“We Conceive” is the last update in Rachel Masilamani’s NON PARTUM series, published by Mutha Magazine in June of 2015. While I’d been writing about the series, one by one, as it came out, I fell off by the time this one came out, because certain elements of Masilimani’s comic about health, trauma, and trying to…
Frontier #14: Rebecca Sugar
Frontier #14: Rebecca Sugar Rebecca Sugar Youth In Decline December 2016 The cover of Frontier #14 is not misleading. This is, in part, a comic about progress, corrections, revisiting, and reworking past ideas. The layers of pencil, corrective tape, and marker are a motif, the vehicle through which Sugar makes her point. After the front…
Juliet Looks Through a Fishtank at Romeo: Romance Manga Aquarium
There’s a sweet and lovely feminism to the shoujo romance stories found in Tomoko Taniguchi’s Aquarium. Femininity is their strength. Tomoko Taniguchi was active in the Japanese market by the early nineties, but those same stories experienced a second, translated wind a decade later, in the bubble days of the American manga market. There’s very…
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi Redux: Karate Petshop’s “Rikki”
Rikki Norm Harper (s), Matthew Foltz-Gray (p), Oceano Ransford (l), Christine Knopp (cover) Karatepetshop.com, 2016 Disclaimer: A copy of this comic was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Out of all the stories I expected to see at the Alternative Press Expo (APE), Karate Petshop’s Rikki, a retelling of Rudyard Kipling’s short story “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi,” was certainly…
Chelsea Cain Does Superheroes in Mockingbird Volume 1: I Can Explain
Mockingbird Volume 1: I Can Explain Chelsea Cain (Writer), Kate Niemczyk, Sean Parsons and Ibrahim Moustafa (Artists), Rachelle Rosenberg (Colours), Joe Caramagna (Letters) Marvel Comics November 2016 Bobbi Morse, alias Mockingbird, is an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. who possesses fighting skill and intellect, but not, for most of her existence, actual superpowers. After being injected with an experimental…
Betty & Veronica #2 Is Awful and Depressing
Betty & Veronica #2 Adam Hughes Archie Comics November 2016 It’s been months since the first issue of Adam Hughes’ Betty & Veronica came out, long enough that some of my bitterness toward the title has washed away. Maybe, I thought, this issue would find Hughes settling in with a deeper understanding of the characters, discarding…
3 Takes On Josie & the Pussycats #2
Josie & the Pussycats #2 Marguerite Bennett & Cameron Deordio (script), Audrey Mok (art), Kelly Fitzpatrick (colors), Jack Morelli (letters) Archie Comics November 2016 Here we are at Issue #2 of Archie Comics’ latest reboot, Josie and the Pussycats! Although not all of us loved issue #1, we were all pretty interested to see what direction…
Review: The Golden Compass: The Graphic Novel Volume 2
The Golden Compass: The Graphic Novel Volume 2 Written by Philip Pullman Adapted by Stéphane Melchior Art by Clément Oubrerie Coloring by Clément Oubrerie and Philippe Bruno Translated by Annie Eaton Published by Alfred A. Knopf Books For Young Readers September 20, 2016 Another year has passed, and that means the release of another volume of…
Review: Cosplayers Perfect Collection by Dash Shaw
Cosplayers Perfect Collection Dash Shaw (Writer and Artist) Fantagraphics September 6th, 2016 Cosplayers Perfect Collection follows the meandering lives of Annie and Verti, two cosplayers who both consciously and unconsciously blend reality with fandom. The book is broken down into smaller storylines following the characters as they relate to various aspects of the cosplay community….
And Then They Died: Sean Poppe’s Cackling Horror Comics
Disclaimer: This review is based on a review copy provided by the cartoonist. Short horror fiction has perhaps the widest reach of all genres. Campfires, midnight radio, parody advertisements, pulp fiction for eight-year-olds, and anthology television all boast a firm ground in the genre-format. Readers and viewers alike love the twist in the tale that so…
Review: Ghosts by Raina Teglemeier
Ghosts Raina Telgemeier (Writer, Artist), Braden Lamb (Colors) Scholastic Graphix September 2016
Fantasy Sports: Morally Grey Wizards Play Basketball
Fantasy Sports No. 1 Sam Bosma Nobrow Press Whether you’re suffering post-SPX withdrawal or are reflecting on your tragically SPX-free weekend, I’m sure you’re curious about the Ignatz winners. Who are these earnest indie creators picking up awards? Should I buy these books? I can enthusiastically say yes, buy them all and do it now,…
