-deserved.

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REVIEW: Hedra One-Shot by Jesse Lonergan

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By Larry Jorash — Experimental is the only way to describe what Jesse Lonergan has done with the new Hedra one-shot, published by Image Comics. What we have here is a somewhat unorthodox 48-page contained comic story about space travel and nuclear holocaust. This book is void of dialogue, yet still finds a way to communicate its message, theme, and story in expert fashion. The color palette is minimalist and comforting to the eyes, and multiple reads of this book with its incredibly simple story evoke thoughts of a fine wine — rich in flavor with a thought-provoking aftertaste.

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REVIEW: Eve Stranger, the final book from Black Crown at IDW

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By Bruno Savill De Jong — The narration in Eve Stranger is in the second person. It opens the comic telling the protagonist “your name is Eve Stranger. You wrote these words last night. You don’t remember”. So, the narration is also in the first person, a diary from a past version of Eve to update her ‘present’ self (alongside the audience) of her current circumstances.

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REVIEW: Glass Town by Isabel Greenberg

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Comics and classic literature — while both equally worthwhile forms of written entertainment — don’t always mix well. Flowery language that makes a novel immersive and delicious to the mind and ear can be cloistering and congestive when adapted into spoken panels. Or alternately, it is completely watered down and made lackluster alongside imaginative graphics competing for the reader’s attention. Neither is very palatable.

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REVIEW - Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes

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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.

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REVIEW: Chu #1, a triumphant return to the world of CHEW

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By Gabe Gonzalez — On June 3, 2009, a 60-issue culinarily-enhanced detective noir was born from the minds of John Layman and Rob Guillory in the form of Chew. If you’re unfamiliar with the comic, the original Chew series was about an FDA agent named Tony Chu who had a special ability…he was a cibopath, meaning he could gather psychic impressions from the things he consumed.

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REVIEW: Futurism invades Die #12

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By Keigen Rea — After reading Die #12 for the second time, I opened ComiXology and downloaded the rest of the series to reread. Partly it was that I had completely lost the plot, between pandemic brain and not reading the second arc upon completion, and also the delays, when I should have done what I normally do and reread the arc in whole.

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REVIEW: The best Wonder Woman story is WONDER WOMAN: TEMPEST TOSSED

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Wonder Woman: Tempest Tossed — a recent release from DC Comics growing line of books for YA and middle grade readers — is easily one of my favorite comics this year, which was a delightful surprise, because I’m not a huge fan of Wonder Woman…and I am so, so, so, so tired of origins. In fact, most of my enthusiasm for this title deflated when I learned that it was an origin story. It was still an instant buy, however, with Leila Del Duca on line art, but it definitely slipped down the read pile. Of course, I was extremely wrong, and I am delighted to be.

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A Radical Shift of Gravity - Graphic Novel Review

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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.

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REVIEW: Family Tree #7 deepens the mystery

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By Benjamin Morin — Once again, the creative team behind Family Tree knocks it out of the park. With Family Tree #7, writer Jeff Lemire begins to tie all the various narrative threads together from previous entries. The three main threads of Grampa Judd’s escape, Meg’s concurrent transformation, and Josh’s future struggle are woven together through Josh’s unique perspective. This is an action-packed issue that grabs readers from page one and does not let go.

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REVIEW: Ludocrats #3 is a sequential narrative driven (at least partially) by pelvic thrusts

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By Keigen Rea — Any attempt at reviewing or critiquing Ludocrats feels like it’s missing the point entirely. Yet, missing the point is not in itself a defiance of Ludocratic principles, as there can be whimsy and intent in missing the point, and may even have more Ludocraticity than trying too hard to understand something. If one does not understand a thing, can one review or critique it?

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Faithless II #2 from BOOM! - REVIEW

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By Jacob Cordas — There’s a small detail I keep coming back to in Faithless II #2. Near the midpoint of the comic, our protagonist, Faith, has journeyed to Turin with her agent. Her agent reveals Louis, her mentor and possible devil, hasn’t come with them. He can’t fly. Instead he is taking a “slow boat from ‘Gina.” When Faith asks if Louis is afraid to fly, her agent says, “What else does can’t mean?”

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Excellence by Thomas & Randolph - FULL SERIES REVIEW

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By Ariel Baska — Excellence is real, but Excellence is, to put it simply, excellent. On the surface, Excellence appears to be a story of a father and son set in a magical universe, but more importantly, it’s a story made for this moment - a story about what one does with anger.

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Brandon Sanderson's DARK ONE - Graphic Novel Review

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By Zack Quaintance — Vault Comics — the rising indie publisher putting out the most interesting and literary work in all of monthly comics — is exploring new territory. This, of course, is not unusual for Vault. Nearly every book Vault publishes offers a fresh take on sci-fi or fantasy, be it via a new voice, a new twist, a new approach to well-tread territory, or simply a new and deeper focus on well-done conventions. This time, however, Vault is exploring new territory off the page, doing so with its first full entreaty into the booksellers market, the graphic novel, Brandon Sanderson’s Dark One.

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