Difference between revisions of "Newest Graphic Novels Reviews"

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[[Category:Graphic Novels|*]]
 
[[Category:Graphic Novels|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Graphic Novels]]
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[[Category:New Reviews|Graphic Novels]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
==Graphic novels==
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Edel Rodriguez
{{newreview
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|title=Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey
|author=Eddie Campbell
 
|title=The Lovely Horrible Stuff
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Money, in amongst all the cliched things it does, makes for peciluar detail for a graphic novelist like Eddie Campbell to include in a book about itHe has to make himself a company to qualify for creating a Batman strip to earn it, and has to pay $4 to buy $1 to draw (- then claim the tax back on the purchase to save himself some of it).  It causes friction when his daughter earns too much, and when his wife's dad spends too much in a legal pursuit to have moreIn the second half of this book it causes a journalistic piece of non-fiction as he takes a look at Pacific islanders who used man-sized stone discs as currency.
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|summary=We're in childhood, and we're in CubaThe revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all.  Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away.  Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned uponThe mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1603091521</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1474616720
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Kia Ahankoob
|author=Maarten vande Wiele
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|title=The Gold Lion and the Tournament of Sentinels
|title=Paris
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=In the category of graphic novels not to be seen reading in public, Paris is way up there.  With a gaudy pink and silver glitz cover, and a lot of blowjobs and sex inside, it's not one for the daily commute.  But, even though it's subject matter is merely the unlikely choice of the rags-to-riches-to-rags tale of three Parisian starlets, it is certainly worth a decent perusal.  Hope was a juvenile beauty queen, and could now work in fashion were it not for scars due to a car crash, and Faith wishes for the vicarious life of pop stardom, and it's no spoiler to report who and what they find will disappoint them.  Chastity, the most sarcastically-named character in comix, is happy enough destroying herself.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0861661737</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Nicolas de Crecy
 
|title=The Celestial Bibendum
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=Diego is new to town.  He's a seal, on crutches, but don't raise an eyebrow at that - you won't have enough left to raise at what follows, when he is hounded by a singing professorial claque who go about grooming him for being a very public, hopeful figure.  Observing all of this is the devil (a dwarf in check dungarees, of course), who wants Diego for his own purposes...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0861661753</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Matt Kindt
 
|title=Revolver
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=Meet Sam.  He has a rather dull life, with a materialistic girlfriend, and a job in the arse-end of celebrity journalism and a boss he can't stand.  All of which is preferential to waking up and finding his home city under attack - munitions going off, skyscrapers burning and people falling from them.  He ends up fleeing with said editor, only to wake the next day back in this world.  He will indeed fall to being snatched from each reality in turn, at set times of day, forced to suffer consumerism in one, looting in another, basic pay raises here, producing Samizdat bare-bones journalism for survivors there.  But always with enough time to ask the important questions - how, and why?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1401222412</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Bill Willingham
 
|title=Fables: Legends in Exile - Vol 01
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=Forced out of the Homelands by the evil Adversary, the characters in Fables have made their way to New York City. Those of them who look relatively human, at least. With Old King Cole as Mayor (in name, at least, despite his deputy Snow White running the show), Bigby Wolf as the Sheriff, and Prince Charming being, well, charming, towards every woman he can, these are characters you'll already know and love – but portrayed in a way that completely reinvigorates them.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1563899426</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
 
|title=Watchmen
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=The Comedian is dead. In a world where costumed vigilantes have been outlawed and former superheroes are either retired or working for the government, the murder of his former teammate leads the outlaw Rorschach to investigate. What he finds could change the world...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1852860243</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Ray Fawkes
 
|title=One Soul
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=When reading this it soon becomes very clear we're reading not one, but nineteen, stories.  With each page divided into a regular 3x3 grid there are eighteen images on each double page spread, and every one shows an episode, or a beat, of a different character's life in turn, from being a babe-in-arms to death.  However, the way they join up - everyone's figurative moment comes at once, at times the artist's heavy black ink makes all eighteen images coincide into one image - proves there is a separate, individual tale around and behind the others, one which will end with the most delightful moral - that the ability to be anything one imagines is in our DNA.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1934964662</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=David Lucas
 
|title=The Lying Carpet
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=There is a room in a big old house where nothing moves but the insects.  An empty chair sits to one side, a stone statue of a girl called, and representing, Faith, the other.  In between is a tiger rug.  What potential is in that for the setting of a charming book?  What potential indeed...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849390177</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Mary M Talbot and Bryan Talbot
 
|title=Dotter of Her Father's Eyes
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=If there's one person able to produce a worthwhile potted history of James Joyce's daughter, it should be Mary M Talbot. She's an eminent academic, and her father was a major Joycean scholar.  Both females had parents with the same names too - James and Nora, both took to the stage when younger after going to dance school, but it's the contrasts between them this volume subtly picks out rather than any similarities, in a dual biography painted by one person we know by now as more than able to produce a delightful graphic novel - [[:Category:Bryan Talbot|Bryan Talbot]].
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|summary= When Myriad created Duniva he endowed his children with different powers, each with its own strength and weakeness, in the hope they would complement each other and collaborate, creating a dynamic and prosperous society. Each power is contained within a magical ring belonging to one of eight countries led by Myriad's children and their descendants. But it didn't quite work out like that. Rivalries developed. Enmities grew out of them and the eight countries went to war. Having fought themselves into an endless and ruinous stalemate and finding the cost of war too high, a solution is proposed. Each of the eight countries will send their greatest warriors, known as sentinels, to a single combat tournament. The winner will take possession of all the rings and become the supreme ruler of Duniva.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224096087</amazonuk>
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|isbn=B09MMQJFPV
 
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Pat Grant
|author=Peter O'Donnell
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|title=The Grot: The Story of the Swamp City Grifters
|title=Modesty Blaise: Live Bait
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=We're back in the gritty yet glamorous world of Modesty Blaise - at least, as gritty and glamorous as you could get in the Evening Standard daily comic strip in the late 1980sTitan have had a mammoth undertaking to reproduce all the original strips in handy large-format graphic novel compendia, and this latest covers three stories, all of which I consider greater in depth than those in the other volume I've reviewed - [[Modesty Blaise: Sweet Caroline by Neville Colvin and Peter O'Donnell|Sweet Caroline]].
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|summary=Everything in this world runs on pedal-power, and that includes the punk bands.  There are three pedallers at the front of the Heath Robinson contraption taking our lead characters to the ferry across the swamp to Falter City, where a mother and her two sons aim to set up a yoghurt factory.  You could say that yoghurt would be the only culture around, for this is a really rough-and-ready dump of a place, but everyone is interested in small things that grow.  For the only money to be had – the only fortunes to be found in Falter City – come from algae, gunk and other crud that – well, the use of it is never really made clearOnce there, the two brothers set themselves each up with a guide – Lippy, the more forward-thinking, industrious of the two, with a besuited gent, Penn with a ballsy young teenaged girl with bright red hair.  But which of the two will come off the worse as they make their own way in this dystopian, semi-Apocalyptic hellhole?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857686682</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1603094660
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)
|author=Patricia McKissack, Frederick L McKissack Jr and Randy DuBurke
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|title=Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes
|title=Best Shot in the West
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|rating=4.5
|rating=4
 
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
 
|summary='We're going to do the real West, Nat. You're as real as the rest of 'em - Bat Masterson, Calamity Jane, Wild Bill, the Earps.'  So says a publisher to a lowly railroad porter, Nat.  But if this guy's as real as the rest of those famous names, why does his not trip off the tongue?  Is it purely because as the most famous African-American cowboy, he still was not allowed to be as famous as he should?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0811857492</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Garen Ewing
 
|title=The Rainbow Orchid: Adventures of Julius Chancer v. 3
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Here we are, then, ten years after the debut of this graphic novel on the Internet, and finally the print trilogy is complete.  At last we can see if our hero Julius, his chums, the shady Government people, and his enemy’s beautiful assassin aide who remains impossible to shrug off, manage to get anywhere near the fabled titular plant in its secret Himalayan location, and just how important it has been for all those many people left back in EnglandIt’s been a rollercoaster ride, and it’s been worth it.
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|summary=I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the second half of their teens has other priorities, you know.  I certainly didn't know of the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the birth of the Tank Man image, I didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, and I didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on either sideThis book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405255994</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1684056993
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Leigh Bardugo, Louise Simonson and Kit Seaton
|author=Gary Crew and Shaun Tan
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|title=Wonder Woman: Warbringer: The Graphic Novel
|title=The Viewer
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|rating=3
|rating=4
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|genre=Teens
|genre=Confident Readers
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|summary=Diana, being unique on her island, is the victim of a lot of taunts, and claims of nepotismIt's only her unique status, and her mother being Queen, that has her with any standing at all, her naysayers declare – even though she has clearly fought to be a strong young womanPerhaps too strong for the island, however – for every Wonder Woman origin story has her quickly leaving home for the World of Men, and this Diana is the heroine of yet another Wonder Woman origin story.  A shipwreck disturbs her leading performance in a running race, but the survivor she drags from the waters is only going to disturb a lot more...
|summary=The story concerns a young lad who loves scavenging and exploringFinding a Hellraiser-styled box of tricks contains a Viewmaster-type machine, he puts it to his eyes and sees something a lot more serious than, say, a Thunderbirds episode in thirty 3D images, which was all I ever saw in mineInstead, Tristan sees nothing but death and destruction, and a compelling sense of - well, something.
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|isbn=1401282555
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0734411898</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1401286208
|author=Art Spiegelman
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|title=Black Canary: Ignite
|title=MetaMAUS
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|author=Meg Cabot and Cara McGee
|rating=5
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|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Before the Holocaust was turned into [[The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne|a child-like near-fable for all]], and before it was the focus of superb history books such as [[Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder|this]], it became a family saga of a father relating his experiences to a son, who then drew it all - featuring animals not humans - [[Maus by Art Spiegelman|Maus]].  To celebrate the twenty-five years since then, we have this brilliant look back at the creation of an equally brilliant volume.
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|summary=Meet Dinah Lance. Frustrated that her policeman father will not allow her to try and follow in his footsteps, and seemingly lumbered with being a cheerleader at school, she is desperate to find her voice. But it's actually more a case of her voice finding her, as when she gets frustrated or plain dissed at school her vocal outcry can shatter glass better than any opera singer. You could almost call it a weapon, or a power. But in order for her to call herself a superhero, there has to be a whole path of steps for her to take – one of which will be into her past…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670916838</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1401280048
|author=Harry Thompson
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|title=Batman: Nightwalker: The Graphic Novel
|title=Tintin: Herge and His Creation
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|author=Marie Lu, Stuart Moore and Chris Wildgoose
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=I love Tintin.  I love his quiff and his innocence, his plus-fours and his foreign adventures, I love Snowy the dog and most of all I love Captain Haddock and the flamboyance of his blistering barnacles language.  So I was thrilled to see a biography of the character and Hergé, his creator, and I picked it up with enthusiasm.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848546726</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Khaled Hosseini
 
|title=The Kite Runner (Graphic Novel)
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=A confession.  If there's one book I'm not likely to read, it's that which everyone else is readingIf it turns into a hugely popular film for all the left-wing chattering classes to rave over, then that's just more grist to my mill – I'll always have a chance to catch up on it later on, even if I never take that opportunity.  I'm not alone in acting like this – see a friend and colleague's similar admission when reviewing [[White Teeth by Zadie Smith]].  But at least, through the medium of the graphic novel, the book reviewing gods have conspired to let me see just what I'm missing, with this adaptation, by Italian artists, of a hugely successful – and therefore delayable – novel.
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|summary=The young man called Bruce Wayne is a very noticeable one – he can hardly go anywhere without people – bystanders, paparazzi, and suchlike – reminding him he's a billionaire at the age of eighteenFeeling rather stuck with the legacy he's inherited from his murdered parents, he wants to do charitable deeds.  But one night, when he speeds off in his posh new car in pursuit of a criminal, he goes too far as far as the authorities are concerned, and gets given the most unlikely stretch of community service instead – cleaning in the home for violent criminals that is Arkham AsylumThere he learns of some other people who also allege charitable intent – the Nightwalkers, a gang who steal any ten-figure bank account contents they can, and murder the owner. Can he get close to one of them and get the truth of their schemes, or will the manipulative Madeleine be a step too far for the young do-gooder?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408815257</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sally Kindberg and Tracey Turner
 
|title=The Comic Strip Big Fat Book of Knowledge
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=Who doesn't like a nice comic, eh? There's something so accessible about the lovely picture and text combos, and facts are far from dull when they come via speech bubbles, don't you think? Taking full advantage of this fact, Sally Kindberg and Tracey Turner have, for some time, been creating factual books for children which pass on their insight and Important Information through the medium of comics. Now for the first time, you can collect 3 of their titles in one simple volumeCombining the previous reviewed [[The Comic Strip History of the World by Sally Kindberg and Tracey Turner|History of the World]] and [[The Comic Strip History of Space by Sally Kindberg and Tracey Turner|History of Space]] with the ''Greatest Greek Myths''
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408808242</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Kevin O'Neill and Alan Moore
 
|title=The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 1969
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=So much for the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  Of the three main protagonists available for this adventure, one and a half are female!  Anyway, Bram Stoker's Mina, Woolf's Orlando and Allan Quartermain are in London at the height of the swinging 60s, amidst rumours that a new attempt at birthing an Antichrist is about to occur.  Certainly, the evil they've faced the last several decades will soon get a new face...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0861661621</amazonuk>
 
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1401283292
|author=Winshluss
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|title=Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass
|title=Pinocchio
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|author=Mariko Tamaki and Steve Pugh
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=Imagine, if you will, Disney's film of Pinocchio had been animated by a crew of artists hell-bent on sabotaging the prospect.  Painterly frames of beauty would be rare in amongst gritty, grimy, shadowy images of nightmarish content, which took it upon themselves to break into black and white, or sepia.  The prologue might have a character forcing his cat to join in at Russian Roulette.  Geppetto would be accompanied in the leviathan, in one of the rare tuneful segments, by a penguin playing the piano.  And this after the proud inventor was trying to sell Pinocchio as a prototype robotic super-weapon, just as his wife was putting Pinocchio's most distinctive feature to a most unexpected use...
 
 
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0861661729</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Aviv Ratzin
 
|title=Dreams and Everyday Life
 
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Well, thank you, Aviv Ratzin - you've provided me with the one book I'm least capable of summarising for a reviewI can't begin to pithily precis the plot, or describe the happenings in any quick, snappy wayTo give the gist of the surreal, scattershot whimsicality cannot do the contents justice in any way.
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|summary=Harleen Quinzel is new in town.  She always, to me, seems new in town, even if she's been around a long time, for she always has a very fresh attitude, and seems to look out of those large eyes at everything anew each timeBut here she is new in town, and the town is Gotham City.  Expecting a year-long furlough from life with her mother, she finds her gran dead and herself with no option but to stay with a bunch of drag queensShe also finds school is a drag, she also finds the whole neighbourhood is being redeveloped by a large and uncaring corporation – but she also finds two characters that will have a big impact on her life.  One is a civil-minded lass called Ivy, the other someone she only meets at night – a lad with a singular graffiti tag and a mind for violence and chaos, who calls himself The Joker…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955808871</amazonuk>
 
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=140128339X
|author=Allen Ginsberg
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|title=Mera: Tidebreaker
|title=Howl: A Graphic Novel
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|author=Danielle Paige and Stephen Byrne
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=I first came across Howl as a short film animating one of Ginsberg's own recordings of itIf memory serves, it was a scratchy, jazzy piece, full of spiky, spunky shapes and movements, and low on colourNow for 2011 and for Penguin Modern Classics' first ever 'graphic novel' comes a very different animationOK, the real moving animation is only to be seen in the movie Howl, but to call this merely an illustrated companion to the film is to be very unflattering.
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|summary=Meet Mera.  She's the latest in a line of young women intent on fighting against their intended destiny for one only they can see for themselvesHer father, the king of Xebel, sees some cotton wool and a hunky man in an arranged marriage as her future – after all, Mera's mother, the territory's warrior queen, is long deadMera doesn't fancy the cosseting or the fella involved at all and is, in fact, trying to get Xebel out from under the cosh of Atlantean power, for Xebel's royalty are merely puppets of Atlantean mastersSo when she overhears her father request that her intended go to the world of us air-breathing humans, and kill the Atlantis heir, she rushes off to get the quest (and the promised throne) all for herself.  But of course, she has no idea what kind of person she will meet, and how hard it will be to get the job done…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141195703</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1401286399
|author=Lesley Fairfield
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|title=Super Sons: The PolarShield Project
|title=Tyranny
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|author=Ridley Pearson and Ile Gonzalez
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=As Tyranny shakes her - ''I '''TOLD''' you not to eat! You are '''TOO''' fat!'' - Anna thinks back. She used to take joy in life. She used to dream of a bright future - a career, boyfriends, children - but it all went wrong when she hit puberty. She wasn't keen on on the curves of her new, more womanly body. When she looked in the mirror, she didn't see an hourglass figure developing; she saw fat and flab. Deaf to the warnings of her parents and her boyfriend, she listened to Tyranny and entered into the desperate, downward cycle of anorexia.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406331139</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=David Petersen
 
|title=Mouse Guard: Legends of The Guard
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=To start with, I have never heard of Mr Petersen and his Mouse Guard franchise.  But I'm often up for an introduction to a fantasy cycle, and I always relish being welcomed to an author by the most esoteric, unusual, quirky and short route.  My first entry to the His Dark Materials world was [[Once Upon a Time in the North by Philip Pullman|a collector's spin-off]], and I'm just as likely to start the Twilight series, if ever, with the latest brief whimsy.  And for those of a similar mind-set, this collection of tales from the pens of guest writers and illustrators, serves as an odd-shaped doorway on to this particular universe.
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|summary=It's the near future, and every coastal city – including Metropolis – is in need of a huge flood barrier, built on its coast by Wayne Enterprises. But the rising sea levels have put even those constructions under threat, forcing many people to relocate in America's biggest exodus for decades. Superman is helping out, of course – first, he was patching up the dams, but now he's mining the asteroid belt for a rare dust that's perfect for blocking the solar energy from making further polar ice melt. Inland, in Wyndermere, the refugees from the coast are suffering bigotry and intolerance for being newcomers, but something else is much worse. A major bout of food poisoning is hitting the city. But it can't possibly have anything to do with what looks like sabotage of the flood barriers and the efforts to correct the climate, can it? Four young children begin to piece together clues that it can…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857681427</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=168369015X
|author=Jonathan Stroud
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|title=Manfried the Man: A Graphic Novel
|title=The Amulet of Samarkand
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|author=Caitlin Major and Kelly Bastow
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=When you summon a demon the last thing you want is for you to lose power over it - for the shoe to end up on the other foot.  Especially when the demon shifts shape and is currently an eight-legged spider.  That's what's happened to young Nathaniel, having summoned Bartimaeus for a task of vengeance.  But perhaps it's worst of all when you have to rely on the same demon's help to protect you from an even greater evil - the wicked intent of a fellow man.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552563706</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Denise Mina and Antonio Fuso
 
|title=A Sickness in the Family
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=In Eton Terrance there lives the Usher family, in a house above a basement flat where a gangster holds sway over a Polish "girlfriend". After a bloodbath in there, the Ushers expand downwards, clearing a cavernous hole in their home where a staircase is due to go.  This is not the only crack in proceedings, however, as we soon discover while witnessing the fall of this House of Usher.
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|summary=In a world where cats stand on two feet, go to work at call centres and have diminutive human beings for pets, is Manfried. He's a typical frisky but shy pet – forever getting into scrapes, demanding more food than he can suitably eat, but at the same time being the perfect companion for his owner, Steve Catson. To such an extent that Steve, who is getting known for his man-oriented thinking, is actually having nightmares about becoming the neighbourhood ''crazy man cat''. But when a window gets left open by mistake, and Manfried goes missing, the only thing for it is a massive and energised man-hunt…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848564163</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=Hainsworth_Gina
|author=Bryan Talbot
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|title=Talking to Gina
|title=Grandville Mon Amour
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|author=Ottilie Hainsworth
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=The [[Grandville by Bryan Talbot|first book]] in this series didn't end particularly well for DI LeBrock, the badger who works for Scotland YardAt least the main problem, 'Mad Dog' Mastock, was sentenced to the guillotineBut in the prologue here he bursts out of his quandary, and once more causes problems for LeBrock - this time by slaughtering some Parisian prostitutes. Are they linked?  What might their story be? And is there a darker part of the past yet to come out of some secretive hiding place, and cause even more danger and peril?
+
|summary=''This is what happened.'' An artist decided she needed a dog – so drove the length of the country, Brighton to Grimsby, to pick up an Eastern European immigrant street dog with some mange and one working eyeWhy not?  The first night at home, Gina – the dog – eats something she shouldn't and causes a mess, so it's not a great start, but then begin the tribulations of training, status and behaviour all humans must go through with their dogs.  And then, the life with Gina begins to feel like too much – ''I felt weird about you because you were always there.  My thoughts were taken over by you, and I felt sick, as if I was in love.''  Slowly, however, everyone – our artist/author, her husband, two children and two cats – gets to form the family they and Gina all would have wanted.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090003</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=Colfer_Illegal
|author=Neville Colvin and Peter O'Donnell
+
|title=Illegal
|title=Modesty Blaise: Sweet Caroline
+
|author=Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin
|rating=3.5
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Meet Modesty Blaise. You've had countless opportunities to meet her before, mind - she was daily in the London Evening Standard from 1963 to 2001, and this is the eighteenth collection of her comic strip. She's a feisty, unfettered femme fatale with a bottomless fortune and a great supply of both friends and enemies. We see these combine here in four stories, when an enterprising gang of murderous blackmailers force Modesty to become their enemy, an old friend's name is used to dupe her into letting go her criminal secrets from her past, and when a new-found friend, fresh from saving her life in a gliding accident, comes up against some hoodlums.
+
|summary=Ebo is twelve years old and all alone. His sister left for Europe months ago and now he doesn't know where his brother is either but knows that he has probably done the same thing. So Ebo has to attempt the same dangerous journey himself. He must cross the Sahara Desert, get himself to Tripoli, one of the most dangerous cities in the world, and then try to cross the Mediterranean Sea. By himself. At twelve. And, even if he makes it, how will he find his sister?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848566735</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=Miller_Batman
|author=Joshua Dysart, Cliff Chiang and Dave Stewart
+
|title=Batman: Dark Knight III: The Master Race
|title=Neil Young's Greendale
+
|author=Frank Miller and Brian Azzarello
|rating=4
+
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=It's 2003.  Alaska is about to get raped, and Iraqis killed, for the sake of providing power for the USA. Which is ironic, as only before this is Sun Green a powerless young woman, and after it - well, she might have a very different kind of power. A mystical sort of girl, with a great affinity to nature, the teenaged Sun has to first solve many blank spaces in her family tree, and work out her nightmares - which might include the strange man new to town.
+
|summary=Batman is not playing ball. He's been videoed duffing up Gotham policemen, and not the baddies he usually biffs. But then he's not Batman – he's a she, and she finally comes up with the news that Batman died in her hands. Elsewhere, Lara, the daughter of Superman and Wonder Woman, is encouraging Ray Palmer/The Atom to turn his technologies concerned with shrinking and expanding life to the miniaturised city of Kandor, the last vestige of Kryptonian existence not to fly about in visible blue pants. What with Superman sitting idle in an exposed Fortress of Solitude having gone into a sulk, and Batman dead, there would appear to be little in the way of help for the world should anything nasty happen – but then, of course, something nasty does happen… s
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848567863</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=Weeks_Gritterman
|author=Garen Ewing
+
|title=The Gritterman
|title=The Rainbow Orchid: Adventures of Julius Chancer 2
+
|author=Orlando Weeks
|rating=4
+
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Oh to be popular - and the rainbow orchid certainly is.  If, in fact, it exists at all.  A collecting challenge for rare plants might hinge on its recovery, imperial British explorers would like to know the truth about it - and its presence on some mysterious ancient carved tablets hints at some mystical part it may once have played in a superweapon.  Hence, where this book starts, everyone - from a film starlet, to a dashing explorer's assistant, to a plucky aviator, to  an evil henchwoman of an overweight industrialist - is after it.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140525047X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jane Austen, Seth Grahame-Smith and Tony Lee
 
|title=Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie story of any renown will not remain simply a zombie story.  Before you can say ''the risen undead'' it will become a series of books, inspiring others, and/or lead to the same story being published in many different guises.  Here, then, on its way to Hollywood, is Jane Austen’s story of Lizzie Bennet, the feisty young woman trying to ignore Mr Darcy while fighting off the ''manky unmentionables'' – at least she is until the hidden truths open up to her, just as the soft soils of Hertfordshire do to yield their once-human remains.  And this time it’s in graphic novel form.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848566948</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Mark Millar and John Romita Jr
 
|title=Kick-Ass
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=Meet Dave.  The average Joe personified, he sits at home with his internet connection, his comics collection, his dad, and very little contact with anyone else.  He is a typical loner teenager, nearly friendless, wears glasses at school - especially around the hot, mature biology teacher who for some reason seems to have maths sums on her blackboard...  Until one day he decides to emulate the comics in his collection.  The only superheroes in his world are those whose colourful adventures he follows on the page - why not get his own costume mucked up, and go and fight crime?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848565356</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Phoebe Reeves Murray
 
|title=Ghost: Blood and Fire
 
|rating=1.5
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|summary=Young Jennifer Rhys has been orphaned by the evil
 
Dark Angels. They can possess people and bite off their hands, and
 
there's something about living tattoos which you can take out of boxes
 
and paste into your skin. After growing up in an adolescent
 
psychiatric ward, she will grow up to go on and confront them and
 
fulfil her destiny. Or something like that. Between the huge amount of
 
poorly drawn characters, the leaden prose, and the disappointing
 
pictures of computerized 3-D models, I got lost a few times and
 
couldn't summon the interest to work out what was going on.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955808863</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Will Eisner
 
|title=Life on Another Planet
 
|rating=2.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=There are some people who don't even need their name on their books, for the contents are so obviously and uniquely theirs.  Will Eisner is one such person, for the esteem and renown his artwork and pioneering work in the graphic novel form is held under is rightfully his and his alone.  I'm quite sure I could recognise a page of his black and white inkwork, and his easily drawn but realistic characters, more easily than any other sequential artist.  That trademark signature on the cover, surely the most well-known in 'comic strips' outside Mr Disney's empire, is hardly necessary.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393328120</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Ian Rankin and Werther Dell'Edera
 
|title=Dark Entries
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=The producers of Dark Entries, the latest hit reality TV show, are worried. Yes the six housemates are there, present and correct, and are ready to be scared witless en route to the one way out, and the brilliant prize that might await them somewhere in the merry-go-round of horror that is their new home. They are already being scared witless, by phantoms - but that's nothing to do with the TV producers.
+
|summary=There's a man who has an ice cream van. In summer, what there is of summer, he uses it to sell ice creams, That's not his vocation though, but it does keep him going whilst he waits for winter when the van becomes a Gritting Van and our narrator becomes a Gritterman. The fibreglass 99s on the roof light up and rotate, playing a tune, whether the van's gritting or selling ice creams. Tonight - Christmas Eve - will be the van's last trip. The council has sent the letter about his services no longer being required. Global warming. Dying profession, they say. There's even a tarmac now that can de-ice itself, but the Gritterman isn't sure that he wants to live in a world where the B2116 doesn't need gritting.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848563426</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Historical Fiction Reviews]]
|author=Dean Hale, Shannon Hale and Nathan Hale
 
|title=Calamity Jack
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=''I was born to scheme'', declares our hero Jack.  With flashbacks we see the young lad and a pixie friend, larking about for revenge or small profit.  But when his mother's bakery gets more and more into the red, the size of the profit has to increase.  And when you add in revenge against the local crime lord - a giant of a man - so does the size of the target of the jape.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747587426</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Robert Crumb
 
|title=Robert Crumb's Book of Genesis: All 50 Chapters
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=In the beginning was the picture.  Just think of all the countless religious images, both inside and outside religious establishments, designed to convey the message to those who could not read.  Art and religion have always been linked, which is probably one of the main reasons I stayed an atheist - I hated art at school, and drawing a man on a donkey, something way beyond my skills, was not a task I appreciated, hence my dislike of both subjects.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224078097</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Guy Delisle
 
|title=Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=Meet Guy.  He's a French-Canadian animator, leaving home for a short stay in the capital of one of the world's most intriguing, unknown and alien cultures - Pyongyang, North Korea - so he can work on a TV cartoon co-production.  Forced to stay in one of the three official hotels designed for foreigners, so that the locals and people such as he do not have to mix, he see glimpses of the unique socialist dictatorship, stunning views of the buildings forced through the poverty, and thousands of unreadable faces.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224079905</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 10:21, 30 October 2023

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Review of

Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey by Edel Rodriguez

4star.jpg Graphic Novels

We're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen… Full Review

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Review of

The Gold Lion and the Tournament of Sentinels by Kia Ahankoob

4star.jpg Graphic Novels

When Myriad created Duniva he endowed his children with different powers, each with its own strength and weakeness, in the hope they would complement each other and collaborate, creating a dynamic and prosperous society. Each power is contained within a magical ring belonging to one of eight countries led by Myriad's children and their descendants. But it didn't quite work out like that. Rivalries developed. Enmities grew out of them and the eight countries went to war. Having fought themselves into an endless and ruinous stalemate and finding the cost of war too high, a solution is proposed. Each of the eight countries will send their greatest warriors, known as sentinels, to a single combat tournament. The winner will take possession of all the rings and become the supreme ruler of Duniva. Full Review

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Review of

The Grot: The Story of the Swamp City Grifters by Pat Grant

4star.jpg Graphic Novels

Everything in this world runs on pedal-power, and that includes the punk bands. There are three pedallers at the front of the Heath Robinson contraption taking our lead characters to the ferry across the swamp to Falter City, where a mother and her two sons aim to set up a yoghurt factory. You could say that yoghurt would be the only culture around, for this is a really rough-and-ready dump of a place, but everyone is interested in small things that grow. For the only money to be had – the only fortunes to be found in Falter City – come from algae, gunk and other crud that – well, the use of it is never really made clear. Once there, the two brothers set themselves each up with a guide – Lippy, the more forward-thinking, industrious of the two, with a besuited gent, Penn with a ballsy young teenaged girl with bright red hair. But which of the two will come off the worse as they make their own way in this dystopian, semi-Apocalyptic hellhole? Full Review

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Review of

Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes by Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)

4.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the second half of their teens has other priorities, you know. I certainly didn't know of the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the birth of the Tank Man image, I didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, and I didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on either side. This book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989. Full Review

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Review of

Wonder Woman: Warbringer: The Graphic Novel by Leigh Bardugo, Louise Simonson and Kit Seaton

3star.jpg Teens

Diana, being unique on her island, is the victim of a lot of taunts, and claims of nepotism. It's only her unique status, and her mother being Queen, that has her with any standing at all, her naysayers declare – even though she has clearly fought to be a strong young woman. Perhaps too strong for the island, however – for every Wonder Woman origin story has her quickly leaving home for the World of Men, and this Diana is the heroine of yet another Wonder Woman origin story. A shipwreck disturbs her leading performance in a running race, but the survivor she drags from the waters is only going to disturb a lot more... Full Review

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Review of

Black Canary: Ignite by Meg Cabot and Cara McGee

3.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

Meet Dinah Lance. Frustrated that her policeman father will not allow her to try and follow in his footsteps, and seemingly lumbered with being a cheerleader at school, she is desperate to find her voice. But it's actually more a case of her voice finding her, as when she gets frustrated or plain dissed at school her vocal outcry can shatter glass better than any opera singer. You could almost call it a weapon, or a power. But in order for her to call herself a superhero, there has to be a whole path of steps for her to take – one of which will be into her past… Full Review

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Review of

Batman: Nightwalker: The Graphic Novel by Marie Lu, Stuart Moore and Chris Wildgoose

4star.jpg Graphic Novels

The young man called Bruce Wayne is a very noticeable one – he can hardly go anywhere without people – bystanders, paparazzi, and suchlike – reminding him he's a billionaire at the age of eighteen. Feeling rather stuck with the legacy he's inherited from his murdered parents, he wants to do charitable deeds. But one night, when he speeds off in his posh new car in pursuit of a criminal, he goes too far as far as the authorities are concerned, and gets given the most unlikely stretch of community service instead – cleaning in the home for violent criminals that is Arkham Asylum. There he learns of some other people who also allege charitable intent – the Nightwalkers, a gang who steal any ten-figure bank account contents they can, and murder the owner. Can he get close to one of them and get the truth of their schemes, or will the manipulative Madeleine be a step too far for the young do-gooder? Full Review

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Review of

Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass by Mariko Tamaki and Steve Pugh

3.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

Harleen Quinzel is new in town. She always, to me, seems new in town, even if she's been around a long time, for she always has a very fresh attitude, and seems to look out of those large eyes at everything anew each time. But here she is new in town, and the town is Gotham City. Expecting a year-long furlough from life with her mother, she finds her gran dead and herself with no option but to stay with a bunch of drag queens. She also finds school is a drag, she also finds the whole neighbourhood is being redeveloped by a large and uncaring corporation – but she also finds two characters that will have a big impact on her life. One is a civil-minded lass called Ivy, the other someone she only meets at night – a lad with a singular graffiti tag and a mind for violence and chaos, who calls himself The Joker… Full Review

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Review of

Mera: Tidebreaker by Danielle Paige and Stephen Byrne

4.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

Meet Mera. She's the latest in a line of young women intent on fighting against their intended destiny for one only they can see for themselves. Her father, the king of Xebel, sees some cotton wool and a hunky man in an arranged marriage as her future – after all, Mera's mother, the territory's warrior queen, is long dead. Mera doesn't fancy the cosseting or the fella involved at all and is, in fact, trying to get Xebel out from under the cosh of Atlantean power, for Xebel's royalty are merely puppets of Atlantean masters. So when she overhears her father request that her intended go to the world of us air-breathing humans, and kill the Atlantis heir, she rushes off to get the quest (and the promised throne) all for herself. But of course, she has no idea what kind of person she will meet, and how hard it will be to get the job done… Full Review

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Review of

Super Sons: The PolarShield Project by Ridley Pearson and Ile Gonzalez

4star.jpg Graphic Novels

It's the near future, and every coastal city – including Metropolis – is in need of a huge flood barrier, built on its coast by Wayne Enterprises. But the rising sea levels have put even those constructions under threat, forcing many people to relocate in America's biggest exodus for decades. Superman is helping out, of course – first, he was patching up the dams, but now he's mining the asteroid belt for a rare dust that's perfect for blocking the solar energy from making further polar ice melt. Inland, in Wyndermere, the refugees from the coast are suffering bigotry and intolerance for being newcomers, but something else is much worse. A major bout of food poisoning is hitting the city. But it can't possibly have anything to do with what looks like sabotage of the flood barriers and the efforts to correct the climate, can it? Four young children begin to piece together clues that it can… Full Review

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Review of

Manfried the Man: A Graphic Novel by Caitlin Major and Kelly Bastow

4.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

In a world where cats stand on two feet, go to work at call centres and have diminutive human beings for pets, is Manfried. He's a typical frisky but shy pet – forever getting into scrapes, demanding more food than he can suitably eat, but at the same time being the perfect companion for his owner, Steve Catson. To such an extent that Steve, who is getting known for his man-oriented thinking, is actually having nightmares about becoming the neighbourhood crazy man cat. But when a window gets left open by mistake, and Manfried goes missing, the only thing for it is a massive and energised man-hunt… Full Review

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Review of

Talking to Gina by Ottilie Hainsworth

4.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

This is what happened. An artist decided she needed a dog – so drove the length of the country, Brighton to Grimsby, to pick up an Eastern European immigrant street dog with some mange and one working eye. Why not? The first night at home, Gina – the dog – eats something she shouldn't and causes a mess, so it's not a great start, but then begin the tribulations of training, status and behaviour all humans must go through with their dogs. And then, the life with Gina begins to feel like too much – I felt weird about you because you were always there. My thoughts were taken over by you, and I felt sick, as if I was in love. Slowly, however, everyone – our artist/author, her husband, two children and two cats – gets to form the family they and Gina all would have wanted. Full Review

Colfer Illegal.jpg

Review of

Illegal by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin

5star.jpg Graphic Novels

Ebo is twelve years old and all alone. His sister left for Europe months ago and now he doesn't know where his brother is either but knows that he has probably done the same thing. So Ebo has to attempt the same dangerous journey himself. He must cross the Sahara Desert, get himself to Tripoli, one of the most dangerous cities in the world, and then try to cross the Mediterranean Sea. By himself. At twelve. And, even if he makes it, how will he find his sister? Full Review

Miller Batman.jpg

Review of

Batman: Dark Knight III: The Master Race by Frank Miller and Brian Azzarello

3.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

Batman is not playing ball. He's been videoed duffing up Gotham policemen, and not the baddies he usually biffs. But then he's not Batman – he's a she, and she finally comes up with the news that Batman died in her hands. Elsewhere, Lara, the daughter of Superman and Wonder Woman, is encouraging Ray Palmer/The Atom to turn his technologies concerned with shrinking and expanding life to the miniaturised city of Kandor, the last vestige of Kryptonian existence not to fly about in visible blue pants. What with Superman sitting idle in an exposed Fortress of Solitude having gone into a sulk, and Batman dead, there would appear to be little in the way of help for the world should anything nasty happen – but then, of course, something nasty does happen… s Full Review

Weeks Gritterman.jpg

Review of

The Gritterman by Orlando Weeks

5star.jpg Graphic Novels

There's a man who has an ice cream van. In summer, what there is of summer, he uses it to sell ice creams, That's not his vocation though, but it does keep him going whilst he waits for winter when the van becomes a Gritting Van and our narrator becomes a Gritterman. The fibreglass 99s on the roof light up and rotate, playing a tune, whether the van's gritting or selling ice creams. Tonight - Christmas Eve - will be the van's last trip. The council has sent the letter about his services no longer being required. Global warming. Dying profession, they say. There's even a tarmac now that can de-ice itself, but the Gritterman isn't sure that he wants to live in a world where the B2116 doesn't need gritting. Full Review

Move on to Newest Historical Fiction Reviews