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[[Category:New Reviews|Graphic Novels]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Hartlepool MonkeyEdel Rodriguez|authortitle=Wilfrid Lupano and Jeremie MoreauWorm: A Cuban American Odyssey

|summary=OKWe're in childhood, Iand we'll get re in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the obvious pun over country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done with – this graphic novel features nearly enough to create a lot level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of monkeying aroundhis were kind of taking his time away. It focuses on Our narrator's family weren't in the village happiest of Hartlepoolplaces here, and an uncle refusing to be the people who populated good soldier the small settlement on low cliffs overlooking country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the North Seafather being watched and watched, 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 liked for a Napoleonic spyhis successful photography business, tried to find invasion plans from it, and hanged it as the enemysuccess being frowned upon. Here The mother gets the couple jobs with the poor creature is even shaved so it shows respect party to the court-martial. Here too are ease some lovely choice lines of vernacular delivered the heat, but in spite about this sultry island country, it remains the French and kind of heat forcing you out of the English, and here too is a guest appearance by someone with a much more modern outlook than the ridiculous Hartlepool residents.kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0861662261</amazonuk>1474616720

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kia Ahankoob|title=Celtic Warrior: The Legend Gold Lion and the Tournament of Cu Chulainn|author=Will SlineySentinels

|summary=Queen Maeve wants When Myriad created Duniva he endowed his children with different powers, each with its own strength and weakeness, in the Brown Bull 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 Cooley 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 lands eight countries went to war. Having fought themselves into an endless and ruinous stalemate and finding the cost of Ulsterwar too high, a solution is proposed. With an army Each of 10the eight countries will send their greatest warriors,000 menknown as sentinels, she marches to try to take them by forcea single combat tournament. The only man who stands between her winner will take possession of all the rings and her goal is Cú Chulainn, become the legendary herosupreme ruler of Duniva. Can he save his country from the evil enchantress?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847173381</amazonuk>B09MMQJFPV

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Big Nate Compilation 3 : Genius ModePat Grant|authortitle=Lincoln PeirceThe Grot: The Story of the Swamp City Grifters

|summary=When fifteenEverything in this world runs on pedal-year-old Lily moves 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 yet another new townFalter City, she falls for where a girl who isn't interested in mother and hertwo sons aim to set up a yoghurt factory. Lily You could say that yoghurt would be the only culture around, though, has for this is a trick up her sleeve really rough-and- she's ready dump of a shapeshifterplace, but everyone is interested in small things that grow. She turns herself into a boy so For the only money to be had – the only fortunes to be found in Falter City – come from algae, gunk and other crud that she can have a chance with Saffron– well, the use of it is never really made clear. As Jesse Once there, she starts to build the two brothers set themselves each up with a new life for herself at school guide – Lippy, the more forward-can this 'boy' get thinking, industrious of the two, with a besuited gent, Penn with a ballsy young teenaged girl? Additionally, why is Lily so resistant to any sort with bright red hair. But which of harmthe two will come off the worse as they make their own way in this dystopian, and who are the strange people who are trying to find hersemi-Apocalyptic hellhole?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1484085957</amazonuk>1603094660

 {{newreviewFrontpage|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 stateLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, 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 Ameziane and Doug MahnkeEdward Gauvin (translator)|title=Green Lantern Volume 1Tiananmen 1989: SinestroOur Shattered Hopes

|summary=I've never been a Green Lantern fan - I've tried really followed the series a couple events of times Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the past but seem to have picked bad times to give it a gosecond half of their teens has other priorities, you know. However, Icertainly didn've heard some good things about DC Comics recently so wanted to try a few t know of the New 52 books, which relaunched all weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the birth of the publisher's ongoing monthliesTank Man image, and this caught my eye.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1401234550</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Hannah Eaton|title=Naming Monsters|rating=3.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=I didn''Monsters are all around us'', we are told, and Fran should t 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 how the area had long been a measly attitude, a fake medium, a summer of retaking GCSEsvenue for political protest, and I didn't know more – as well as than a spit about the biggest, blackest, visitation – something that should bring succour, family and friendship but cannot be handledpeople involved on either side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190843421X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon|title=Preacher Volume 1: Gone To Texas|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Reverend Jesse Custer This book is losing his faith practically flawless 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 giving a road trip that will lead him to try and get answers from God himself - if Heavengeneral browser's angels, and context for the Saint whole season of Killers, don't cut him down first.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1563892618</amazonuk>}}  {{newreview|author=Peter O'Donnell|title=Modesty Blaise - The Girl In The Iron Mask|rating=4|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 protests back-up; and stumble into the wicked games of a pair of corrupt, evil billionaires in the Alps1989. 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…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857686941</amazonuk>1684056993

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alan Moore Leigh Bardugo, Louise Simonson and Kevin O'NeillKit Seaton|title=NemoWonder Woman: Warbringer: Heart of IceThe Graphic Novel

|genre=Graphic NovelsTeens|summary=The Nemo here Diana, being unique on her island, is merely the daughter victim of a lot of the great Captain Nemotaunts, as defined by Jules Verne, although given that heritage there is more than enough talent in her bloodline for piracy and adventureclaims of nepotism. HereIt's only her unique status, and her mother being Queen, fleeing a royal family that has just been lootedher with any standing at all, Nemo turns 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 father's logbooks and journalsquickly leaving home for the World of Men, and decides there this Diana is unfinished business in the southern polar wastesheroine of yet another Wonder Woman origin story. But while A shipwreck disturbs her leading performance in a running race, but the survivor she's off looking for drags from the waters is only going to disturb a lot more edifying action, others are off looking for revenge on her…...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0861661834</amazonuk>1401282555

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cassandra Clare and HyeKyung Baek1401286208|title=The Infernal DevicesBlack Canary: Clockwork Angel, Volume 1: The Manga (Manga Edition)Ignite|author=Meg Cabot and Cara McGee

|summary=Meet Tessa GrayDinah Lance. Summonsed Frustrated that her policeman father will not allow her to London to be with her brother after living try and follow in Americahis footsteps, she has no idea what she is going to be in for. A kidnap and training seemingly lumbered with being a cheerleader at the hands of two witches is only the start of it as school, she is forced desperate to find the truth about the world about her – about the two different kinds voice. But it's actually more a case of supernatural beings, and of how they constantly fight against each other, and about her own unique originvoice finding her, character and destiny that makes as when she gets frustrated or plain dissed at school her more vocal outcry can shatter glass better than any opera singer. You could almost call it a weapon, or a pawn power. But in this battle. You might have met Tessa beforeorder for her to call herself a superhero, but not like this there has to be a whole path of steps for her to take – for this is the manga adaptation one of the series.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0356502252</amazonuk>which will be into her past…

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joff Winterhart1401280048|title=Days of the Bagnold SummerBatman: Nightwalker: The Graphic Novel|author=Marie Lu, Stuart Moore and Chris Wildgoose

|summary=Meet Daniel Bagnold. He The young man called Bruce Wayne is a surly, sullen, modern teenager, permanently in a black hoodievery noticeable one – he can hardly go anywhere without people – bystanders, with longpaparazzi, lanky hair and almost suchlike – reminding him he's a monobrow, who one would call very quiet were it not for billionaire at the metal music that forms almost his only interestage of eighteen. He has been forced to spend Feeling rather stuck with the summer, not in Florida with his absent fatherlegacy he's new family, but with inherited from his librarian mother Suemurdered parents, his best friend and his shynesshe wants to do charitable deeds. He doesn't want muchBut one night, and neither it would appear does when he speeds off in his mother – although she knows she has to get him some posh shoes for her cousin's wedding. This book is about their relationship – new car in pursuit of a criminal, he goes too far as far as the two of them authorities are concerned, and gets given the dog that completes the household most unlikely stretch of community service instead – cleaning in telling, devastating and humorous mannerthe home for violent criminals that is Arkham Asylum.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090844</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Nytra|title=The Secret There he learns of some other people who also allege charitable intent – the Stone Frog|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=You know the drill – you are Nightwalkers, a young boy gang who steal any ten-figure bank account contents they can, and find yourself waking up alongside your older sister, but with your beds beside murder the bole of a huge tree in an enchanted forestowner. The advice you Can he get is straightforward, but impossible close to followone of them and get the truth of their schemes, as you don't stick to or will the straight and simple path home that you should. As manipulative Madeleine be a result you find a tempting house guarded by bees who steal step too far for the words out of your mouth, hoityyoung do-toity upper class lions, angler fish on the daily commute and more.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1935179187</amazonuk>gooder?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Krent Able1401283292|title=Krent Able's Big Book of MischiefHarley Quinn: Breaking Glass|author=Mariko Tamaki and Steve Pugh

|summary=ItHarleen Quinzel is new in town. She always, to me, seems new in town, even if she's come been around a long time, for she always has a very fresh attitude, and seems to my attention recently that Knockabout books, with their growing library look out of graphic titlesthose large eyes at everything anew each time. But here she is new in town, have no intention in being at all literary – not for them and the gently observant characterisation of some original graphic novelstown is Gotham City. Instead they seem to have Expecting a wilful regard for going even further than their house name suggests – wildyear-long furlough from life with her mother, wacky she finds her gran dead and not afraid herself with no option but to present an upsetting imagestay with a bunch of drag queens. With Krent Able they have She also finds school is a drag, she also finds the collaborator who whole neighbourhood is being redeveloped by a large and uncaring corporation – but she also finds two characters that will surely help them live up to that ethos like no otherhave a big impact on her life. Taken from One is a civil-minded lass called Ivy, the ''Stool Pigeon'' musical magazine, other someone she only meets at night – a lad with some extra cartoons, are these strips of depravity, death in unlikely ways a singular graffiti tag and revolting selections of body parts a mind for violence and fluids.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0861661796</amazonuk>chaos, who calls himself The Joker…

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert R Crumb and Aline Crumb140128339X|title=Drawn TogetherMera: Tidebreaker|author=Danielle Paige and Stephen Byrne|rating=4.5

|summary=This book is, as it says several times, Meet Mera. She's the collected works latest in a line of the world's young women intent on fighting against their intended destiny for one only comic-strip creating husband-and-wife partnershipthey can see for themselves. While this is to ignore Her father, the work Joyce does to co-write king of Xebel, sees some of Harvey Pekarcotton wool and a hunky man in an arranged marriage as her future – after all, Mera's mother, the territory's titleswarrior queen, there certainly is not a couple such as thislong dead. Over several decades 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 workAtlantean power, we see just how joined at the hip they for Xebel's royalty aremerely puppets of Atlantean masters. Most of So when she overhears her father request that her intended go to the panels are drawn by him - R - with Aline drawing herself on top world of his inked backgrounds. Later on, their selfus air-created titles are splitbreathing humans, with him doing half and kill the pagesAtlantis heir, she rushes off to get the quest (and her own opus on the other half - by this time she had had works out under her own namepromised throne) all for herself. But so close are the couple in each other's intimate worksof course, they are never very far from the edge she has no idea what kind of person she will meet, and how hard it will be to get the frame.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0861661788</amazonuk>job done…

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hunt Emerson and Kevin Jackson1401286399|title=Dante's InfernoSuper Sons: The PolarShield Project|author=Ridley Pearson and Ile Gonzalez

|summary=It seems incredibly right, on only 's the third page of this textnear future, that the Divine Comedy should be transferred to the black and whiteevery coastal city – including Metropolis – is in need of a huge flood barrier, cartoonish side of the graphic novel formatbuilt on its coast by Wayne Enterprises. Our venturing hero encounters But the rising sea levels have put even those constructions under threat, forcing many people to relocate in America'leopard s biggest exodus for decades. Superman is helping out, of malice and fraud'course – first, he was patching up the dams, but now he'lion of violence and ambitions mining the asteroid belt for a rare dust that' and s perfect for blocking the 'she-wolf of avarice and incontinence'solar energy from making further polar ice melt. Inland, and leaves bemoaning ''living in a world of symbolism''. You could see Wyndermere, the refugees from the beasts illustrated coast are suffering bigotry and captioned by name curving alongside their body, just as Hogarth may have displayed themintolerance for being newcomers, but no, Emerson goes down the path that something else is much worse. A major bout of food poisoning is less cartoonish and less newspaper comic strip, and lets hitting the picture and script stay a bit more separatecity. But later on he is delving into it can't possibly have anything to do with what looks like sabotage of the more blatant, flood barriers 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, efforts to correct the fact both creators claim climate, can it ? Four young children begin 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>piece together clues that it can…

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Grant Morrison168369015X|title=SupergodsManfried the Man: Our World in the Age of the SuperheroA Graphic Novel|author=Caitlin Major and Kelly Bastow|rating=4.5

|summary=Consider the super-hero comic. Borne out of In a need world where cats stand on two feet, go to create cheap work at call centres and franchise-friendly content have diminutive human beings for newspapers in Americapets, itis Manfried. He's grown a typical frisky but shy pet – forever getting into a billion-dollar industryscrapes, demanding more food than he can suitably eat, with Hollywood jumping on but at the bandwagon of several major characters now their FX have finally caught up with same time being the printed pageperfect companion for his owner, Steve Catson. Disposable? To such an extent that Steve, who is getting known for his man- once upon a timeoriented thinking, yet now collectable to is actually having nightmares about becoming the tune of neighbourhood ''crazy man cat''. But when a million dollars or more. Frivolous? - probablywindow gets left open by mistake, yet not exclusively nowand Manfried goes missing, 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, only thing for it is a massive and at the other 'ethereal, paperenergised man-thin constructs of unfettered imagination'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546671</amazonuk>hunt…

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eddie CampbellHainsworth_Gina|title=The Lovely Horrible Stuff|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 Talking 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>}} {{newreviewGina|author=Maarten vande Wiele|title=ParisOttilie Hainsworth

|summary=In ''This is what happened.'' An artist decided she needed a dog – so drove the category length of graphic novels not the country, Brighton to be seen reading in publicGrimsby, Paris is way to pick up therean Eastern European immigrant street dog with some mange and one working eye. With a gaudy pink and silver glitz coverWhy not? The first night at home, Gina – the dog – eats something she shouldn't and causes a lot of blowjobs and sex insidemess, so it's not one for a great start, but then begin the daily commutetribulations of training, status and behaviour all humans must go through with their dogs. ButAnd then, even though it's subject matter is merely the unlikely choice of the rags-life with Gina begins to-riches-to-rags tale of three Parisian starlets, it is certainly worth a decent perusalfeel like too much – ''I felt weird about you because you were always there. Hope was a juvenile beauty queen, and could now work in fashion My thoughts were it not for scars due to a car crashtaken over by you, and Faith wishes for the vicarious life of pop stardomI felt sick, and itas if I was in love.''s no spoiler to report who and what they find will disappoint them. ChastitySlowly, the most sarcastically-named character in comixhowever, is happy enough destroying herself.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0861661737<everyone – our artist/amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nicolas de Crecy|title=The Celestial Bibendum|rating=3.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Diego is new to town. He's a seal, on crutchesher husband, but don't raise an eyebrow at that - you won't have enough left two children and two cats – gets 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 form the family they and Gina all of this is the devil (a dwarf in check dungarees, of course), who wants Diego for his own purposes..would have wanted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0861661753</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matt KindtColfer_Illegal|title=RevolverIllegal|author=Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin

|summary=Meet SamEbo is twelve years old and all alone. He has a rather dull life, with a materialistic girlfriend, and a job in the arse-end of celebrity journalism His sister left for Europe months ago and a boss now he candoesn't standknow where his brother is either but knows that he has probably done the same thing. All of which is preferential So Ebo has to waking up and finding his home city under attack - munitions going off, skyscrapers burning and people falling from themattempt the same dangerous journey himself. He ends up fleeing with said editormust cross the Sahara Desert, only get himself to wake Tripoli, one of the next day back most dangerous cities in this the world. He will indeed fall to being snatched from each reality in turn, at set times of day, forced and then try to suffer consumerism in onecross the Mediterranean Sea. By himself. At twelve. And, looting in anothereven if he makes it, basic pay raises here, producing Samizdat bare-bones journalism for survivors there. But always with enough time to ask the important questions - how, and whywill he find his sister?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1401222412</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bill WillinghamMiller_Batman|title=FablesBatman: Dark Knight III: Legends in Exile - Vol 01The Master Race|author=Frank Miller and Brian Azzarello|rating=3.5

|summary=Forced out of Batman is not playing ball. He's been videoed duffing up Gotham policemen, and not the Homelands by the evil Adversarybaddies he usually biffs. But then he's not Batman – he's a she, and she finally comes up with the characters news that Batman died in Fables have made their way to New York Cityher hands. Those of them who look relatively humanElsewhere, at least. With Old King Cole as Mayor (in nameLara, at leastthe daughter of Superman and Wonder Woman, despite is encouraging Ray Palmer/The Atom to turn his deputy Snow White running technologies concerned with shrinking and expanding life to the show)miniaturised city of Kandor, Bigby Wolf as the Sherifflast 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 Prince Charming beingBatman dead, wellthere would appear to be little in the way of help for the world should anything nasty happen – but then, charming, towards every woman he canof course, these are characters you'll already know and love – but portrayed in a way that completely reinvigorates them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1563899426</amazonuk>something nasty does happen… s

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alan Moore and Dave GibbonsWeeks_Gritterman|title=WatchmenThe Gritterman|author=Orlando Weeks

|summary=The Comedian is deadThere'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 world where costumed vigilantes have been outlawed Gritting Van and former superheroes are either retired or working for our narrator becomes a Gritterman. The fibreglass 99s on the governmentroof light up and rotate, playing a tune, whether the murder of his former teammate leads van's gritting or selling ice creams. Tonight - Christmas Eve - will be the outlaw Rorschach to investigatevan's last trip. What he finds could change The council has sent the worldletter 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 Move 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|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-Newest Historical 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 allReviews]], 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>}}