Afar

Leila Del Duca & Kit Seaton

1/2018

Beautiful, magical. It's a simple story of travel and discovery set in an African-like desert with visions of other planets and societies spread throughout.

Serenity: Better Days

And Other Stories

Joss Whedon / Brett Matthews / Will Conrad

1/2018

I loved Firefly and Serenity and i like that the series is continued in comic form. These stories are always interesting and it's fun to imagine the actors' voices saying the printed lines, but the pacing on these comics is always a little off. Too much happens too fast on each page, and it's sometimes a struggle to figure out what's going on. But, i do like the fact that there's no explanation—the reader is expected to know how this universe works (and i do).

Strong Female Protagonist

Book One

Brennan Lee Mulligan & Molly Ostertag

1/2018

I do love strong female protagonists and i bought this book because i like the illustrator, Molly Ostertag. I didn't know anything about this book (it's a web comic series) but was so impressed by the complex characters and the depth of storytelling in the "superhero" trope. Really impressive.

Motor Girl

Real Life

No Man Left Behind

Terry Moore

1/2018

I picked up the first half of this comic series in a comic shop in Troy, NY because it looked interesting. Bought the second half as soon as it came out. Really inventive and powerful. The ending was a little bit as i suspected but that didn't diminish the power of the story.

Hilo

The Boy Who Crashed To Earth

Saving The Whole Wide World

The Great Big Boom

Waking The Monsters

Judd Winick

1/2018

I binged on this series when i discovered it in 2017. I've always loved the work of Judd Winick and was happy to find that he was still creating great fun and funny stories. This chapter was just as good as the rest, but ended with a cliffhanger that i now have to wait a year to resolve! Arrgh!

Manhattan Projects

Volumes 1 – 4

Jonathan Hickman

2/2018

I had read the 4-issue series of Manhattan Projects comics called "Sun Beyond the Stars," then bought Manhattan Projects Volume 1 at a comic shop in Troy, NY. After i read that, i bought volumes 2-4. It's an intricately-drawn and weird series about all of the scientists, generals, and nuclear physicists involved in the early days of nuclear power, except that they're dealing with aliens and other worlds and internal out-of-space-time personality struggles. Strange, gory, and kinda cool, but all the characters are men. The tagline is "Science. Bad."

Clem Hetherington and the Ironwood Race

Jen Breach

2/2018

I entered a giveaway online and was surprised one day to receive this book in the mail from Scholastic. Except that the book that i got was a proof version and only the first dozen-or-so pages were colorized. The rest were just line-art, but that was pretty cool. I subsequently bought the final product in full color.

I wanted to like this book more than i did though. The plot just seemed stapled together. Clem and her robot friend enter a no-rules road-warrior-type desert race where all the competitors tear off to find some historic artifacts, but why they have to all race for it seems kinda pointless. The final printed version of this had the number 1 on the spine, so maybe there'll be more books that either get better or explain things better.

Giants Beware!

Dragons Beware!

Monsters Beware!

Jorge Aguirre

3/2018

I bought Giants Beware! at a comic book store in July of 2016 and i thought that it was a one-off book, but discovered in early 2018 that there were two more. They all center on the heroine, Claudette, who wants to go to battle with giants, dragons, and monsters but is held back by her father and the people of her village. She manages to get out and fight them anyway, and succeeds mostly through teamwork, luck, and cleverness than actual fighting. The setting is quasi-medieval times, but the language is modern, which makes it interesting. Highly recommended.

A Day In The Life Of Marlon Bundo

Jill Twiss

5/2018

As a piece of political satire, this book is great. As a kids book, it's so-so. It's definitely geared for an adult reader, even though it's written in simple words and sentences. And even though it's about two male gay bunnies, the only two explicitly female characters in the book show up at the very end and have no lines. Also, it's impossible to NOT read this book in the voice of John Oliver.

Dog Years

(A Memoir)

Mark Doty

5/2018

My father gave me this book, probably because it was theoretically about dogs, but it was more about the owner than the dogs. And it was scattered in time, with no coherant narrative thread. Toward the end of this book, i really couldn't turn the pages fast enough—i just wanted it to be over. Yes, it was sad at the end when the dog died, but i was only weepy because it reminded me of losing my dogs. I cared nothing for the dogs in this story. Bleah.

Secret Coders

Book 1

Book 2: Paths & Portals

Book 3: Secrets & Sequences

Book 4: Robots & Repeats

Book 5: Potions & Parameters

Gene Luen Yang & Mike Holmes

5/2018

I started reading this series because i like the books of gene Luen Yang. It's a bit simple and aimed at teaching coding more than presenting a compelling story, but it's still kinda fun, if almost text-book like at times.

Mouse Guard

Legends of the Guard: Volumes 1-3

David Petersen

5/2018

My friend Chrystal lent me the first Mouse Guard book a bunch of years ago and i started buying my own copies in 2017. These books are a departure from the main narrative of Mouse Guard (sword-weilding town-living mice in the middle ages) and framed as stories told by mice in a tavern. Each tale is written and illustrated by a different artist, with David petersen writing and illustrating the interstitial vignettes in the tavern between each story. Some stories work better than others, but they'll all pretty cool.

Bayou

Volume 1

Jeremy Love

6/2018

This is why i love comic shops. I picked up this book at a shop in Albany because it looked interesting. Turned out to be more than interesting. It's a beautifully drawn and told continuing story of poverty, racism, and magic near a bayou in the deep south in 1933. Touching and lovely.

Scrambled Ink

David Derrick, Jenny Lerew, David Pimentel, Ennio Torresan, Ken Morrissey, JJ Villard

6/2018

Again, another book i picked up in a comic shop. It's basically a collection of children's books (a couple are more adult books) done by movie animators all stuck together in one volume. A couple are sweet.

The Prince and the Dressmaker

Jen Wang

6/2018

You may think that this is just another fairy tale, but it is soooo much more. The drawing is fantastic, the characters are complex, and the plot is unexpected and wonderful.

Lint Boy

Aileen Leijten

6/2018

I bought this at the Concord Bookshop because it looked interesting. It's a mashup of a children's storybook and a graphic novel and it's very sweet. A bunch of lint, wool, and buttons becomes a doll in the dryer and gains more doll friends, leading a revolution against an evil old woman who tortures them.

The Shadow Killer

Jerome K. Jerome Bloche, Volume 1

Alain Dodier

6/2018

Also from the Concord Bookshop. Also looked interesting. It's very akin to Tintin—a young hero, detailed drawing style, action, and an overall mystery. The author started drawing these in the 1980s and they're newly translated from French. I'm not sure that i'll get on board with the whole series, as there are 25 of them, but it was a fun read.

Be Prepared

Vera Brosgol

6/2018

I semi-true-life story of a young girl at an uncomfortable summer camp. Awkwardness, learning, friends, enemies... the full gamut of summer camp. I'd heard about this book and picked up a signed copy at the Concord Bookshop. It was only after i'd finished it that i found out that the author also wrote the brilliant graphic novel Anya's Ghost, which i'd read a few years ago.

Casper and Jasper and the Terrible Tyrant

Tilia Klebenov Jacobs

7/2018

This is the third book from my friend Tilia, and the first for kids, although the word choices in it are a bit English-major-y, which detracts from the readability of it at points. Overall. it was pretty good, although the characters were a little flat and the titular twins reminded me far too much of the Weasley twins in the Harry Potter books. And it was long. But a decent deep dive for an interested kid.

Manhattan Projects

Volumes 5 – 6

Jonathan Hickman

7/2018

These two issues involve JFK, Truman, and Yuri Gagarin. Volume 6 is the "Sun Beyond the Stars" series. Still weird but cool.

Serenity: No Power in the ’Verse

Chris Roberson, Georges Jeanty

7/2018

More stories of the Firefly crew, but these two tales are set after the events of the Serenity movie. Nice to see the 'verse continue.

Grrl Scouts

Work Sucks

Jim Mahfood

7/2018

This is a collection of comics featuring three pistol-packin', dope-smokoi', foul mouthed women living in Freak City. I read the first volume a buncha years ago and finally picked up this second volume. This one's not as violent as the last (the grrls get jobs!) and i think i liked it better that way.

Strong Female Protagonist

Book Two

Brennan Lee Mulligan & Molly Ostertag

8/2018

Wow, wow, wow. The writing and illustrating on this just blew me away. Excellent storytelling with real depth and complexity of character. What are the moral implications of being a superhero in a normal day-to-day life? Now the wait for book three.

Bayou

Volume 2

Jeremy Love

8/2018

Still beautifully drawn and compelling, but this volume veers more toward dream-like and the plot is less straightforward. It also doesn't wrap up and it seems as though there should be a Volume 3, but looking at Jeremy's website, it's apparent that there has been no updates in quite a few years. Bummer.

Shattered Warrior

Sharon Shinn & Molly Knox Ostertag

8/2018

Beautiful illustration by Molly Ostertag, with many sequences wordless, but overall the story is thin. Each character has a purpose, but there's not much depth to any of them. I was hoping for a more complex story.

All Summer Long

Hope Larson

8/2018

Nice little book about a 13-year-old girl who's finding her identity. It's printed in two-tone—black and orange, which gives it a cool look.

Lake Of Fire

Nathan Fairbairn & Matt Smith

8/2018

Medieval knights, peasants, heretics, Christians, crusaders... and a crashed alien spaceship full of nasties. Gripping and complex in a simple story of heroism and survival.

Beasts of Burden

Animal Rites

Evan Dorkin & Jill Thompson

9/2018

Wonderful spooky stories about a group of neighborhood dogs (and one cat) who protect their suburb from various scary horrors. Beautifully drawn, and the animals retain their animal-ness while speaking and thinking like humans would.

Nuclear Winter

Volume One

Cab

9/2018

I'd been following Cab on Twitter for a while and finally got her graphic novel. I was hoping for a more substantial volume, but the story is cool and the characters are good and the drawing is just the kind of drawing that i like, full of color and expression and wit. This isn't much of a story, but it's a good introduction to the day-to-day life of Flavie, a snowmobile-driving courier in a Montreal stuck in perpetual snow-covered winter.

Grass Kings

Volume One

Matt Kindt & Tyler Jenkins

9/2018

I bought this in part because of a quote on the cover from Patton Oswalt ("It is...amazing. GET IT."). The artwork is all sketchy watercolors and the plot is a pretty serious. It's about a clan of people living on their own land in mid-west America who run afoul of the local law enforcement. The narrative is intercut with scenes of people throughout history being killed on the same piece of land, one at a time. Interesting, but not at the top of my list of stories.

The Earthsea Trilogy

A Wizard of Earthsea

The Tombs of Atuan

The Farthest Shore

Ursula K. LeGuin

11/2018

I've been aware of these books for most of my life, but never read them. I found them to be a bit serious, but the writing certainly brought the world of Earthsea to life. A Wizard of Earthsea is the tale of how the great mage Sparrowhawk grew into his powers and it's mostly about him learning his craft and then going out on a quest to seek a demon that he unwittingly unleashed. The Tombs of Atuan is about a girl who is kept as a "priestess" at the Tombs and who eventually frees herself thanks to a now adult Sparrowhawk showing up about halfway into the book. The Farthest Shore picks up when Sparrowhawk is older, and he and a young prince go on a quest to save Earthsea from a creeping evil.

In both the first and third books, i figured out who the villian actually was about halfway through, so there was no surprise at the end. But even knowing that, the explanations of what was going on left a little to be desired. Also the first and third books involve almost entirely male characters. The second book is a welcome change in that the main character is a girl, but still, lots of boys in this series. The third book starts to get a little heavy into big questions of life, death, and existance, but it's termed in the mysticism and beliefs of the civilizations of Earthsea, so it doesn't get too religious.

I'm glad that i finally read these, though, as they're pillars of fantasy.

The Sculptor

Scott McCloud

11/2018

I was in Earthworld Comics in Albany and after picking out some other comics, i asked one of the clerks to recoommend something. He pulled out this. I'd read Scott McCloud's comics about comics, but i'd never read one of his actual graphic novels. The clerk praised it highly and i bought it (it's a big tome and was expensive). The main character in this is a little unlikeable and self-absorbed, but the story is compelling and it's beautifully drawn (in blue and black) and told, right up to the ending, which ties in the whole book. Even though it was a sad ending, it left me satisfied and appreciative of the talent on display.

The Left Hand of Darkness

Ursula K. LeGuin

12/2018

After reading the Earthsea trilogy (and since this book was also at our summer house), i read this. It was not as good as i'd hoped—very slow pace, not a lot of plot. It's mostly a description of an androgynous society on a very cold planet with some allegory to U.S./Soviet relations thrown in. There's a bit of action in the later stages of the book, but the ending is kind of a dud—not much payoff for the time spent reading.

The Hidden Witch

Molly Knox Ostertag

12/2018

The sequel to The Witch Boy, which i'd read last year. Love the characters, love the story, love the way the magic has its own presence. It's cool to see how many different ways the concept of "magic" can be applied in stories. In this one, it feels real and solid, with its own history. Love it.

Two of the characters in this book, both in their looks and interactions, reminded me a lot of two of the characters in the YA book that i wrote, "Nonny."

Onibi

Diary of a Yokai Ghost Hunter

Atelier Sentô

12/2018

I bought this at Books on the Square in Providence because it looked interesting. It's nicely watercolored and has an interesting chaptered structure, but the dialog is a bit stilted (perhaps because it was translated from French) and the ancillary characters are hard to tell apart. But it's still a nifty read, all about a small area of Japan and the yokai—ancient ghosts—hiding among the living.

On A Sunbeam

Tillie Walden

12/2018

Wasn't sure what to expect with this one, but i'd heard good things about it. Big tome (533 pages), colored in what looks like duotone, but more colors creep in as the book goes on. My biggest complaint is that it wasn't always easy to tell the characters apart, due to the drawing style, and sometimes the speech bubbles were placed in such a way as to not be clear about who was speaking. But aside from that, it's a fascinating tale of an all-women universe where buildings exist floating in space and the spaceships look and move like giant catfish. The story bounces back and forth between the school days of Mia and her time on a building-repair crew of one spaceship. Powerful, different, and really cool.