Coming Back by Jessi Zabarsky. RH Graphic, 2021. 9780593120026. 250pp. Preet is the best Shaper in the village, and is also good at Shifting into other forms, too. Valissa can’t do much magic, but she works in the village library so you know she’s cool. After a mist fills the library, Valissa volunteers to go in and try to take care of it. (The village can’t spare Preet, whose magic is needed every day.) But while Valissa is gone, Preet violates the way the villagers do things by planting a seed alone and starting to raise the resulting child. She pays a heavy price for this, and it’s unclear if she will ever see Valissa again. Everything about this book is kind and wonderful except the villagers, who, mid-book, are stuck in their ways. There are strange creatures and flying boats and even the monsters are pretty friendly, so you know it’s all going to have a chance to work out. (This is not a sequel to Zabarsky’s first graphic novel, Witchlight, but it feels like they’re part of the same universe. Or maybe they’re just spiritual sequels.)

A Man’s Skin by Hubert and Zanzim. Ablaze Publishing, 2021. 9781950912483. 160pp. Bianca is eighteen and her marriage to Giovanni has been arranged. She’s only seen him once but would like to get to know her husband before they’re wed. She’s also hoping to stay friends with Tomaso after she’s married, though he doubts her husband will allow that. Her grandmother offers to let Bianca stay with her, to teach her about life and men a bit. But it’s not lessons she has in mind — instead her grandmother shows Bianca the secret of the women in their family — they have a man’s skin that they can put on and become a man for a bit. They call him Lorenzo. As Lorenzo Bianca can explore the world of men and get to know her fiancé. Which Bianca does, with unexpected results. Giovanni falls in love with Lorenzo, complicating his married life with Bianca (who is of course also secretly Lorenzo). She offers him her understanding and a radical level of honesty about their relationship and desires even as she continues her deception. It’s all kind of fun and weird throughout despite the presence of Bianca’s irritating brother Angelo and his fellow clergymen, who see all women as temptresses and who want all men and women to stop sinning. Worth noting: the art is marvelous and the sex scenes are tasteful. I look forward to news stories about folks trying to censor this adult graphic novel because it’s already mocked them ahead of time, and because that will make sure the book gets as large an audience as it deserves.

The Odds by Matt Stanton. HarperAlley, 2020. 9780063068940. 208pp. Kip awakens one morning to find ten characters have come to life — they’re from a book, video game, TV show, her dreams, the end of her pencil, the comics her dad draws, and more. This is not a dream. Her dad thinks he may be going crazy (he’s not). Kip and her dad have no idea how to return them to their worlds, and keeping them all contained in the apartment where they live is about to prove impossible. At school Kip prefers to be invisible, mostly because the other kids are mean. Thursday she has to tell her class about something that makes her unique. (Spoiler: her presentation will likely involve her new friends somehow.) I love how straightforward and silly this book is. It’s for younger kids, but it’s not one of those blah blah, by-the-numbers graphic novels for young readers I’ve read entirely too many of lately. This book has heart, a great dad/daughter relationship, plus a talking dinosaur AND a talking chicken.

The Montague Twins Vol. 2: The Devil’s Music by Nathan Page & Drew Shannon. Alfred A. Knopf / RH Graphic, 2021. 9780525646808. Charlie, Pete, and his brother Al are in a band, The Bony Fingers. After their supernatural adventure in the first book, Rowan is continuing to teach them a bit of magic. But a shadowy group of faculty at the university has some concerns about that plus a new member — an uncle the boys have never heard about. There’s also a handsome and mysterious rock star, Gideon Drake, who recently showed up in town and started hanging out. It’s a minor spoiler, but the reason he’s there has something to do with Millie, a girl who also goes to Central High and who, nearly catatonic, almost falls into the harbor in front of the lighthouse. As romances start to develop and a group of mothers protests against rock and roll, there’s some question about what’s up with Gideon (and whether or not it’s demonic). This is an odd and pleasant follow-up to the first book in that it doesn’t have a rigid mystery plot. I’d have thought this series would have gone toward more a predictable, straightforward Hardy Boys-type plots but Page and Shannon are letting the characters dictate the direction of the series. The result is a great read with beautiful art set in New England in the late 60s (I think) featuring concerned adults, realistic high school kids, and a developing storyline that seems to be setting things up for later books. Here’s hoping there are a lot of those.

Horse Trouble by Kristin Varner. First Second, 2021. 9781250225870. 288pp. including an author’s note, photos of Varner as a kid (including a few riding her horse), plus a few pages sharing sketches and her process for creating comics. Twelve-year-old Kate hates being chubby and loves riding horses. She goes to school with her popular best friend Becky. Tuesdays and Saturdays she takes riding lessons at Millcreek Farm, where she also helps out to help pay for them. There are mean, unpleasant girls at both school and the barn, and Kate’s brother and his friends are jerks too. The fact that Kate keeps falling off horses as she’s training for competitions doesn’t help her self-esteem, either. The book is about her growing up a little, figuring out that she’s maybe somewhat cool (as is her brother), and that she’s more than a little awesome at riding, too. My friend Marin has loved riding since she was a kid, and this book demystifies that for me. (My dad loved horses, too, but I’ve preferred motorcycles since my saddle came off an out-of-control horse running at full gallop on a beach.) This book has definitions of specialized vocabulary about horses and riding in “footnotes” that I found really helpful. I now know that the person who saddled the horse I fell off of probably wasn’t paying attention. That horse maybe have been bloating, which allowed the saddle to slip. Worth noting: The drawings are charming, as is the use of red ink as an occasional accent color. I’ve read that it’s especially hard to draw horses well, and the horses in this book look spectacular, as do all of Kate’s falls and competitions.

Ralph Azham Book 1: Black Are The Stars by Lewis Trondheim. Translation by Kim Thompson and Joe Johnson. Colorign by Brigitte Findakly. Super Genius (Papercutz), 2022. 9781545808795. 150 pp. Lewis Trondheim has a new book in English! It’s the first part of what was, in French, an amusing 12 volume epic. This one contains three of the original books. It features an a fantasy world full of anthropomorphic characters, strange creatures, and magical artifacts reminiscent of Trondheim and Sfar’s Dungeon series. Characters like Ralph who are blue have special powers — in his case it’s ridiculous (at least at first) — he can tell how many kids a person has. (He develops a more useful and deadly power that involves the ghosts of those one has killed as well.) Over the course of the books Ralph goes from hapless outcast to the kind of direct, plain talking hero I find it easy to root for (though he’s still an idiot sometimes). The whole series is, at least in part, about family, the one you’re born with and the one you choose. Great stuff. The fact that Trondheim’s wife B. Findakly colored his comics makes the art the much more fun. If this sounds familiar it’s because Fantagraphics published the first French book as a single volume years ago, but then didn’t publish the rest. (It looks like Papercutz is going to though!) It’s worth noting that Papercutz published another book by Trondheim in 2021, a wordless graphic novel titled The Fly. It’s something kids and adults would love. And as I write this it’s still possible to find episodes of Fly Tales, the cartoon based on it, on YouTube.

The Outlaws Scarlett And Browne by Jonathan Stroud. Alfred A. Knopf, 2021. 9780593430361. 421pp. I have great memories of reading Stroud’s Bartimaeus series and his standalone novel Heroes of the Valley with my daughter when she was a kid, and this entertaining page turner brought those memories right back. Sent in a steampunkish post-apocalyptic England filled with deadly creatures, walled cities, and adults who are jerks (and worse), the book centers on Scarlet, a lovable scoundrel who has penchants for violence and bank robbery. Fleeing the scene of a crime she meets the slight and awkward Albert Browne, alone in the wilderness. The two quickly find they’re being hunted by an armed group; Scarlett assumes they’re after her and the money she stole, but it turns out she’s wrong. Albert has a few surprises for her, including one that will help her career as a criminal (though that doesn’t seem to need much help). The book isn’t entirely a nonstop chase at breakneck speed, though there’s always danger nearby. But I never doubted that Scarlett was a match for all challenges, including the stylish and nasty big bad she and Albert face at the end.

Treasure in the Lake by Jason Pamment. Harper Alley, 2021. 9780063065185. 208pp. Iris and Sam love exploring the woods around the lake near Bugden, the town where they live. Sam loves being there more than Iris does, though — she wants to leave Bugden and see the world, maybe as an archeologist, while he seems content to stay there for life. In fact Iris just got into a school in the city, and she’s desperate to go there instead of Bugden High. So when her mom seems cold on the idea, Iris gets upset and heads to the river to be alone for a bit. The river suddenly dries up and Iris makes a big big discovery — long-buried train tracks and a city that is normally hidden in the river. Iris drags Sam into the lost town to look around. They have a falling out when Sam wants to leave (he wants to see Bugden’s new statue revealed). Iris stays there and, after the bell in the old clocktower rings, she has an adventure that is supernatural or in a different time or both. It’s all rather sweet, and it involves Ben, the old guy who passes Sam and Iris on the street early in the story. Pamment is an Australian animator, director, and designer in addition to being an author-illustrator. His art looks as if it glows! If you don’t believe me, there are amazing cover blurbs endorsing this graphic novel from Kazu Kibuishi (Amulet), Ben Hatke (Zita the Spacegirl) and Shaun Tan (The Arrival). You can see an animated trailer for the book (which shows how great the cover is) at Pamment’s website, http://www.jasonpamment.com/