After Lambana: Myth and Magic in Manila: A Graphic Novel by Eliza Victoria and Mervin Malonzo. Tuttle, 2022. 9780804855259. In Manila, magical, mythical beings live alongside humans, though magic is prohibited. Deadly, spontaneous diseases plague the city. Conrad, a human, has a flower growing in his heart, and soon it’s going to burst forth and kill him. Ignacio is trying to help. (Ignacio is not quite human, maybe.) When they go past the last stop on the train, Conrad doesn’t notice that Igacio’s eyes glow. The journey takes them into the Filipino version of faerie, into a magical place even more full of spirits where maybe Conrad can find the help he needs. I really enjoyed this book, and in particular the way it doesn’t over-explain. Malonzo’s art is not inked, and its bold colors work with the lack of dark black lines to make everything feel a bit blurry, like the line between fantasy and reality in the book. It left me wanting to know more about sirenas and white ghosts, lambana and diwata. I’ve got a few more of Tuttle’s recent graphic novels from the Filipino creators in my to-read pile, but next I’ll probably check out Alternative Alamat, an anthology full of myths and legends, to gain a bit of the background knowledge that I’m missing.

Heartstopper Volume 1 by Alice Oseman. Scholastic Graphix, 2020. 9781338617436. So many people told me how much they love this series that I’ve been avoiding it for years. It felt like my expectations were just too high. How could it meet them? But I finally picked it up and it exceeded everything I’d heard. If you’re avoiding it or have only see the Netflix adaptation, pick up a copy. The art looks way more simple than it is, and the pacing of the story, the beginning of what I assume is an epic YA romance, is just perfect. It opens with Charlie meeting Ben for a secret kiss in the school library, just after the New Year. But then he meets Nicholas, a boy in Year 11 (a year ahead of Charlie) and wow, it feels like love at first sight. Charlie seems to be the only out gay kid at school, and Nick is on the rugby team — they seem different but become friends. Charlie clearly wants more than friendship but thinks Nick is probably straight anyway. (At least his feelings for Nick push Charlie to stop seeing Ben, who is still in the closet and doesn’t want anyone to know they’ve been seeing each other.) The whole will they or won’t they, is he or isn’t he of Charlie and Nick goes on for a while; Oseman does make Nick’s feelings for Charlie fairly clear, but not knowing how he’s going to deal with them really kept me on edge.

Flung Out Of Space: Inspired By The Indecent Adventures of Patricia Highsmith by Grace Ellis and Hannah Templer. Abrams ComicArts, 2022. 9781419744334. 208pp. I only know Highsmith from her books, and I’ve only read a few of her more popular novels. So it was a little strange to read the author’s note at the front of this fictionalized graphic biography, in which Ellis notes “…Highsmith was an appalling person.” Apparently Highsmith was, like her most famous characters, a charismatic sociopath. I wasn’t sure I’d finish the book. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Templar’s black and white and orange art is beautiful, and the pace of the book is masterful. I’m sure many will be drawn to the depiction of Highsmith’s life as a lesbian in the early 20th Century US, which was informative and entertaining and wow am I glad things have changed. (She even meets a lover in a group therapy session for women with her “problem.” Ha.) But my favorite thing about the book is that Highsmith wrote comic books during the Golden Age, which I hadn’t known before. Stan Lee makes a notable appearance. (I really hope that bit of the book is absolutely true.) And throughout Highsmith is determined to make it as a writer — she sees herself as a writer of good novels with criminal elements, not a writer of crime novels. Her attitude is often appalling, sure, but I have to say I didn’t walk away hating her, and I do highly recommend this graphic novel.

The High Desert: Black. Punk. Nowhere. A Memoir by James Spooner. HarperCollins, 2022. 9780358659112. 368pp. Spooner’s memoir is about the year he and his mother moved back to Apple Valley, California, when he attended high school and discovered punk music. There’s a lot of overt, small town racism aimed at Spooner, plus a few pure assholes around. But he’s also able to reconnect with old friends, fan the flames of an intense crush, and to start to hang out with the only black punk kid in town, a guy who seems to be entirely himself. Spooner’s difficulties with his white mom (a teacher) and his distant black father (a PhD and a bodybuilder) feel real and fair. The book itself feels more honest than other high school coming of age memoirs that I’ve read, and it has a perfect ending. Minor spoiler: the whole year gives Spooner a community and sets him on his way to embracing punk’s DIY ethos This would be reason enough to have the book in any YA graphic novel collection, but it’s also an excellent read. Spooner is known for his documentary film Afro-Punk and for co-creating Brooklyn’s Afropunk Festival. http://afropunk.com/  

Phenomena Book One: The Golden City Of Eyes by Brian Michael Bendis and André Lima Araújo. Abrams ComicArts, 2022. 9781419761690. Something happened, and now our world is a place filled with strange creatures large and small, plus anthropomorphic animals and alien beings as well as humans. It feels like technology doesn’t work anymore, like it’s been replaced by living (possibly magical?) vehicles that fly, a place for swords and armor and such, but that’s all not quite true and the truth of the world feels both elusive and stranger. (If that sounds like an homage to the work of French artist Moebius, it is, which Araújo makes obvious at times though he also more than makes this book a unique and beautiful thing all its own.) Oh and stories are a form of currency in the book, which is a lot of fun. After Boldon (a boy) sees the Cyper warrior Spike fight for a meal, Spike’s blade is stolen by a thief, Mathilde, who escapes on a jetpack. Boldon tries to help Spike, and the pair end up setting off after blade together, toward The Golden City of Eyes, despite the fact that Spike absolutely hates Boldon’s voice. Along they way they run afoul of an otherwordly, villainous posse whose members are also after Matilde, and there’s a more powerful enemy or two later in the book as well. The violence is fairly cartoony, the plot is lighthearted, and characters’ banter feels genuine. If you don’t know Bendis’s work you should check this out, it may make you love comics again — or look for his Ultimate Spider-Man or Powers, they’re also great places to start. Araújo has worked on comics for Marvel, DC, and others, and I enjoyed the series he created with Rick Remender, A Righteous Thirst for Vengeance. His art is spectacular, and never more so than when he’s working in black and white like in Phenomena. This graphic novel will particularly appeal to anyone who loves Last Man or Bone, or who has gotten a little old for Kazu Kibuishi’s Amulet.

Slash Them All by Antoine Maillard. Fantagraphics, 2022. 9781683966579. Two high school friends are on their way to a party when a man kills them with a baseball bat. That same night Dan, another student, dreams of stabbing someone and burying her in the woods. The next day school is closed, but Dan would rather hang out at his house and play video games anyway. His friend Pola heads to the shitty, sketchy beach nearby, and witnesses two murders there, which makes her withdraw and question everything. Dan’s mom thinks Pola is bad news and wants him to avoid her. Pola has a strange encounter with the killer, and Dan seems to be rapidly heading to a bad place (and maybe becoming a serial killer too). It all leads to a dark, violent scene at a party that I’m still trying to figure out. Maillard’s art is black and white and looks as if it was drawn in pencil — it really works with the story, and looks particularly great because of his choice not to use panel borders. Overall the illustration style makes the book seem realistic and straightforward, which is why the more unreal moments seem shocking.

Sara by Garth Ennis (writer) and Steve Epting (artist). TKO Studios, 2018. Frankly I’m not sure what the ISBN is as my copy didn’t have one, but I’m going with 9781732748538. 147pp. Contains #1-6. The book follows a group of Soviet female snipers in the winter on the Eastern Front during WWII. At the center of it all is Sara, a loner motivated by revenge and the group’s deadliest shot. She lurks in trees as Nazi troops walk under her hiding spots. She and the other troops barely notice as prisoners are brutally interrogated in their camp. Of particular interest to all is a high ranking target, a Nazi Colonel new to the area. Both Ennis and Epting have great talent for creating moments of epic, character driven violence, and this graphic novel certainly has some of that. It’s also offers a great sense of time and place, and many quiet moments (before all hell breaks loose again). Worth noting: Elizabeth Breitweiser’s colors tie everything together beautifully, and I particularly like the way she adds blood to the snow. I’m making the questionable call to give this to my young nephew, who loves reading graphic novels about war (and only graphic novels about war). I want him to read at least a few books that have strong female characters, and this one shows that violence is far from the fun and games approach of most action movies.

Tokyo Rose — Zero Hour: A Japanese American Woman’s Persecution and Ultimate Redemption after World War II by Andre Frattino and illustrated by Kate Kasenow. Tuttlle, 2022. 9784805316955. 128pp. Iva Toguri was born in Los Angeles in 1916 to parents who immigrated to the US from Japan. This graphic novel opens with a brief scene from her trial as a traitor after World War II, after she returned from Japan where she worked as an announcer during the war. It then goes back to the beginning, when Iva’s family sent her to Japan in the summer of 1941, and how she was put to work helping her family there. She was supposed to return home in early December of that year, but the Japanese bureaucracy made that impossible, and she was stuck in Japan after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Offered the choice of renouncing her American citizenship, she refused and left her family’s home. While working a low level job at the broadcasting company NHK, she risked a lot keep up the spirits of and get much needed supplies two POWs brought in to create English-language programming. They saw something special in her and eventually put her on the air as “Orphan Ann.” (They were supposed to help lower the morale of the Allied forces listening to the broadcasts, but managed to create programming that secretly did just the opposite.) How and why that all led to Iva being vilified in the media and then charged with treason on her return to the US made for a compelling read. Kasenow’s black and white art does a great job of bringing the WWII-era to life, as does her character design and the amount of details shown in each panel, which is never overwhelming. Worth noting: The book includes a foreward by letterer Janie Chiang and a preface by writer Frattino which provide more information on Iva Toguri’s story, as well as short biographies of both plus of Kasenow, a script reader, and the book’s three sensitivity readers. There’s also an epilogue, a timeline of Iva Toguri’s life, and a list of quotes from Radio Tokyo Broadcasts directed at Allied Forces during WWII.

The Fifth Quarter by Mike Dawson. First Second, 2021. 9781250244185. 240pp. 9781250244185. Lori is a fourth grader, and she loves playing basketball. She’s on her school team but isn’t a great player, so she only gets put in during the fifth quarter at games, when they give the kids lacking in skills a chance to play each other. But after she makes a basket, she starts to get the sense that she might be able to make the fifth grade team and play in a real game. This causes some problems for her with her friends — she doesn’t want to play unicorns at recess, and she always seems to say the wrong thing (she is kind of a jerk). And her life is made more difficult because her mom is running for city council against one of her friend’s dads. As she starts to put in the time and effort to improve her skills on the court, will Lori be able to figure out how to be a better friend? This would be a great read fo kids worried about not being good enough at something, and who are having trouble with friends they were once closer to, but the action and competitiveness and the theme of picking oneself up after a loss will appeal to most young readers. An excellent sequel, The Fifth Quarter: Hard Court, was published in 2022. Recommended for any library that has patrons in grade school, whether they’re basketball obsessed or not.

The Queen in the Cave by Júlia Sardà. Candlewick, 2022. 9781536220544. 64pp. Three sisters set out on an adventure into a dark forest without telling anyone, to find the queen who lives in the deepest cave there. What they encounter is both wondrous and a little freaky, and makes for page after page of absolutely amazing illustrations.   The Woman Who Turned Children Into Birds by David Almond, Illustrated by Laura Carlin. Candlewick, 2022. 9781536219968. 32pp. Nanty Sloto comes to town and says she can turn children into birds. The adults aren’t happy, but soon word spreads among the kids that it’s true, and they all want a turn. Carlin’s sketchy drawings really work with the Almond’s mysterious prose, and the story has a very quick turn that will make kids happy and leave them wondering. A Day That’s Ours by Blake Nuto, Illustrated by Vyara Boyadjieva. Flying Eye Books, 2022. 9781838740757. 32pp. A father and daughter steal a day and spend it doing nothing much but having such a great time. A joyous, colorful story that would make a great gift for dads and their daughters. Well Done, Mommy Penguin by Chris Haughton. Candlewick, 2022. 9781536228656. 40pp. Mommy penguin goes off to catch fish while the young penguin and its dad watch. The little penguin needs some reassurance that mommy is coming back, and there’s a lot of discussion of how awesome mommy is (plus a harrowing moment or two with hungry seals). Houghton’s drawings (I assume they’re digital) and especially their colors plus the book’s unusual font give this a unique look that drew me in.