Kingdom Shinsuke Sato (director), Tsutomu Kuroiwa, Shinsuke Sato and Yasuhisa Hara (screenplay), Kento Yamazaki, Ryo Yoshizawa, Kanna Hashimoto, Masami Nagasawa, Kanata Hongō and Takao Osawa (cast) Sony Pictures Japan/Funimation Films April 19, 2019 (international)/2020 America In ancient China, two orphaned slaves, Li Xin and Piao, dream of becoming the world’s greatest generals. They train each…
Shannon Hale’s Best Friends is an Unintentionally Helpful Guidebook for Parents of Preteens
Best Friends Shannon Hale (writer), LeUyen Pham (illustrator), Hilary Sycamore (colourist) First Second August 27, 2019 Shannon Hale’s Best Friends is a graphic memoir of her elementary school experiences. The sequel to 2017’s Real Friends, it covers everything from body image issues to crushes, and all the emotional turmoil in between that is the life of…
Sweet Valley High: Academic All-Star? Brings Back Twinning
Sweet Valley High: Academic All-Star? Pippa Mather (colors), Devaki Neogi (art), Cardinal Rae (letters), Katy Rex (writer) July 31st, 2019 Dynamite Comics The young adult book series Sweet Valley High hit a peak of popularity in the ’80s and ’90s that made the soapy, wild adventures of the Wakefield twins inescapable for folks of a…
The Vampyre’s Legacy, Part 8: In the Shadow of Hollywood
As noted in the previous post of this series, the biggest change faced by vampire fiction of the 1930s and ‘40s was that authors in the genre were now competing with films. Admittedly, dramatised vampires were not a new phenomenon: after all, the 1819 publication of Polidori’s “The Vampyre” had been swiftly followed by a…