Written and illustrated by Laura Gao, Messy Roots: A Graphic Memoir of a Wuhanese American is a Harvey-nominated coming-of-age story about the hardship of identity and the beautiful but messy journey to find it. After spending her early years in Wuhan, China, Laura immigrates to Texas with her family, where she finds herself constantly having…
REVIEW: The Hills of Estrella Roja Embarks on a Spooky Southwest Gothic Adventure
Ashley Robin Franklin’s The Hills of Estrella Roja follows two teens on a search for cryptids around a border town in southwestern Texas. Kat is creating content for a podcast, while Mari is attempting to bring family secrets to light. As they navigate a gorgeous desert landscape, the two young women nurture a budding friendship…
REVIEW: Mamo Explores the Darker Side of Witchy Traditions
Sas Milledge’s graphic novel Mamo embraces the cottagecore aesthetic. Its pages are filled with lush rural landscapes, small magical adventures, and quaint witchcraft traditions. At the same time, Milledge directs a challenge toward the concept of “tradition” by showing how a conservative mindset can hurt people who don’t fit neatly into models established in the…
REVIEW: Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle offers Both Tingles and Camp (Spoiler-free)
In Camp Damascus, a young adult thriller by Hugo-award finalist Chuck Tingle, Rose is a smart, neurodivergent high school senior. She’s developing a crush on a girl in her class. She loves Jesus and scientific research. We swiftly learn that Rose’s parents ration her time looking up information because they worry her hunger for knowledge…
REVIEW: Space Trash Stages a Lunarpunk Rebellion
Jenn Woodall’s Space Trash is a colorful riot of individuality railing against the capitalist underpinnings of space colonization. For the students attending high school in a sealed dome in the twenty-second century, the fantasy of living on the moon is an unpleasantly gritty reality. These young women’s minor acts of rebellion against an unfair system…
INTERVIEW: Danielle Paige Flips the Script with Her YA Superhero #ZoeMG
As a young adult writer who’s brought us stories like Dorothy Must Die, Mera: Tidebreaker, and more, Danielle Paige is well aware of the influence of social media on teenaged girls. In #ZoeMG from InterPop Comics, Paige flips the script, she tells WWAC, in order to “really explore “what if” a teen could literally influence…
REVIEW: My Heart is a Chainsaw Effortlessly Slays
Content warning: Self-harm, suicide, and emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. I’d say MHIAC it’s made for teenagers sixteen years old and older. My Heart is a Chainsaw feels like it was made for me, and me personally, which is always a wonderful thing to feel when you open a book. The volume begins with an…
REVIEW: Legendborn Reimagines the Roots of King Arthur’s Return
Revisiting Arthurian lore, Tracy Deonn introduces a young hero who will turn what the longstanding Order believes about the Roundtable’s descendants upside down in Legendborn.
REVIEW: Witches of Brooklyn Makes Magic
“Young children don’t perceive reality the way adults do…which gives them real creative freedom…and that freedom can lead to the best kinds of magic.”
Race in DC’s Middle Grade and Young Adult Comics
Over the last two years, DC Comics has released more than a dozen titles geared towards children and teenagers, many of which are written by women and feature, as leading characters, girls. However, although a number of these books have people of color on their creative teams, whether as writers or artists, most feature white…
The Avant-Guards Vol. 1: “It’s So Gay and I Love It!”
The Avant-Guards Vol. 1 Ed Dukeshire (letterer), Noah Hayes (illustrator), Rebecca Nalty (colourist), Carly Usdin (writer and creator) BOOM!Box September 4, 2019 Getting my 13-year-old daughter to do more than shrug or mumble an “It was good” when I ask what she thinks of a particular comic is an effort in futility. When she spends…
Garcia and Picolo’s Teen Titans: Raven Soars with Ease
Teen Titans: Raven David Calderon (colourist), Kami Garcia (writer), Tom Napolitano (letterer) and Gabriel Picolo with Jon Sommariva and Emma Kubert (artists) DC Ink (a DC Comics imprint) July 2, 2019 In March 2015, I hosted a Gotham Academy roundtable featuring five book bloggers. We discussed their limited experience with comics, if the series was great for…