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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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Edel Rodriguez
|title=The Weirdo Years 1981-'91
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|title=Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey
|author=R Crumb
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Books are better than magazines – discussCertainly for the connoisseur of the contents of culturally important titles from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s it must be a lively debateI remember my collection of ''New Worlds'' editions and how often the editors would take us through a long novel over seven or eight parts, then dump a 'sorry, due to space requirements this last part of what you've cherished for months is abridged – but wait for the novel version soon' on us.  Is it better to be a completist, and witness everything the original editors deemed worthy (or just had lying around) or should we cherry-pick and note the best?  This hefty hunk of book goes for the latter, anyway, taking [[:Category:Robert Crumb|R Crumb]]'s output for the ''Weirdo'' comic, as edited by R Crumb, then someone else, then Mrs R Crumb, and giving us everything, warts and all.
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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 allWell, 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…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0861662253</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1474616720
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Kia Ahankoob
|title=The Hartlepool Monkey
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|title=The Gold Lion and the Tournament of Sentinels
|author=Wilfrid Lupano and Jeremie Moreau
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=OK, I'll get the obvious pun over and done with – this graphic novel features a lot of monkeying around.  It focuses on the village of Hartlepool, and the people who populated the small settlement on low cliffs overlooking the North Sea, with its couple of pubs and not much else.  It looks at what might have happened when, as folklore has it, a storm put paid to a French ship and when a monkey washed up ashore afterwards the natives took it for a Napoleonic spy, tried to find invasion plans from it, and hanged it as the enemy. Here the poor creature is even shaved so it shows respect to the court-martial. Here too are some lovely choice lines of vernacular delivered in spite about the French and the English, and here too is a guest appearance by someone with a much more modern outlook than the ridiculous Hartlepool residents.
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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>0861662261</amazonuk>
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|isbn=B09MMQJFPV
 
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Pat Grant
|title=The Hartlepool Monkey
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|title=The Grot: The Story of the Swamp City Grifters
|author=Wilfrid Lupano and Jeremie Moreau
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=OK, I'll get the obvious pun over and done with – this graphic novel features a lot of monkeying aroundIt focuses on the village of Hartlepool, and the people who populated the small settlement on low cliffs overlooking the North Sea, with its couple of pubs and not much elseIt looks at what might have happened when, as folklore has it, a storm put paid to a French ship and when a monkey washed up ashore afterwards the natives took it for a Napoleonic spy, tried to find invasion plans from it, and hanged it as the enemyHere the poor creature is even shaved so it shows respect to the court-martial.  Here too are some lovely choice lines of vernacular delivered in spite about the French and the English, and here too is a guest appearance by someone with a much more modern outlook than the ridiculous Hartlepool residents.
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|summary=Everything in this world runs on pedal-power, and that includes the punk bandsThere 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 factoryYou 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>0861662261</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)
|title=Celtic Warrior: The Legend of Cu Chulainn
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|title=Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes
|author=Will Sliney
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=Queen Maeve wants the Brown Bull of Cooley and the lands of Ulster. With an army of 10,000 men, she marches to try to take them by force. The only man who stands between her and her goal is Cú Chulainn, the legendary hero. Can he save his country from the evil enchantress?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847173381</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
 
|title=Big Nate Compilation 3 : Genius Mode
 
|author=Lincoln Peirce
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=They say you should live your life like an adventure, and Big Nate certainly does that, even if it is only four panels at a time, meaning the full plot of the story can take a week or more to come out.  For Big Nate is a star of an American newspaper comic strip, and this, believe it or not, is his tenth collection.  We learn from this all about his friendships at school, his relations with his teachers and father, and just what a soppy thing his most unmasculine dog can be.  Here are comics, baseball and laziness, as every American kid knows them.  Luckily for us, though, Big Nate travels well.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007515642</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
 
|author=Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
 
|title=The From Hell Companion
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=[[:Category:Alan Moore|Alan Moore]] will always be synonymous with two major books [[Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons|Watchmen]] and From Hell, his look at the Whitechapel Murders.  While the latter may appear to many to be a great, galumphing graphic novel loosely about Jack the Ripper, you ain't seen nothing yet.  This volume is his illustrator [[:Category:Eddie Campbell|Eddie Campbell's]] look at proceedings, and for a book that would appear to have no actual Moore input in it, he provides a welter of words for 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 side.  This book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0861661842</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1684056993
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Leigh Bardugo, Louise Simonson and Kit Seaton
|author=Jennie Wood and Jeff McComsey
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|title=Wonder Woman: Warbringer: The Graphic Novel
|title=Flutter
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|rating=3
|rating=5
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|genre=Teens
|genre=Graphic Novels
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|summary=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...
|summary=When fifteen-year-old Lily moves to yet another new town, she falls for a girl who isn't interested in her. Lily, though, has a trick up her sleeve - she's a shapeshifter. She turns herself into a boy so that she can have a chance with Saffron. As Jesse, she starts to build a new life for herself at school -can this 'boy' get the girl? Additionally, why is Lily so resistant to any sort of harm, and who are the strange people who are trying to find her?
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|isbn=1401282555
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1484085957</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Mark Millar and Leinil Yu
 
|title=Superior
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=Former basketball star Simon Pooni is now in a wheelchair and blind in one eye - at the age of 12. Mutliple sclerosis has left him in this state, praying for a cure. Then a talking monkey named Orman appears to him and offers him the chance to become a real life version of movie superhero Superior - for a week. But what will happen when the week ends?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857685945</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Geoff Johns and Doug Mahnke
 
|title=Green Lantern Volume 1: Sinestro
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=I've never been a Green Lantern fan - I've tried the series a couple of times in the past but seem to have picked bad times to give it a go. However, I've heard some good things about DC Comics recently so wanted to try a few of the New 52 books, which relaunched all of the publisher's ongoing monthlies, and this caught my eye.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1401234550</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1401286208
|author=Hannah Eaton
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|title=Black Canary: Ignite
|title=Naming Monsters
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|author=Meg Cabot and Cara McGee
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=''Monsters are all around us'', we are told, and Fran should know.  She opens each chapter of her episodic story here with a new monster – a golem, an incubus, or perhaps something less well known. But there are subtly monstrous events in her life as well – an alleged boyfriend with a measly attitude, a fake medium, a summer of retaking GCSEs, and more – as well as the biggest, blackest, visitation – something that should bring succour, family and friendship but cannot be handled.
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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>190843421X</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
 
|author=Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon
 
|title=Preacher Volume 1: Gone To Texas
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=Reverend Jesse Custer is losing his faith in God - but he's about to find out that He exists, and He isn't all that He's cracked up to be. After one incredible event, Jesse's life is turned upside down, and he sets out on a road trip that will lead him to try and get answers from God himself - if Heaven's angels, and the Saint of Killers, don't cut him down first.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1563892618</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
 
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|isbn=1401280048
{{newreview
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|title=Batman: Nightwalker: The Graphic Novel
|author=Peter O'Donnell
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|author=Marie Lu, Stuart Moore and Chris Wildgoose
|title=Modesty Blaise - The Girl In The Iron Mask
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=n this volume our globe-trotting heroine Modesty and her faithful Willie land up at a jungle hospital, only to find the people providing it with useful drugs are also creating their own much worse drugs nearby; find the Mafia just one man away from taking over Australia – and therefore give him a male and female tag team back-up; and stumble into the wicked games of a pair of corrupt, evil billionaires in the Alps.  There is no let-up in the global shenanigans, the daring-do, or the whipcrack action – and we wouldn’t want it any other way…
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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 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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857686941</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1401283292
|author=Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill
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|title=Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass
|title=Nemo: Heart of Ice
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|author=Mariko Tamaki and Steve Pugh
|rating=3
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=The Nemo here is merely the daughter of the great Captain Nemo, as defined by Jules Verne, although given that heritage there is more than enough talent in her bloodline for piracy and adventure.  Here, fleeing a royal family that has just been looted, Nemo turns to her father's logbooks and journals, and decides there is unfinished business in the southern polar wastes.  But while she's off looking for more edifying action, others are off looking for revenge on her…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0861661834</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Cassandra Clare and HyeKyung Baek
 
|title=The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Angel, Volume 1: The Manga (Manga Edition)
 
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Meet Tessa GraySummonsed to London to be with her brother after living in America, she has no idea what she is going to be in for.  A kidnap and training at the hands of two witches is only the start of it as she is forced to find the truth about the world about her – about the two different kinds of supernatural beings, and of how they constantly fight against each other, and about her own unique origin, character and destiny that makes her more than a pawn in this battleYou might have met Tessa before, but not like this – for this is the manga adaptation of the series.
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|summary=Harleen Quinzel is new in townShe 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 CityExpecting 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 lifeOne 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>0356502252</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
 
|author=Joff Winterhart
 
|title=Days of the Bagnold Summer
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=Meet Daniel BagnoldHe is a surly, sullen, modern teenager, permanently in a black hoodie, with long, lanky hair and almost a monobrow, who one would call very quiet were it not for the metal music that forms almost his only interest.  He has been forced to spend the summer, not in Florida with his absent father's new family, but with his librarian mother Sue, his best friend and his shynessHe doesn't want much, and neither it would appear does his mother although she knows she has to get him some posh shoes for her cousin's weddingThis book is about their relationship the two of them and the dog that completes the household – in telling, devastating and humorous manner.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090844</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=140128339X
|author=David Nytra
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|title=Mera: Tidebreaker
|title=The Secret of the Stone Frog
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|author=Danielle Paige and Stephen Byrne
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=You know the drill – you are a young boy and find yourself waking up alongside your older sister, but with your beds beside the bole of a huge tree in an enchanted forest.  The advice you get is straightforward, but impossible to follow, as you don't stick to the straight and simple path home that you should.  As a result you find a tempting house guarded by bees who steal the words out of your mouth, hoity-toity upper class lions, angler fish on the daily commute and more.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1935179187</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
 
|author=Krent Able
 
|title=Krent Able's Big Book of Mischief
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=It's come to my attention recently that Knockabout books, with their growing library of graphic titles, have no intention in being at all literary – not for them the gently observant characterisation of some original graphic novelsInstead they seem to have a wilful regard for going even further than their house name suggests – wild, wacky and not afraid to present an upsetting image.  With Krent Able they have the collaborator who will surely help them live up to that ethos like no otherTaken from the ''Stool Pigeon'' musical magazine, with some extra cartoons, are these strips of depravity, death in unlikely ways and revolting selections of body parts and fluids.
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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 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 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 herselfBut 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>0861661796</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1401286399
|author=Robert R Crumb and Aline Crumb
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|title=Super Sons: The PolarShield Project
|title=Drawn Together
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|author=Ridley Pearson and Ile Gonzalez
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=This book is, as it says several times, the collected works of the world's only comic-strip creating husband-and-wife partnership. While this is to ignore the work Joyce does to co-write some of Harvey Pekar's titles, there certainly is not a couple such as this. Over several decades of work, we see just how joined at the hip they are. Most of the panels are drawn by him - R - with Aline drawing herself on top of his inked backgrounds.  Later on, their self-created titles are split, with him doing half the pages, and her own opus on the other half - by this time she had had works out under her own name.  But so close are the couple in each other's intimate works, they are never very far from the edge of the frame.
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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>0861661788</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=168369015X
|author=Hunt Emerson and Kevin Jackson
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|title=Manfried the Man: A Graphic Novel
|title=Dante's Inferno
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|author=Caitlin Major and Kelly Bastow
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=It seems incredibly right, on only the third page of this text, that the Divine Comedy should be transferred to the black and white, cartoonish side of the graphic novel format.  Our venturing hero encounters the 'leopard of malice and fraud', the 'lion of violence and ambition' and the 'she-wolf of avarice and incontinence', and leaves bemoaning ''living in a world of symbolism''.  You could see the beasts illustrated and captioned by name curving alongside their body, just as Hogarth may have displayed them, but no, Emerson goes down the path that is less cartoonish and less newspaper comic strip, and lets the picture and script stay a bit more separate.  But later on he is delving into the more blatant, and immediate, by dressing The Furies up as multiple Maggie Thatchers.  The good thing about this book is there is reason for everything in it - from the examples of artwork I have described, to the fact both creators claim it to have been 'influenced by childhood reading of MAD magazine', and a reason the publisher of this untouchable classic is known as Knockabout Books.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0861661699</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Grant Morrison
 
|title=Supergods: Our World in the Age of the Superhero
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Consider the super-hero comic.  Borne out of a need to create cheap and franchise-friendly content for newspapers in America, it's grown into a billion-dollar industry, with Hollywood jumping on the bandwagon of several major characters now their FX have finally caught up with the printed page. Disposable? - once upon a time, yet now collectable to the tune of a million dollars or more.  Frivolous? - probably, yet not exclusively now, if ever so.  At one point here, they are just one product of the infinitely powerful imaginary system each of us carries in our brain, and at the other 'ethereal, paper-thin constructs of unfettered imagination'.
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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>0099546671</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=Hainsworth_Gina
|author=Eddie Campbell
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|title=Talking to Gina
|title=The Lovely Horrible Stuff
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|author=Ottilie Hainsworth
|rating=4
 
|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 it.  He 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 more.  In 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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1603091521</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Maarten vande Wiele
 
|title=Paris
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=In the category of graphic novels not to be seen reading in public, Paris is way up thereWith a gaudy pink and silver glitz cover, and a lot of blowjobs and sex inside, it's not one for the daily commuteBut, 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 perusalHope 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.
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|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 dogsAnd then, the life with Gina begins to feel like too much – ''I felt weird about you because you were always thereMy 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>0861661737</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=Colfer_Illegal
|author=Nicolas de Crecy
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|title=Illegal
|title=The Celestial Bibendum
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|author=Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin
|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
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|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?
+
|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>1401222412</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=Miller_Batman
|author=Bill Willingham
+
|title=Batman: Dark Knight III: The Master Race
|title=Fables: Legends in Exile - Vol 01
+
|author=Frank Miller and Brian Azzarello
|rating=5
+
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|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.
+
|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>1563899426</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=Weeks_Gritterman
|author=Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
+
|title=The Gritterman
|title=Watchmen
+
|author=Orlando Weeks
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|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...
+
|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>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
 
|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
 
|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]].
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224096087</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Historical Fiction Reviews]]
|author=Peter O'Donnell
 
|title=Modesty Blaise: Live Bait
 
|rating=4
 
|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 1980s.  Titan 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]].
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857686682</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Patricia McKissack, Frederick L McKissack Jr and Randy DuBurke
 
|title=Best Shot in the West
 
|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
 
|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 England.  It’s been a rollercoaster ride, and it’s been worth it.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405255994</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Gary Crew and Shaun Tan
 
|title=The Viewer
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=The story concerns a young lad who loves scavenging and exploring.  Finding 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 mine.  Instead, Tristan sees nothing but death and destruction, and a compelling sense of - well, something.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0734411898</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Art Spiegelman
 
|title=MetaMAUS
 
|rating=5
 
|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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670916838</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Harry Thompson
 
|title=Tintin: Herge and His Creation
 
|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
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=A confession.  If there's one book I'm not likely to read, it's that which everyone else is reading.  If 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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408815257</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