Well, I feel like we are simultaneously hurtling toward 2024 and like there is way too much left to do in 2023, but the truth is that time moves at time’s pace, which means it’s simply time for October’s WWACommendations. Nothing more worrying than that! It is spooky season, but our reads this month are not particularly spooky. We did, however, all read wildly different things this time: Carrie returns to Thien Pham’s Family Style, which Emily read previously — another new perspective on a familiar comic, which I love! — while Emily took a sharp left turn into depressing territory with a new comic adaptation. I read some silly manga and did an emotional reread, Masha’s got a now complete webtoon for you, and Paulina has my favorite – ZINES! Let’s all walk gently into November at a nice, easy pace with some comics to read.
Carrie McClain: You can count Family Style: Memories of an American from Vietnam by Thien Pham as one of my favorite memoirs and graphic novels of 2023! This incredible book introduces us to a Vietnamese immigrant boy’s search for belonging in America through chapters titled different food dishes like Salisbury Steak and Cơm Tấm đặc Biệt. From the very first chapter, which chronicles the Pham family’s harrowing journey to a new home (one of the most efficient and intense opening chapters in any book that I read this year alone), to the ending that perhaps best reminds us of the importance of family, this book shined as a book to reread.
Pham’s story includes a retelling of his childhood and adolescence and snapshots of his family achieving their version of the American Dream over the years. I fell in love with how food was key in the author’s memories and how he reconstructed his life’s story from a little boy savoring a rice ball on a boat to an adult man who later became a graphic novelist, comic artist, and educator with many more stories to tell.
Family Style: Memories of an American from Vietnam is a fascinating and heartfelt story about Vietnamese identity, finding a place to belong, and the deep bonds families have that keep each other afloat–in the past and now. Peep the endnotes for some wholesome and hilarious backstory and updates on characters you initially meet in the book and some glimpses of Pham’s creative process of bringing this book to life that should not be missed!
Alenka Figa: Carrie, I have not yet read Family Style, but the artist is doing a goofy thing on Instagram where he sadly eats a salad every day until his book sells out, and it’s hilarious. He’s eaten over 50 salads, you’ve gotta buy his book so he can eat noodles again! (Or read it at the library, of course. Once our copies fall apart, we’ll purchase new ones!)
I had to do a bit of travel this month (and thus be away from my cats, the worst), so I downloaded a bunch of ebooks. Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe was available on Libby, and I’d read it way back when it was first released in 2019, but current events made me feel it needed a reread. On the off chance that you are not keeping up with (or are avoiding, for mental health purposes, as I sometimes do) news about book bans, I will provide the brief FYI that Gender Queer has received an incredible amount of backlash from right-wing groups and was the most challenged book in 2022.
I meant to reread Gender Queer as a librarian, but I swiftly realized I was rereading it as a fellow gender queer person. In 2019, I was not yet using they/them pronouns or grappling with my gender feelings directly. (I have been grappling with them indirectly most of my life, but that’s another story — one about as long as Kobabe’s memoir, as e is only a year older than me!) While we have different experiences of gender, there was a lot for me to relate to in Kobabe’s comics. As an adult more settled in my sense of self, I did a lot of “oh yes… that’s it, that’s the thing.” A lot of it was small experiences, like realizing you can just buy the underwear you actually want to wear, but some of it was bigger, like anxiety before medical exams that could enhance dysphoria.
Gender Queer is a deceptively simple read because it flows so smoothly from vignette to vignette, but it contains a lot of complex experiences that were difficult for Kobabe to process. Rereading it felt a bit like talking to a friend and suddenly realizing that we had a ton in common that doesn’t come up in surface conversation. It was a sweet and validating experience, and I’m very glad I returned to it all these years later.
To take a complete left turn, I also read volume 5 of the manga Sakomoto Days, and have unfortunately caught up (at least with what’s available at my library!) Unfair! This manga is so fun, I want more! Sakamoto Days is perfect for fans of Way of the Househusband. The series focuses on the titular Sakamoto, a former assassin who was the best of the best, but left the business after he fell in love and started a family. He also owns a convenience store, one that has to continually be updated and reinforced as old assassin buddies and aspiring killer newbies seek him out to earn the mysterious bounty on his head!!
This manga is intricately illustrated, with lots of fun, heavily inked fight scenes and assassins and killers with all kinds of wild abilities and character designs — clairvoyance, drunken fighting styles, weird spikes and knives embedded in their bodies, and on and on and on. It’s very uninterested in taking itself seriously, choosing instead to juxtapose heavy gore with silly goofs and family values. I’m seriously devastated to have been stopped in my tracks, and I will fill out a purchase request form ASAP!
Emily Lauer: I also read and loved Family Style! I’m teaching it next month and am excited to discuss it extensively with students.
This month, I read Watership Down: The Graphic Novel, an adaptation of Richard Adams’ 1970s classic by James Sturm and Joe Sutphin. While the original novel is not my cup of tea, this is a fabulous adaptation. Sutphin’s art walks that difficult tightrope between too cutesy and too bleak, either of which would be disastrous for this story of interclan fighting and intrigue among literal bunnies. Similarly, Sturm’s adaptation of the writing makes the graphic novel feel complete and nuanced even as it lends a lighter touch to some of the issues that made the original age poorly, such as gendered depictions and the horrors of war. I found myself consistently engaged in the story and admiring the art. Watership Down: The Graphic Novel came out from Ten Speed Graphic on October 17th.
Masha Zhdanova: Surviving Romance by Lee Yone is finally in its endgame, and I am so excited about it!! If you liked the idea of Homestuck’s final act more than its execution, you should read this webtoon about a girl trapped in a romance novel. I am dead serious, I’ve never seen the metanarrative conceit enacted as effectively in a webtoon as it is here.
Chaerin Eun thinks she’s about to get her happy ending as the protagonist of a romance novel when the zombies attack! And now she has to figure out how to survive the zombies and make it out alive. We’ve got a time loop mechanic ala Russian Doll, where it resets when the lead dies, the Power of Friendship, a big buff glasses girl beating up monsters with a nailbat, an epic motorcycle, like, what else could you want? My favorite thing about Surviving Romance is, first of all, it’s funny, and second of all, there are so many distinct, different girls with complex relationships with each other. It takes the lead a lot of work to get to know them and understand how to work with them so they can all survive their zombie apocalypse together as a class. Their wins feel satisfying and their losses devastating, and I want them all to get a happy ending so bad.
Paulina Pzystupa: I just went for the first time to Albuqerque’s Zine Fest (ABQ Zine Fest) and just…bought things. I got a couple of cool zines made by NASA for educational purposes after talking about the eclipse and other cool space stuff. Check them out! I also got great glasses for viewing the annular eclipse. [Editor’s, or rather librarian’s note: THERE ARE A TON OF FAKE ECLIPSE GLASSES ONLINE! Please be cautious and check with your local library; we often have them to give away. There is another eclipse in April 2024.] I’d never been to a zine-specific gathering before so it was awesome to just see the range of stuff folks had within that heading. Staples, folds, and a variety of kinds of art in those just made me excited to see how many people make and tell cool stories. I appreciated the tangibility of them as well.
I got to meet KOREANGRY and see one of her dioramas. The diorama was an unexpected and masterful piece on its own, which I enjoyed immensely. As far as tangibles I took home, I have a number I’m saving for later, such as Not Our Farm. The zine is by and for farm workers, but as a non-farm worker, I’m excited to finish it and learn more about farm jobs. It’s the sort of zine I can’t wait to share with others because farm labor/ farming as legitimate employment lacks serious discussion in many communities, and this zine is one way to inform people.
Others like Ann Curl’s Ann Admires Animals were a refreshing, relaxing read. Photos of animals, with the city and year, which Ann took on walks through Albuquerque and Chicago comprised the stapled zine. The zine reminded me of Chris Sebela’s Coffee Shop. Dog. and was just a nice low-key photo series. The zine also reminded me of my walks through Albuquerque, whose routes may or may not be tailored to which dogs may be in their yards at the time I walk. I also got an “Interdimensional Birding Guide” that I loved, but I can’t recall who the artist was. Overall, I’m just looking forward to next year and reading the rest of my haul!
