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[[Category:New Reviews|Graphic Novels]]==Graphic novels==__NOTOC__{{newreview|author=Winshluss|title=Pinocchio|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|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 review. I can't begin to pithily precis the plot, or describe the happenings in any quick, snappy way. To give the gist of the surreal, scattershot whimsicality cannot do the contents justice in any way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955808871</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Allen Ginsberg|title=Howl: A Graphic Novel|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=I first came across Howl as a short film animating one of Ginsberg's own recordings of it. If memory serves, it was a scratchy, jazzy piece, full of spiky, spunky shapes and movements, and low on colour. Now for 2011 and for Penguin Modern Classics' first ever 'graphic novel' comes a very different animation. OK, 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141195703</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lesley Fairfield|title=Tyranny|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 Remove - 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>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=David PetersenEdel Rodriguez|title=Mouse GuardWorm: Legends of The Guard|rating=4|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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857681427</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jonathan Stroud|title=The Amulet of Samarkand|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 FamilyCuban American Odyssey

|summary=In Eton Terrance there lives the Usher familyWe're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a house above saviour of the country, has proven himself a basement flat where Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a gangster holds sway over a Polish "girlfriend"level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. After a bloodbath Our narrator's family weren't in therethe happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the Ushers expand downwardscountry demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, clearing a cavernous hole in their home where a staircase is due to gosuch as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. This is not The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the only crack heat, but in proceedingsthis sultry island country, however, as we soon discover while witnessing it remains the fall kind of this House heat forcing you out of Usher.the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848564163</amazonuk>1474616720

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bryan TalbotKia Ahankoob|title=Grandville Mon Amour|rating=4.5|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 Yard. At least the main problem, 'Mad Dog' Mastock, was sentenced to the guillotine. But in the prologue here he bursts out of his quandary, Gold Lion 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 Tournament of some secretive hiding place, and cause even more danger and peril?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090003</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Neville Colvin and Peter O'Donnell|title=Modesty Blaise: Sweet Caroline|rating=3.5|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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848566735</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joshua Dysart, Cliff Chiang and Dave Stewart|title=Neil Young's GreendaleSentinels

|summary=It's 2003. Alaska is about to get rapedWhen Myriad created Duniva he endowed his children with different powers, each with its own strength and Iraqis killedweakeness, for in the sake of providing hope they would complement each other and collaborate, creating a dynamic and prosperous society. Each power for the USA. Which is ironic, as only before this is Sun Green contained within a powerless young woman, magical ring belonging to one of eight countries led by Myriad's children and after their descendants. But it - welldidn'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, she might have a very different kind of powersolution is proposed. A mystical sort Each of girlthe eight countries will send their greatest warriors, known as sentinels, with to a great affinity to nature, single combat tournament. The winner will take possession of all the teenaged Sun has to first solve many blank spaces in her family tree, rings and work out her nightmares - which might include become the strange man new to townsupreme ruler of Duniva.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848567863</amazonuk>B09MMQJFPV

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Garen EwingPat Grant|title=The Rainbow OrchidGrot: Adventures The Story of Julius Chancer 2the Swamp City Grifters

|summary=It is a truth universally acknowledged Everything in this world runs on pedal-power, and that a zombie story of any renown will not remain simply a zombie storyincludes the punk bands. Before you can say ''There are three pedallers at the risen undead'' it will become a series front of books, inspiring othersthe Heath Robinson contraption taking our lead characters to the ferry across the swamp to Falter City, where a mother and/or lead her two sons aim to the same story being published in many different guisesset up a yoghurt factory. Here, then, on its way to HollywoodYou could say that yoghurt would be the only culture around, for this is Jane Austen’s story a really rough-and-ready dump of Lizzie Benneta place, but everyone is interested in small things that grow. For the feisty young woman trying only money to ignore Mr Darcy while fighting off be had – the ''manky unmentionables'' only fortunes to be found in Falter City – come from algae, gunk and other crud that – at least she well, the use of it is until never really made clear. Once there, the hidden truths open two brothers set themselves each up to herwith a guide – Lippy, just as the soft soils more forward-thinking, industrious of Hertfordshire do to yield their once-human remainsthe two, with a besuited gent, Penn with a ballsy young teenaged girl with bright red hair. And But which of the two will come off the worse as they make their own way in this time it’s in graphic novel form.dystopian, semi-Apocalyptic hellhole?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848566948</amazonuk>1603094660

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mark Millar Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and John Romita JrEdward Gauvin (translator)|title=Kick-AssTiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes

|summary=Meet DaveI 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. The average Joe personifiedI 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, he sits at home with his internet connection, his comics collection, his dadI didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, and very little contact with anyone elseI didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on either side. He This book is practically flawless in giving a typical loner teenager, nearly friendless, wears glasses at school - especially around the hot, mature biology teacher who general browser's context for some reason seems to have maths sums on her blackboard... Until one day he decides to emulate the comics whole season of protests back in his collection1989. 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?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848565356</amazonuk>1684056993

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Phoebe Reeves Murray|title=Ghost: Blood and Fire|rating=1.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Young Jennifer Rhys has been orphaned by the evilDark Angels. They can possess people and bite off their hands, andthere's something about living tattoos which you can take out of boxesand paste into your skin. After growing up in an adolescentpsychiatric wardLeigh Bardugo, she will grow up to go on and confront them Louise Simonson andfulfil her destiny. Or something like that. Between the huge amount ofpoorly drawn characters, the leaden prose, and the disappointingpictures of computerized 3-D models, I got lost a few times andcouldn't summon the interest to work out what was going on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955808863</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Will EisnerKit Seaton|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|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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848563426</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|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 GenesisWonder Woman: 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=PyongyangWarbringer: A Journey in North Korea|rating=4.5|genre=The 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>}} {{newreview|author=Gareth Hinds|title=King LearNovel

|genre=Graphic NovelsTeens|summary=Hound me out of town in a most appropriate mannerDiana, but I do not like King Lear. For mebeing unique on her island, even as is the victim of a trained actorlot of taunts, the language is too dense and rich, the set-up too archly unfeasible to create the great tragedy it's thought to beclaims of nepotism. To my mind the acclaim and esteem in which itIt's held is only mirrored by its own over-longher unique status, over-blown blustering.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0763643440</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Hughes|title=Thomas Wogan is Dead|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Welland her mother being Queen, with a title like that, need I bother with a plot summary? A man has a day out in Morecambe, then the next thing he knows he's in the ultimate waiting room, her with a strange array of animals (a bat, a toadany standing at all, her naysayers declare – even though she has clearly fought to be a sea urchinstrong young woman...) Perhaps too strong for the island, all waiting however – for... well, something. Yup, as you didn't need telling, he's dead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095580888X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Edgar Allan Poe and Gris Grimly|title=Tales of Death and Dementia|rating=5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Wow! What a wonderful combination: Edgar Allan Poe, master of the gothic horror short every Wonder Woman origin story, and Gris Grimly, outstanding illustrator, known has her quickly leaving home for his [[The Dangerous Alphabet by Neil Gaiman and Gris Grimly|work with Neil Gaiman]]. Poe's ''Tales the World of Death Men, and Dementia'' are shown off at their very best in this edition.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847386474</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Bryan Talbot |title=Grandville|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=A dead body found in rural England leads D I LeBrock to urban France, where he Diana is destined to unravel a conspiracy the heroine of revolution, treason, and propaganda of potentially global reachyet another Wonder Woman origin story. What is the truth behind the fall of a famous tower under air attack a few years ago? Why are so many suspicious suicides coming to attention? And will LeBrock be helped or hindered by his being, as his name suggests, A shipwreck disturbs her leading performance in a badger?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224084887</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Will Eisner |title=Minor Miracles|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=This short story collection starts with two appetisers before getting on with two main coursesrunning race, but as with the best meals even survivor she drags from the smallest dishes can have the most depth. We start with the entire life cycle - rise, fall, rise, fall - of waters is only going to disturb a hobo feeding pigeons in the parklot more. Obviously he hasn't been doing that all his years - he's been keeping his dignity intact, with a huge amount of chutzpah and more. Next, a smart Alec defeats the older kids on the stoop with a bit of canny street wisdom.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0393328147</amazonuk>1401282555

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Will Eisner 1401286208|title=A Family MatterBlack Canary: Ignite|author=Meg Cabot and Cara McGee

|summary=Some sonsMeet Dinah Lance. Frustrated that her policeman father will not allow her to try and follow in his footsteps, some daughters, even and seemingly lumbered with being a shy, semi-abandoned great nephew, are all gathering in the home of a ninety year old stroke victim for what may be his last birthday celebration. It seems like they are all licking their lips cheerleader at the thought of a future inheritance. We've heard before of a nuclear familyschool, she is this one about desperate to get too radioactive?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393328139</amazonuk>}} [[Category:Science Fiction]]{{newreview|author=Jonathan Luna and Joshua Luna |title=Girls Volume 1: Conception|rating=4find her voice.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Ethan, we see with But it's actually more a greatcase of her voice finding her, broad comic stroke as when she gets frustrated or six, is not the best when plain dissed at school her vocal outcry can shatter glass better than any opera singer. You could almost call it comes to girls. Letting his mouth run away with him too oftena weapon, he is not very successful at relationshipsor a power. But let us look at what happens when he drives away from an altercation at the local barin order for her to call herself a superhero, and sees there has to be a gorgeous - and very naked - young woman standing in the middle whole path of steps for her to take – one of the road.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1582405298</amazonuk>which will be into her past…

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tony Lee and Sam Hart 1401280048|title=OutlawBatman: Nightwalker: The Legend of Robin Hood (Heroes & Heroines Graphic)Novel|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summaryauthor=Here, Robin Hood is the Earl of Huntington, a man tempered by bitterness encountered as a youth, trained by skills honed with an apparent need for vengeance. He's out crusading, when he learns just the beginning of the story of what is wrong in Nottinghamshire. Returning, he meets John LittleMarie Lu, Stuart Moore and soon falls into the robbing/giving cycle we know and love him for.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406308870</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle |title=Graphic Classics, Volume 17: Science Fiction ClassicsChris Wildgoose

|summary=SoThe young man called Bruce Wayne is a very noticeable one – he can hardly go anywhere without people – bystanders, paparazzi, an introductionand suchlike – reminding him he's a billionaire at the age of eighteen. The Graphic Classics collection is a series whereby Feeling rather stuck with the best 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 genre fictionpursuit of a criminal, from sources both highly likely and remarkably unexpectedhe goes too far as far as the authorities are concerned, is collected and dressed up gets given the most unlikely stretch of community service instead – cleaning in the home for us in graphic novel formviolent criminals that is Arkham Asylum. This seventeenth editionThere he learns of some other people who also allege charitable intent – the Nightwalkers, a belated best-of scigang who steal any ten-fi volume, is their first foray into full colourfigure bank account contents they can, and is headlined by a version murder the owner. Can he get close to one of The War them and get the truth of their schemes, or will the Worlds. The supporting material ranges from manipulative Madeleine be a onestep too far for the young do-page strip to thirty-page stories.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0978791975</amazonuk>gooder?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shaun Tan 1401283292|title=The ArrivalHarley Quinn: Breaking Glass|author=Mariko Tamaki and Steve Pugh|rating=3.5

|summary=A man gathers a last memento or two before taking his suitcase Harleen Quinzel is new in hand, saying farewell to his wife and daughter at the train station, and leaving for the docks to get the boat to the promised landtown. Once arrivedShe always, he finds strangeness everywhere - the foodto me, the languageseems new in town, the immigration procedures, and the lodgings.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0439895294</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Edgar Allen Poe, Various, Dan Whitehead (Editor) |title=Eye Classics: Nevermore - A Graphic Novel Anthology of Edgar Allan Poeeven if she's Short Stories|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels |summary=Sobeen around a long time, if I were to mention someone who was born 200 years ago this seasonfor she always has a very fresh attitude, and who changed the world with their writing, who would you think seems to look out of first? Charles Darwin, probablythose large eyes at everything anew each time. But those of a slightly different bent might just have mentioned someone else - someone at the forefront of all things arcanehere she is new in town, horrific and thrilling when it comes to fictionthe town is Gotham City. Someone who lost his birth and foster Expecting a year-long furlough from life with her mother both to tuberculosis before he was ever twenty. Someone who had most unusual circumstances surrounding his death, she finds her gran dead and herself with no option but to best Agatha Christie vanishing for stay with a while, and most bunch of the detectives in the fiction he helped inspiredrag queens. Someone called Edgar Allan Poe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955285682</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki|title=Skim|rating=4|genre=Teens |summary=Skim She also finds school is a slightly overweightdrag, goth, witch-wannabe teenage girl going to an all girls High School in Toronto in the 1990's. The book takes the form of her diary entries, painfully honest, and very realistic with words crossed out and re-written at times. We see her tortured teen life and how she faces issues of suicide, depression, first love and being something of a mis-fit amongst also finds the usual school cliques. We meet her initially trying out whole neighbourhood is being redeveloped by a witch, large and beginning uncaring corporation – but she also finds two characters that will have a strange, secretive relationship with big impact on her hippy art teacher, Miss Archerlife. Then One is a civil-minded lass called Ivy, after the suicide of the ex-boyfriend of one of the girls other someone she only meets at Skim's school, those in charge at the school go on an overdrive of moral-boosting, supportive exercises to help all the girls cope. This coincides night – a lad with Miss Archer leaving the school, which drops Skim into a morbid depressionsingular graffiti tag and a mind for violence and chaos, isolating her even further from those in her class.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406321362</amazonuk>who calls himself The Joker…

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Herman140128339X|title=I Like My JobMera: Tidebreaker|author=Danielle Paige and Stephen Byrne

|summary=If youMeet Mera. She've ever been faced by too many Post-Its at s the same time, or latest in a performance review, or copious yards line of errant electrical cabling all round your workspace - and especially if you've been left with an apologetic pineapple young women intent on your desk - this is a book fighting against their intended destiny for one only they can see for youthemselves. Here Her father, the office life is king of Xebel, sees some cotton wool and a hunky man in an arranged marriage as her future – after all delegating this, blah blah talk about thatMera's mother, and hanging far too much on the one guy who seems to be most with-it when it comes to the computersterritory's warrior queen, is long dead. ItMera doesn's a black t fancy the cosseting or the fella involved at all and white worldis, in fact, on trying to get Xebel out from under the wholecosh of Atlantean power, where you always get what you generally expected.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>022408576X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Neil Gaiman and Gris Grimly|title=The Dangerous Alphabet|rating=5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=A is for Always, thatXebel's where we embarkroyalty are merely puppets of Atlantean masters. B is for boat So when she overhears her father request that her intended go to the world of us air-breathing humans, and kill the Atlantis heir, pushing she rushes off in to get the dark... And so begins Neil Gaiman's adventure through quest (and the (unreliablepromised throne) alphabetall for herself. But of course, in the company she has no idea what kind of two children and their gazelle. They do battle with monsters, hunt for treasureperson she will meet, and how hard it will be to get into all manner of scrapes. What awaits them when they get to Z? Dare you read on?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747597154</amazonuk>the job done…

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Amit Dasgupta1401286399|title=Indian by Choice|rating=2|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Mandy is forced by circumstance to fly from his lifelong home in Chicago to India to represent his family at a wedding. He hates it. Super Sons: The Indians on the flight are brash, noisy, unmannered. The city he arrives in is a sprawling, noisy, polluted, impoverished mess. Everywhere people think Mandy is a daft name and he should have stuck to his name of birth, Mandeep. But he is American by choice, and finds nothing appealing about the prospect of four weeks in New Delhi.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>8183281362</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewPolarShield Project|author=Guy Delisle|title=Burma ChroniclesRidley Pearson and Ile Gonzalez

|summary=What we have here are a male househusband and artistIt's the near future, and his MSF doctor wife, and their life every coastal city – including Metropolis – is in Burma or Myanmar for roughly need of a yearhuge flood barrier, built on its coast by Wayne Enterprises. We get But the rising sea levels have put even those constructions under threat, forcing many people to see the life relocate in the countryAmerica's biggest exodus for decades. Superman is helping out, from the racks of bootleg softwarecourse – first, to the animation class he leads, to their efforts to get into was patching up the lush country clubsdams, to their baby being adored by every passing girl. We see but now he's mining the state of asteroid belt for a rare dust that's perfect for blocking the countrysolar energy from making further polar ice melt. Inland, with its horrid drugsin Wyndermere, HIV/AIDS the refugees from the coast are suffering bigotry and malaria problemsintolerance for being newcomers, hidden beyond but something else is much worse. A major bout of food poisoning is hitting the gentle Buddhist retreatscity. We see the DelislesBut it can' interaction t possibly have anything to do with this singular country - what looks like sabotage of the censored press, flood barriers and the fact efforts to correct the climate, can it? Four young children begin to piece together clues that their road is only made more busy because of the roadblock diverting everyone away from Aung San Suu Kyi's house a block away.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224087711</amazonuk>it can…

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tom Siddell168369015X|title=Gunnerkrigg CourtManfried the Man: OrientationA Graphic Novel|author=Caitlin Major and Kelly Bastow

|summary=While having used the internet In a world where cats stand on two feet, go to work at call centres and have diminutive human beings for several years now I have never needed to use the favourites option much – there pets, is Manfried. He's a routine 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 my comings and goings online his owner, Steve Catson. To such an extent that I can handleSteve, who is getting known for his man-oriented thinking, and I donis actually having nightmares about becoming the neighbourhood ''crazy man cat''t think I regret losing out on a regular visit to any particular site much. The downside of this is that But when a lot of online graphic novels have probably passed me window gets left open bymistake, and Manfried goes missing, as I habitually don't form the habit of clicking to them. It's only thing for it is a relief then that one very wellmassive and energised man-acclaimed example, Gunnerkrigg Court, has come to my attention in book form.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184856175X</amazonuk>hunt…

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rod SerlingHainsworth_Gina|title=The Twilight Zone: The Monsters are Due on Maple Street Talking to Gina|author=Ottilie Hainsworth

|summary=One ''This is what happened.'' An artist decided she needed a dog – so drove the length of the benefits of growing up when I didcountry, as opposed Brighton toGrimsby, say, just a year or two earlier, was that home VHS coincided to pick up an Eastern European immigrant street dog with the first attempts to have round-the-clock TV in Britainsome mange and one working eye. Why not? The channels struggled to provide enough programming first night at home, Gina – the dog – eats something she shouldn't and causes a budgetmess, just as they do to this dayso it's not a great start, but one thing they did give usthen begin the tribulations of training, delightfullystatus and behaviour all humans must go through with their dogs. And then, was the life with Gina begins to feel like too much – ''The Twilight ZoneI 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>0747587914</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shirley HughesColfer_Illegal|title=Bye Bye BirdieIllegal|author=Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin|rating=45

|summary=Ah, who Ebo is twelve years old and all alone. His sister left for Europe months ago and now he doesn't love Shirley Hughes? We've all read and cherished [[Alfie]] and [[Dogger]] over know where his brother is either but knows that he has probably done the same thing. So Ebo has to attempt the yearssame dangerous journey himself. 'Bye Bye Birdie' is her first graphic novel for adultsHe must cross the Sahara Desert, get himself to Tripoli, one of the most dangerous cities in the world, and it's as great as you'd expect it then try to becross the Mediterranean Sea. By himself. At twelve. A man goes on a date with a womanAnd, even if he makes it, but things don't turn out how will he expected.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>022408075X</amazonuk>find his sister?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=BarasuiMiller_Batman|title=Strawberry MarshmallowBatman: v.1Dark Knight III: The Master Race|author=Frank Miller and Brian Azzarello|rating=43.5

|summary=Strawberry Marshmallow Batman is a slice-of-life manga by Barasui that follows the day to day lives of sixteen year old Nobue, her twelve year old sister Chikanot playing ball. He's been videoed duffing up Gotham policemen, and Chikanot the baddies he usually biffs. But then he's not Batman – he's friends Miu a she, and Matsurishe 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 little girls try Atom to solve problems turn his technologies concerned with shrinking and help each other outexpanding life to the miniaturised city of Kandor, but things don't always go wellthe last vestige of Kryptonian existence not to fly about in visible blue pants. Leading to What with Superman sitting idle in an exposed Fortress of Solitude having gone into a slow pacedsulk, heart warming manga that's basic premise is 'cute girls do cute things and Batman dead, there would appear to be little in cute ways'. Sounds exciting doesn't it? Don't be fooled! ''Strawberry Marshmallow''the way of help for the world should anything nasty happen – but then, like most slice-of-life manga and anime is full of gentlecourse, subtle and slightly obscure humour.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1598164945</amazonuk>something nasty does happen… s

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Oivind Hovland Weeks_Gritterman|title=Trial and Error: The Aviated Efforts of Jean Babtiste de Bomberaque|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=We open with a long, slow aerial shot, up the driveway of a chateau buried in the French countryside, focussing in on the family (father, mother, daughter, son) that live there. All except this cannot happen, as yet, for this is long before the age of powered flight and such a shot is impossible. It is up to the son in that family, one Jean Babtiste de Bomberaque, to pursue that dream and make it true.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955808847</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Oivind Hovland |title=A Day in the Life of Alfred|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Witness Alfred, getting up, getting ready for work, finding himself low on toothpaste again, going to work, working, coming back from work and falling asleep at home. Is it Alfred's fault, or the world's, that in all that routine, it appears nobody ever talks to him?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955808855</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewGritterman|author=Rosalind Penfold|title=Dragonslippers: This is What an Abusive Relationship Looks LikeOrlando Weeks

|summary=So, There's a five star book where we can predict the entire plotman who has an ice cream van. In summer, and at times foretell just what people in there is of summer, he uses it say. Itto 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 damning indictment of things that that is even possibleGritterman.  This book lives by its subtitle – ''this is what an abusive relationship looks likeThe 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. Rosalind meets a man who seems nigh-on perfect – they seem to fall in love with ease, and she gets on very well with The council has sent the letter about his four children from an earlier marriageservices no longer being required. Global warming. Then odd occurrences start to happen – he declares her work getting in his wayDying profession, he possibly drinks they say. There's even a bit too muchtarmac now that can de-ice itself, but the Gritterman isn't sure that he sees flirting wants to live in her shop-talk with other men. And things escalate and escalate, and – you know every stage. She suffers a guilt trip, before suffering physical violence, discovering affairs, getting back with him, then finding world where the right kind of helpB2116 doesn't need gritting.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007216882</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan |title=Demo: v. 1|rating=5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=It's not every young disaffected teenager that will respond to the withdrawal of her medication so explosively. It's not every young disaffected teenager that runs through empty landscapes because she is too scared to speak to anyone – for quite the reasons we see here. Not every family patches itself back together over a funeral in the fashion the third story gives us. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>184576921X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Will Eisner|title=The Dreamer|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=So, who else on the burgeoning Bookbag database has created a whole literary artform, almost single-handed? Not just added something to a genre, or tweaked a style to her own, but done so much towards inventing a format of literature? The name of Will Eisner is legend in the world of graphic fiction, and this book, starting as a thinly-veiled autobiography, is almost as iconic as its creator.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393328082</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Emma Rendel|title=Pentti and Deathgirl |rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=I don't think there will be a more divisive book on our Bookbag database for many a moon to come than this volume. The publishers have it that this is ''a strange and wonderful delight for every reader'', and while that phrase starts with full honesty I have to say it becomes less truthful with every word.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224085069</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Shannon Hale, Dean Hale and Nathan Hale|title=Rapunzel's Revenge|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=''Rapunzel's Revenge'' is a re-telling of the Grimm Brothers' fairy tale. It is set in the Wild West and is in the form of a graphic novel. Rapunzel is a feisty 12-year-old living in a grand villa with Mother Gothel. She wants for nothing in the material sense, but is bored and rather lonely. A large wall surrounds the villa, and Rapunzel is determined to climb it, despite being forbidden to do so. She scales the wall and is amazed at what lies Move on the other side. On her return, she has a chance encounter with her real mother who is enslaved in the mine camps beyond the villa. To punish her rebellion, Rapunzel is banished and imprisoned in a lofty magical tree, but the magic also helps her hair to grow and eventually gives provides her with the means to escape.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1599902885</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Danny Fingeroth|title=The Rough Guide to Graphic Novels|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=I have an admission to make. There are elements of my life I hold dear that, whatever I do, I cannot make other people converts to. They remain resilient to the charms of OMD, and for the life of me I seem unable to make people see the merit of graphic novels.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843539934</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sally Kindberg and Tracey Turner|title=The Comic Strip History of the World|rating=5|genre=Children's Non-[[Newest Historical Fiction|summary=''The Comic Strip History of the World'' is, as you might expect, a comic strip history of the world. It covers everything from the Big Bang to the present day, with each period of history summed up in a page or two. It's very much a potted history in the vein of the Horrible Histories series and 1066 and All That. It's a fantastic book, both as a light fun read, and as a brief education into everything that has been before. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747594317</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Gary Northfield|title=Derek the Sheep|rating=3|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Derek spends his days eating grass, talking to other sheep, trying to avoid angry bulls and entering the Farmyard Best Haircut competition - y'know, typical sheep stuff. ''Derek the Sheep'' packages together thirteen of the comic strips from ''The Beano'' into an enjoyable collection.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747594244</amazonuk>}}Reviews]]