Characters: Jody
Graphic Novel Review: East District by Ash H.G
Posted on January 16, 2025 at 6:30 am by Gene Ambaum
East District by Ash H.G. 2dcloud, 2024. 9781937541613. 88pp. https://2dcloud.com/products/east-district-ash-h-g
Three young men try to find their way through an apocalypse where others become violent or maybe undead. There are confrontations and honest conversations as they look for Sheila, who has gone missing. The whole thing feels minimalistic until it’s just suddenly, overwhelmingly horrific and inexplicably weird.
This is the best adult graphic novel I picked up at Seattle’s Short Run comics festival back in November. Thanks to Ash H.G. who did a fanstastic drawing in my book when he signed it.
I’ve enjoyed other 2dcloud’s graphic novels, which are always design-oriented and tend toward the avant-garde. This is the most narrative story I remember from a book they published, and it’s arguably the most accessible. It’s worth checking their website to see what else might catch your eye. https://2dcloud.com/
Book Review: Comics 1964 – 2024
Posted on January 14, 2025 at 6:29 am by Gene Ambaum
Comics 1964 – 2024 edited by Thierry Groensteen, Lucas Hureau, Ann Lemonnier, and Emmanuèle Payen. Thames & Hudson, 2024. 9780500028407. 288pp.
I didn’t get to see the exhibit at the Centre Pompidou this book is based on — it closed in November 2024 — and I was about to order myself a copy of the French edition for my birthday when this arrived in the mail from the publisher. All by way of saying: I was overly inclined to love this book when it arrived, and I did. You should get a copy for your public library shelves, too, especially if you have a decent graphic novel collection for adults.
Worth noting: There’s more than a little adult content in the original art featured in the book. Most are in English, French, or Japanese. While a working knowledge of these languages might help in appreciating the work a bit more, it’s not necessary — the book is spectacular in terms of visuals alone.
I didn’t read much of the essays; they seem like a great introduction to comics from the period, but mostly they let the art do the talking. The book opens with chapters about comics as art and the exhibition, and cover the rise and evolution of comics. “An Evolving Artform” contains original art from Windsor McCay, Clair Bretécher, Fred, Chris Ware, Bill Waterson, and Brecht Evans. “Counterculture” has art by Gilbert Shelton, Kuniko Tsurita, Susumu Katsumata, Shin’ichi Abe, Nicholas Devil, Robert Gigi, Jean-Claude Forest, Georges Pichard, Nicholas Devil, Guido Crepax, Caza, Georges Wolinski, Jean-Marc Reiser, Fred, Gébé, Willem, Robert Crumb, S. Clay Wilson, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Jay Lynch, Kiki Picasso, Loulou Picasso, and Olivia Clavel. (If at this point you’re wondering if superheroes figure into the exhibit at all, there is some art from superhero comics in the “Science Fiction” chapter, along with spectacular illustrations by Moebius, including the art used on the book’s cover.)
I had never heard of some of the creators in the book, and I don’t love everything in it. There’s a huge amount that wowed me, and enough that’s new to me that I find myself looking through the book over and over. The first book on my list that I need to read after seeing the art in here: Forest’s original Barbarella comics.
The List of Exhibited Works at the end of the book is organized by chapter , and then by creator or publication within each chapter. (I believe this mirrors the organization of the exhibit itself. I’ve included an image of the Table of Contents with the review if you’re curious about it.) When a creator’s work is in the book, a page number is listed. Dates, materials, where a work was originally published, and other information is included about most of the art. It gives a sense of how amazing the exhibit itself was, and the lengths the curators went to to organize it.
Also: If you’re now wishing you’d made it to the exhibition, too, there’s a short tour at www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEcyXFSWDzY
Book Review: Breaking the Chain: The Guard Dog Story (Mutts) by Patrick McDonnell
Posted on January 9, 2025 at 6:33 am by Gene Ambaum
Breaking the Chain: The Guard Dog Story (Mutts) by Patrick McDonnell. Abrams ComicArts, 2024. 9781419779084. 192pp.
This is the story of the guard dog in the comic strip Mutts. It’s the beautiful “conclusion” to the story of a dog left outside that is finally forgotten, abandoned, and then saved. It’s a gift book sure to make dog lovers (and even cat lovers like me) shed tears.
The book contains some of McDonnell’s initial sketches, earlier comics featuring the guard dog, an introduction that will be especially meaningful for Peanuts fans, and a selection of quotes showing the response to the featured sequence of comic strips, which appeared in Mutts at the end of 2023. There are also dog photos and stories of dog adoptions plus a resource guide at the end.
McDonnell’s art is always amazing, and seeing it enlarged, one-panel to a page for much of the book, made me appreciate it even more. Give this book to your friends. Give it to your enemies. Read it to your kids and your four-legged pals, too.
And if somehow you’ve never heard of Mutts, or if you need to catch up, you can find it at https://mutts.com/
Book Review: Big Breath In by John Straley
Posted on January 7, 2025 at 7:31 am by Gene Ambaum
Big Breath In by John Straley. Soho Crime, 2024. 9781641296540. 274pp.
Delphine has cancer, and she doesn’t have much longer to live. After stepping into the middle of a violent incident involving a man, the woman he’s beating up, and the baby she’s holding, Delphine proves she’s still a bit of a badass (though a weakening, balding badass). A friend asks her to help find a kidnapped child, which leads her back to the woman and makes her determined to save all of the kids involved.
She spends some time remembering her husband, who she worked with as an investigator before she stopped doing that and started researching marine life instead. She also spends a lot of time thinking about the lives of whales, mostly sperm whales, and using her knowledge of them to reflect on what she’s experiencing which involves white supremacists, child trafficking, and murder. (There are enough great people in the book to balance out the horrific.)
Worth noting: This takes place in Seattle, where I live, but it’s not the city I know. This at first felt strange given how much time I spend wandering around downtown, often near where Delphine is getting treatment in the book. But after a bit I connected with the setting as the dark side of a bleak, near-future Seattle, and it worked for me. I’m curious how my fellow Seattleites will feel about this book. (I hope it doesn’t fan the flames of this “Seattle has fallen” nonsense. It’s still a great city.)
Tags No Comments - Read MoreGraphic Novel Review: Somna: A Bedtime Story by Beckly Cloon and Tula Lotay
Posted on January 2, 2025 at 6:38 am by Gene Ambaum
Somna: A Bedtime Story by Beckly Cloon and Tula Lotay. DSTLRY, 2024. 9781962265010. 168pp. Contains #1 – #3. Publisher’s Rating: Mature
Roland is the town bailiff in a small English village where he has developed a reputation as a witch hunter. His relationship with his wife, Ingrid, is distant, and he’s often away from her because of his duties. Ingrid has started to have erotic dreams, visions that seem supernatural and that feature a handsome man who is clearly not human. He offers her the sexual pleasure she craves. Is he a demon? Does this make her a witch? As she invites him into her dreams (and her life) she finds out a friend is having an affair. With everyone ready to blame witches for their misfortune, it feels like something disastrous is likely to befall her friend and perhaps Ingrid, too. And then there’s a murder, which raises tensions and suspicions as Ingrid’s husband returns home.
Cloonan and Lotay both illustrate the graphic novel; their artistic styles create amazing contrasts between the dreamlike scenes involving Ingrid and her supernatural lover (illustrated by Lotay) and everyday life in the English village (illustrated by Cloonan). This is one of the best historical graphic novels I’ve ever read, it’s easily my favorite graphic paranormal romance, and it’s an example of how amazing comics can be. Pick up a copy even if paranormal romance isn’t your thing — I don’t read much of it, either, but this book is fantastic.
Graphic Novel Review: Nights Season One Part One written by Wyatt Kennedy, art by Luigi Formisano
Posted on December 31, 2024 at 6:51 am by Gene Ambaum
Nights Season One Part One written by Wyatt Kennedy, art by Luigi Formisano. Image, 2024. 9781534397743. Publisher’s Rating: M / Mature. Contains Nights #1 – #5.
I was looking at the staff picks shelf in Seattle’s Phoenix Comics & Games, and this was RECOMMENDED BY EVERYONE. Sold.
(This graphic novel takes place in an alternate reality where Florida belongs to Spain, there are 31 states, and supernatural creatures are common.) It opens in 1998 when Vincent moves to Florida after his mother’s death to live with Ivory, his “uncle.” Matt, one of Ivory’s housemates, picks Vincent up at the airport. On the way to their apartment they see a ghost out for a jog and the local vampire — she’s a young-looking German woman named Gray — flying through the air to deliver pizza. (minor spoilers ahead) By the end of the first chapter, it’s clear Ivory kills people for a living, Gray is unemployable but has a great sense of humor, and that Vincent has a huge crush on Gray that will complicate things. Oh and after a leap forward in time between chapters one and two, it’s clear something is up with Matt, too.
This graphic novel is playful and spooky in the best, unexpected ways. There’s a super awkward YA romance at its heart, and it’s not quite clear who the real monsters are. I loved every page!
Graphic Novel Review: Woe: A Housecat’s Story of Despair by Lucy Knisley
Posted on December 26, 2024 at 7:48 am by Gene Ambaum
Woe: A Housecat’s Story of Despair by Lucy Knisley. RH Graphic, 2024. 9780593177631. 208pp.
Knisley and her family adopted the apricot-hued Linney when she was an adult, and it feels like she was already full of personality, which Knisley’s drawings express perfectly. The words she puts in Linney’s mouth include many over-articulations of sadness and despair only a cat could feel — after pooping, chiding her owners for their bad behavior, when being placed into a cat carrier. She hides her sweetness with loud vocalizations, and it’s unclear which she despises more, bad haircuts or her excited puppy friend Flora.
This is my favorite book of cat comics; it’s right up there with Trondheim’s Bludzee, Jeffrey Brown’s Cat’s Are Weird And More Observations, and the first time I read a Garfield collection when I was a kid. Well before the end of Woe, I absolutely loved Linney.
My friend and librarian Sarah, who used to post on Book Threat with me, said the book is being marketed as YA. We both agree it’s really not YA though. It’s for everyone — Lucy and her husband and their young son are big presences in the book, and it would be a great read-aloud for younger kids — and it is the perfect gift for families missing departed cats that were big presences in their lives.
Book Review: The Employees: a workplace novel of the 22nd century by Olga Ravn
Posted on December 24, 2024 at 6:30 am by Gene Ambaum
The Employees: a workplace novel of the 22nd century by Olga Ravn. Translated by Martin Aitken. New Directions, 2023. 9780811234825. 144pp.
I love short novels by poets, and I saw this one on many Staff Picks shelves in independent bookstores before finally picking it up. The cover is striking, the book is unapologetically full of white space, and every statement in it made me feel like I was working to solve a well-thought-out puzzle.
The book is a series of numbered statements, most a page or shorter, that are not always presented in order. Some are missing. Each is one side of an interview with unnamed human and humanoid (manufactured human) crew members of a spacecraft named Six Thousand Ship, which has arrived at another planet, New Discovery. The crew brought aboard several objects that have strange properties, which have become the center of attention of many of the crew. Tensions rise between the humans and non-humans, and it feels like conflict is coming. It’s hard to accept that all of the statements are factual, or that they’re intended to be taken as such; as a whole, they create a sense of what’s happening on the ship and to the crew.
It’s a brilliant way to put together the story. I found I wasn’t able to read more than six pages a night because I had to sit with them and think about their implications; the book took much longer to read than it otherwise would have based on its relatively short page count.
Tags No Comments - Read MoreBook Review: Three Books I Bought At The Vault Of Midnight
Posted on December 19, 2024 at 6:37 am by Gene Ambaum
Several people told me I had to visit The Vault of Midnight when I was in Ann Arbor giving a staff day keynote in October, and I’m super glad I stopped by. This is one of my favorite comic book stores — it’s right up there with Portland’s Cosmic Monkey and Austin Books & Comics.
The King’s Warrior by Huahua Zhu. Bulgilhan Press, 2024. 9781737130161. 74pp. https://bulgilhanpress.com/
A king sends his lionsteed warrior on a final mission, to kill an evil alchemist. The warrior’s backstory is told in flashbacks inked in blue, while the current story is told in pages with bolder colors and black inks. The whole book is beautiful and it feels like a fairy tale.
I picked up this book because of the amazing cover and the fact that it was the last copy on a shelf loaded with great books; I figured if everyone else liked it, I would, too. A clerk saw me do that, and then we had a conversation during which he asked what sorts of books I was looking for. After a discussion about comics creators during which I said I was looking for graphic novels that I’d never heard of, he recommended the next two books on the list, plus gave me a list of five others the store didn’t have in stock but that he was sure I would like. (So far he’s been absolutely correct. As far as I’m concerned he’s the best graphic novel readers advisor ever.)
Grog the Frog: The Book of Taurus written and illustrated by Alba BG and Davilorium. Silver Sprocket, 2023. 9798886200232. https://www.silversprocket.net/
The bright cover made me think of Adventure Time and I mean, come on, I’m up for reading any book about a frog wizard with a bad attitude. There’s a lot going on in this book — it’s kind of a romp, and at times felt like a stoned video game. The coloring is something to behold, and the battle scenes shine.
Gnomicide: A Rust Kingdom Tale by Spugna. Hollow Press, 2018. No ISBN. www.hollow-press.net
This wordless book is full of tentacles, mushrooms, and gore. Giant fanged mollusks face the last survivors of a gnome village. As the title suggests, things do not go well for the gnomes.
I love the look of this book — it’s black and white, and it feels like Jeff Smith of Bone-fame inked a gnome-centric issue of Jordan and Strahm’s Image Comics series Spread.
I immediately tried to buy a few other books by Spugna from Hollow Press. This one is sold out but it’s one of the three stories in Rusted Tales by Spugna (2022, also no ISBN) which is still in print. I picked up a copy at Floating World Comics in Portland, which sells them on their website at https://floatingworldcomics.com/shop/comic-books/rusted-tales-by-spugna
First Test (Protector of the Small Book 1) by Tamora Pierce, graphic novel adaptation by Devin Grayson and Becca Farrow
Posted on December 18, 2024 at 6:27 am by Gene Ambaum
First Test (Protector of the Small Book 1) by Tamora Pierce, graphic novel adaptation by Devin Grayson and Becca Farrow. RH Graphic, 2024. 9780307931566. 160pp.
It’s been over 20 years since I read one of Pierce’s YA fantasy novels, but I continue to recommend her books to kids and their parents. I’m happy to say this graphic novel adaptation captures the spirit of the original, particularly the friendships.
Keladry is the only girl accepted into training as a knight. Despite Alanna’s martial prowess — she’s a female knight — Lord Wyldon, who is in charge of the new pages, puts Kel on probation for a year. If she can’t convince him she belongs with the boys in her class, he’ll send her home. But from the way Kel handles herself at home in Mindelan — she takes on several boys trying to drown a bag of cats, and then a giant spider creature — it’s clear there’s no reason to worry about how well Kel can fight. The bullies she has to deal with are awful, it’s clear she’s had more martial arts training than the other pages, and she’s forced to work harder than everyone else. (I never doubted for a moment that she’d find a way to hang on.)
This book takes place after Pierce’s Song of the Lioness series, which is about Alanna. A graphic novel adaptation of Page, the first book in that series, will be released in 2025.
