Sometimes, you find a comic book that really sticks with you. I remember a few months ago, Comixology had a sale on some titles, and one of them was the Image book, Wayward. Once I read it, I was instantly hooked! It’s been a favorite of mine for quite some time now – so being able…
PEOW! Studio’s Bio-Whale Flies High
Bio-Whale Ville Kallio PEOW! Studio August 2015 Disclaimer: Bio-Whale was reviewed using a digital review copy provided by PEOW! Studio. The first thing Bio-Whale hits you with is color. Vibrant pinks and blues are splashed over the pages, a spectrum of carnival cotton candy. It’s the sort of book that seems like it would feel…
3 Takes On Island #2
Island #2 Ed. Brandon Graham and Emma Rios Robin Bougie, Brandon Graham, Will Kirkby, Ludroe, Emma Rios, Simon Roy, and Miguel Alberto Woodward Image Comics August 19, 2015 Island is a new comic magazine edited by Brandon Graham and Emma Rios. The magazine includes prose, illustration, done-in-one, and serialized comics. We reviewed Island #1 here….
When Boy’s Love Goes Bad: CLAMP’s Legal Drug
(Disclaimer: Review copies of Legal Drug and Drug & Drop vol. 1 and vol. 2 were supplied by Dark Horse. This essay also contains some light spoilers.) First, a primer! If you’re familiar with boy’s love, girl’s love, yaoi, yuri, shonen-ai, or shojo-ai just go ahead and skip this paragraph. For those of you who…
The YA Urban Fantasy the World Needs: Shadowshaper by Daniel Jose Older
Sierra Santiago is an artist. Her current project? Beautifying the development that was abandoned by scurrilous developers and would-be gentrifiers in Brooklyn. Sierra thinks a big, badass dragon would send a good message: don’t try to take our neighborhood from us. When her ailing grandfather and other family friends keep mysteriously encouraging her to finish…
Glove, Bracelet, Bikini, Halberd: Exit the Witchblade, For Good?
Witchblade is ending! Come October, and issue one hundred and eighty-five, Sara Pezzini is taking off the glove, and walking away from her solo title after twenty long years. If you put your ear to the ground it sounds like a new bearer might surface, in a rebooted series of her own, but nothing solid…
Sequential Sartorial: Narrative Chaos! How to Redesign a Character
I promised to be positive in this series so here’s a new spin on that: a how-to, some advice, a template to run with. Why complain about weak redesigns if you don’t give suggestions on how to be better? But I’m poison-flavoured and sour, like my favourite drink, so let’s sneak in a little evil…
In Plain Sight: On the Authenticity of Queer Characters
I have been thinking about the ways in which queer people hide.
Noragami, a Tale of a Stray God and a Cat-Tailed Girl
Noragami: Stray God volumes 1-4 Adachitoka (mangaka); Alethea Nibley & Athena Nibley (translation); Lys Blakeslee (lettering) Kodansha, September 2014-April 2015 Note: this essay contains mild spoilers; review copies provided by Kodansha. You’ve got a sassy small god who wants to be a big god. You’ve got a girl who sometimes has a catlike tail. You’ve…
Wayward’s Rori Lane: An Introduction to Liminality
Liminality: a concept elaborated on by Victor Turner to represent the state of being betwixt and between, especially social or physical states; for example, not a child but not yet considered an adult. Wayward is a comic via Image, set in modern Japan and intended for older readers, that explores the danger of the supernatural…
Dead Boys: A Fantastically Undead Adventure
Dead Boys Gabriel Squailia Skyhorse Publishing March 10, 2015 I am quite sure I am not the only one who picked up Gabriel Squailia’s Dead Boys based on Jay Kristoff’s review of the author’s style, “If China Miéville, Neil Gaiman, and Hunter S. Thompson had a ménage à trois, Dead Boys would be the love…
Women! And More Women! Swords of Sorrow is Coming
As I have said many times before, I love Red Sonja. She was the first “person” I wanted to be growing up. All I needed was a sword to go with my horse, which I already had (Texas girl here). When Gail Simone announced that she would be rounding up a group of female writers…
