Crush by Svetlana Chmakova. Yen Press, 2018. 9780316363242. 240pp. This third graphic novel in the Berrybrook Middle School series focuses on the athletic and shy Jorge Ruiz. People think he’s kind of intimidating because of his size, but he’s pretty awkward. He has two great friends, Olivia and Garrett, and a huge crush on Jazmine, who he can hardly bring himself to speak to. Things get weird as he tries to figure out how he’s feeling, and weirder still when he finds out Jazmine has a boyfriend. (It doesn’t last.) There’s an upcoming dance that adds to Jorge’s stress, some friend drama as Garrett makes poor choices in trying to become friends with a popular quarterback, James, and a terrible situation when everyone thinks Jorge made awful comments online (and won’t believe that someone hacked his account). Chmakova’s books take me right back to all the middle school drama I remember and imagine. Her characters are easy to identify with, and the way she tells stories always wows me. The next book in the series, Enemies, will be released in September 2022. While I’m waiting for it I’m going to reread my favorite book of hers, Dramacon!

Let’s Not Talk Anymore by Weng Pixin. Drawn & Quarterly, 2021. 9781770464629. 204pp. This is the story of several women on Pixin’s mother’s side when they were fifteen, stretching back to her great grandmother in 1908 and forward in time to include her own imaginary daughter, Rita, in 2032. I’m not sure how much story I carried away from this, but then it’s not built around a page-turning plot. It’s an exploration of the connections across generations and family members’ influences on one other. It’s a weird blend of history and autobiography and speculative fiction the likes of which I’ve never read before. And it’s a very compelling sequential story told in vignettes via paintings that I adored.

No One Else by R. Kikuo Johnson. Fantagraphics, 2021. 9781683964797. 104pp. Charlene is working as a nurse and taking care of both her elderly father and her young son. Then her father has an accident and dies. She snaps, quits her job, stops picking up her house, and starts studying to apply to medical school. Her brother, a musician, shows up, and finds out their father died. He has little sympathy for his sister, and isn’t sure she’s okay. This is just the first few pages — the rest is all beautifully written family dynamics full of wonderful dialogue and the best blue-and-orange sequential art ever. My favorite character by far is Charlene’s son Brandon — we get to see the moments where he starts to take a bit of responsibility for himself, his confusion at what’s going on around him, and how upset he is by it all as he searches for his missing cat, Batman. A revised edition of Johnson’s previous graphic novel for adults, The Night Fisher, was recently released as well. And if you haven’t read his book The Shark King from Toon Books, it’s also great. All three of his books are set in Hawaii.

I Am Not Starfire by Mariko Tamaki, art by Yoshi Yoshitani. DC Graphic Novels For Young Adults, 2021. 9781779501264. 184pp. Mandy’s mom is the superhero Starfire, the ass-kicking, “bikini”-wearing member of the (Teen) Titans from the planet Tamaran, which makes people think they know Mandy. Her mom gets her all kinds of attention she doesn’t want, which sucks because Mandy sees herself as the opposite of Starfire. Mandy has no powers. She’s short and round and likes to dye her hair black so that she doesn’t sparkle. Her best friend Lincoln doesn’t care that Mandy’s mom is a hero, and is trying to help her navigate the Starfire groupies at school as well as her crush on Claire. Mandy gets a bit freaked out when Claire invites her over to work on a school assignment, but then gets mad when she asks about college — Mandy isn’t planning to attend one, and she does not want to talk about it. It’s pretty clear Claire is interested in friendship with Mandy, and maybe more…and then Starfire’s evil sister Blackfire shows up to demand that Mandy fight her to the death for the Tamaranian throne. The art is great, the dialogue is realistic, and as a Teen Titans from way back it’s nice to see that DC green lit a book like this, one from such an unexpected narrative angle.

Wrassle Castle Book 1: Learning The Ropes by Colleen Coover and Paul Tobin, illustrated by Galaad. Wonderbound, 2021. 9781638490098. 96pp. Lydia wants to be a professional wrestler like her famous older brother but her parents want her to go into the family business. So she has to hide her training — she wrestles in street matches and even against wildlife in the forest. (Her friends have formed an underground alibi network to help, though they’re running out of excuses for her parents.) There’s a lot going on that sets up book two: Lydia’s brother is arrested, the kingdom is under attack, and Lydia is trying to win a tournament to become an entry-level wrestler at Wrassle Cassle. It’s a bit of lighthearted, inclusive, coming-of-age fun in a medieval setting, and I’m looking forward to the next two books, which will be published in 2022.

The Pros & Cons of Being a Frog by Sue deGennaro. A Paula Wiseman Book, 2016. 9781481471305. A boy who likes to dress up as animals is friends with a girl who speaks mostly in numbers. She helps him figure out which animal is best for him but then he makes her mad. Message: it’s cool to have friends who are different. DeGennaro’s playful, number-filled images feel very kind.   Arnold the Super-ish Hero by Heather Tekavec & Guillaume Perreault. Kids Can Press, 2021. 9781525303098. Arnold’s family members all have powers and work as superheroes. Arnold is the phone guy. One day when he takes a call for help and rings the alarm, no one comes to help. So he puts on a costume and sets off for the city park, helping several people along the way. (His family even thinks he’s cool, though even they don’t know his secret hero identity by the end.) A funny, short comic about helping people in small ways, done in graphic novel format. Perreault’s pictures help the book hit just the right tone.   Someone Farted by Bruce Eric Kaplan. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2018. 9781481490634. The Krupke family is on their way to the supermarket when one of them farts. (Sally notices it first.) No one will admit they did it. They all end up in jail. And that’s not even the end of the book. Good stuff, much funnier and more real than most of those holiday picture books you’re sick of.  

Djeliya: A West African Fantasy Epic by Juni Ba. TKO Studios, 2021. 9781952203244. 180pp. The Wizard Suomaoro destroyed the world from high in his ivory tower. Now Awa Kouyaté, last in a line of djeli guiding the rulers of Keita, is helping Mansour, the surviving heir to the Keita throne, race the holy man Mbam to the tower’s secrets. (Awa and Monsour are actually to blame for the situation — the pair stole a criminal lord’s powerful juju for Mbam, which allowed him to break into the tower.) Mbam sees himself as on a quest to restore order by replacing the wizard. But Awa and Mansour need to beat him to the top, to stop him from ruining the world. This post-apocalyptic tale has traits of superhero and manga comics, along with giant djinnes, monstrous criminals, magic, and high technology. The art is as kinetic and energetic in places as FLCL. It runs the gamut from wild colors to black and white, and turning from one page to the next I never knew what to expect. From berserk layouts to old school manga screen tones, this book has everything and it all works. The story itself is demanding, going backward and forward in time in a rhythm that needs more concentration than the average graphic novel, but which is so worth reading and rereading. What a book!

Seekers of the Aweto 1: The Hunt Is On by Nie Jun. English language translation by Edward Gauvin. Graphic Universe, 2021. 9781728420219. 136pp. Chinese cartoonist Jun’s previous book in English, My Beijing: Four Stories of Everyday Wonder, was a charming graphic novel with a little magic set in a neighborhood. This one is mythical; it’s full of gods, magic, powers, and battles. June’s art is again wonderful, particularly the colors that bring everything to life. Xinyue commands insects with his drum to help his elder brother Qiliu and their mother hunt aweto. It’s something that looks like a plant at some moments, a worm at others, and which grows in the heads of earth deities. It’s used to cure health conditions. There’s also a super rare type, celestial aweto, which grants eternal life, and which Qiliu is obsessed with finding. The brothers seek aweto in the lands of the matriarchal Sanmo tribe and a full-scale battle takes place: exploding arrows, beheadings, sword fighting. It’s a bit cartoony but fairly violent. The Sanmo tribe need to protect their earth deity from the brothers to ensure the prosperity of their lands, but they fail. SPOILER: By the end a large earth deity is dead, the brothers are trying to sell the aweto they’ve gathered, and Xinyu is hiding a baby earth deity he found. The latter doesn’t last — when Quiliu discovers what his younger brother is up to, it sets up a bloody conflict between the two (and the next book in the series).

The Okay Witch And The Hungry Shadow by Emma Steinkellner. Aladdin, 2021. 9781534431492. 256pp. After events in The Okay Witch (which you should go read if you haven’t), beginner witch Moth doesn’t want to go back to school even with her best friend Charlie. And then, in their first class, she accidentally wears the same outfit as her dorky English teacher. She’s instantly a meme — which is just one more way the kids at her school make her feel like an outsider. Her mom won’t let Moth do magic at school, but does teach her a cool spell that makes things microscopically small. It’s little help though. So when she’s in Hecate to visit her grandmother, she “borrows” a charm that transforms its wearer into a more self-assured version of themselves. And of course it’s cursed, which leads to lots of problems. But this book isn’t great because of the plot — it’s the set of small moments of friendship and family and even the bits of bullying that make it so great.