Furnas skewers the mental healthcare system in her sharp-edged graphic novel debut, which interweaves candid autobiographical moments into the story of aspiring artist Fox Foxerson and a bevy of other anthropomorphic critters. Desperate for friendship after moving to the big city—“It’s not Oz, but at least it’s not Kansas”—Fox crashes a house party hosted by the lovable Teddy (a bear). Dissuaded from dancing with partygoer Dodo (“I just think it’s a bad idea,” Teddy cautions), Fox befriends Goth Fairy and Snake, igniting a bustling social life in between time spent drawing on café napkins and working a “dead end job.” Then Fox moves into an apartment with Dodo, who becomes abusive (“I would hate to break the hand you draw with”). Emotional turmoil surfaces in the ample white space around simple black-and-white doodled art—in one paranoid episode, the clawed hands of a spectral figure grasp for Fox’s spiraling mind. Following multiple suicide attempts, Fox receives a schizophrenia diagnosis that sets in motion a frenetic journey through a morass of hospitals and psychiatric facilities where unsympathetic physicians are cleverly illustrated as interchangeable sock puppets with creepy button eyes. Chapters tend to end abruptly, as does the book, absent of resolution. This surreal work reflects the disorientation of mental breakdown. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 04/12/2024 | Details & Permalink

Malle’s latest (after This Is How I Disappear) stands out for its fresh dialogue, unique character design, and realistic exploration of sexual harassment in a tight-knit community of Montreal artists. Cléo, who has blonde hair with a center strip of dark roots that grows out over the course of the story, meets Farah, a “powerhouse” artist and editor, through mutual friends at a comics convention in France. Farah compliments Cléo’s art and offers to publish her. But when she learns that Cléo’s boyfriend is Charles, a more successful artist (and heavy drinker), Farah gets a strange look on her face. Cléo asks around and confirms the two knew each other in grad school, but from there stories diverge: Charles claims a crush ended when he began dating another woman, and Farah was a “crazy bitch.” Farah, on the other hand, remembers Charles stalking her and having to bring in school authorities to put an end to it. This is a story where women believe women, even when the revelation shakes Cléo to her core. The fallout with Charles spurs an adventure in getting to know herself, including a budding queer romance. With oversize hands and features that move around faces like subtle Picassos, Malle’s illustrations are as distinctive as the storytelling. It’s a savvy update on the classic notion that breaking up is hard to do. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 04/12/2024 | Details & Permalink

Fans of the Locked Tomb series will dig this sleek print collection of Vuong’s popular action Webtoon with a boys’ love angle. Ezra, an exorcist with the Church of Providence, struggles to harness his full powers—because he does not actually believe in God. Complicating matters, his church is under suspicion of demon sympathizing. Something is indeed attracting more and more demons to their precinct, all of them searching for “the fallen who never fell.” Then Ezra receives a special assignment to protect his classmate, a brooding goth cutie ironically named Sunny, who is being targeted by demons. As the pair grow closer, mysteries deepen, setting the stage for the second volume. The art is crisp and detailed, with desaturated colors and high-contrast action sequences featuring lean-muscled men in tight black garb, and the often-tricky transition from Webtoon to print is nearly seamless. Unfortunately, the dialogue doesn’t have the same punch as the art, and the breakneck plot leaves little breathing room for the characters to interact outside of life-threatening situations. Still, what does develop between Ezra and Sunny will leave readers wanting more. This is catnip for fans of sexy fight scenes. (May)

Reviewed on 04/12/2024 | Details & Permalink

Anderson (Weeds) whisks readers to the liminal space between daily life and fantasy in this tender collection of comics stories. By toying with color, panel boundaries, and layered narration, she explores themes including loss, anxiety, and connection with nature. Often gender-ambiguous characters lend the volume a queer undertone. In “The Basement,” a young child copes with a parent’s death by following their cat into a hidden realm of memories. A queer person’s depression manifests as red flowers blooming on their light blue skin in “Weeds.” The protagonist of “At the Seaside” finds solace from a mundane existence in the meditative world of a sleep app, only feeling truly alive as they slumber. Nestled between each chapter are interludes following a quirky wizard’s efforts to protect a forest, overlaid with a skeptical narrator’s commentary (“I just think he ain’t right”). Collectively, the stories leave readers feeling safe in Anderson’s hands, despite the heavy subject matter. Her soft drawing style, calming color palette, and willingness to step outside the boundaries of the comics form are inviting. Anderson proves a savvy guide to what it means to live and be seen in the world. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 04/05/2024 | Details & Permalink

With this quartet of meditative and painterly stories, Koch (After Nothing Comes) juxtaposes humankind’s general instability and search for permanence against the organic, regular flow of nature’s rhythms. The title piece follows a nameless female protagonist’s travels, which include a stopover with some old friends. Koch intercuts scenes of the woman pondering the unknowable outcomes of her destination, illustrated by sequences of two rivers that ultimately meet: “The water never thought about what would happen... it was just moving.” In the fable-like “A New Year,” a village’s denizens decorate the surrounding forest, hanging “messages and gifts” across all the trees to both honor and keep secret from authorities the specific location of a tree thought to be where “all the souls went.” Koch returns to water imagery in the tone poem “The Forest” as well as in “Man Made Lake,” where a patient describes to a therapist their former life as a sea creature: “My cells were part of everything and everything was connected.“ Koch’s lovely, softly colored minimalism zeroes in on small, specific details, such as the blue polka dots of a woman’s socks as she climbs a staircase—resulting in an innovative image that looks like drops of water floating up the steps. This and other abstractions suffuse the work with a beguilingly ambient quality. Koch’s artful interludes offer much to ponder. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 04/05/2024 | Details & Permalink

Hando and Hoshino’s North American debut, an in-depth manga account of Japan’s surrender in WWII, is dry and workmanlike in its early chapters but develops the tension of a well-crafted thriller as it builds to the fateful moment of Japan’s surrender. The long setup to “the longest day” begins in 1853, when the forced reopening of Japan’s ports by U.S. commodore Matthew Perry after more than 200 years of isolation sparks a power struggle between the government, military, and imperial court that continues into the 20th century and the crowning of Emperor Hirohito. Moving rapidly through the decades, the volume’s first half leaves many questions unanswered—WWII itself passes in a handful of pages. The entire second half, however, covers the two days from Hirohito’s surrender to the broadcast of his speech informing the Japanese people that the war is over. An incredible story of intrigue and rebellion unfolds. Factions of the military plot coups, bloody sword battles break out in government offices, generals and politicians die by suicide, and imperial loyalists risk their lives to smuggle the recording of the emperor’s surrender to a radio station before pro-war radicals can destroy it. Hoshino’s meticulously rendered battle scenes and weaponry display the firm, slashing lines of classic samurai manga. Readers who can forgive the slow pace of the opening will be rewarded by a solidly crafted dramatic history. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 04/05/2024 | Details & Permalink

This playful graphic adaptation of historian Cline’s study of the late Bronze Age employs cheerful art by Fawkes (Charlotte Brontë Before Jane Eyre) to bring archaeological scholarship to life. Together Cline and Fawkes tackle one of history’s great mysteries: the sudden fall of the Egyptian empire in 1177 BCE. Readers are guided by Pel, a son of the mysterious invaders known as the “Sea Peoples” who attacked Egypt, and Shesha, a young Egyptian scribe. “It’s the late 12th century B.C., and the world Grandpa describes is gone!” Pel exclaims, and with Shesha’s help he sets out to discover what happened to the flourishing empire their elders remember. They have a lot of ground to cover, and the narrative jumps rapidly through time and space as it attempts to illuminate interconnected cultures, rulers, military campaigns, and natural disasters. Cline and Fawkes periodically step in to explain how archaeologists learn about the past and discuss the historical evidence for events like the Trojan War and the biblical story of Exodus. The graphic format allows readers to envision the ancient world, as Fawkes fills the pages with meticulously researched drawings of cities, people, art, food, and fashion. Her loose, colorful picture-book art is welcoming to all ages. This ambitious and detailed visual history rewards multiple readings. Agent (for Fawkes): Anjali Singh, Ayesha Pande Literary. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 04/05/2024 | Details & Permalink

The squelching heart of a low-budget creature feature beats schlocky as ever in this vibrant but predictable graphic novel scripted by Frantz and Cuffe (the Metalshark Bro series) with art by Williams (the Bountiful Garden series). According to Sheriff Carla McCord, the only notable event in the history of backwoods burg Kankakee, Va., was the government’s construction of a “fancy-pants” research facility in the 1970s. But things get exciting fast when mosquito-like aliens invade through a power surge at the facility (where their pod has been held since it returned from space) and begin draining the life out of Kankakee County. Carla teams up with a man in black from the facility, Agent Ronald Smith, and two stoners from the local pest control company to save the day. The mismatched crew attempt to squash the beasts, as depicted in deliciously gaudy cartooning, bright coloring, and wonderfully slimy gore sure to sate any horror junkie’s needs. In contrast, the script, while quickly paced and never missing a chance for comedy, falls into the trap of being self-aware about genre tropes but unwilling to push their boundaries. Still, readers in the mood for revolting scares will bask in the blood and guts. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 03/29/2024 | Details & Permalink

Set in Canada’s sparsely populated north, these pleasantly meandering vignettes from McCreesh (Norths) document 10 years committed to adventure and freedom, before taking a turn for the elegiac. In 2008, when she’s in her early 20s, McCreesh heads from Quebec to Dawson City, a small Gold Rush town in the Yukon. For the next decade, first with friends, later with her partner Pat, and eventually with their two young children, she lives a semi-nomadic artist’s life in campers, houseboats, and shacks, earning money as a translator and an art teacher. Refreshingly, she offers no definitive explanation for her wanderlust; instead, the narrative bears gentle, slow-paced witness to her rural, off-the-grid lifestyle, including observations of local Inuit communities, both historical and contemporary. As McCreesh reckons with the demands of adult life, she reflects on the gentrification of a beloved old shanty town, and the devastating effects of climate change on Indigenous life, delicate ecosystems, and local infrastructure. “All is connected... all is changing,” she observes. The panels are densely populated with loose-lined, casual sketches of figures, and interspersed with realistic and detailed illustrations of the northern lights and various artifacts of rural life. It’s poignant ode to the vastness, and interconnectedness, of the North and the people who make their homes there. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 03/29/2024 | Details & Permalink

Härmälä’s wit glows as warmly as her saturated pastel colors in her semi-autobiographical debut about tackling parenthood alone. Her partner dumps her while she’s pregnant, leaving her to shoulder the responsibilities of birthing and then raising their daughter, Alma. After she fantasizes about burning the house down, she imagines being visited by angels who decree, “From now on, you shall always suffer judgment more than other mothers.” Through short, interconnected vignettes, Härmälä deals with insensitive couples, overly sensitive friends, friendships with other single moms (Sara, an aspirational single mother figure, “smells expensive” and is “emotionally scarred but in a gentle, approachable way”), dating as a single parent, applying for a mortgage alone, and accepting the hard truth that, no matter how exhausting and exasperating her situation is, she has to keep going for the sake of her daughter. Through it all, Härmälä is bitingly funny and visually innovative; she imagines losing her partner in a game show, depicts herself in woodcut-style art as a witch banished from the Village of Couples, and transforms into a half-woman, half-stroller cyborg. Her smooth, rounded art is delightfully expressive and self-deprecating. Parents, single and otherwise, will find plenty to laugh about, in solidarity. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 03/29/2024 | Details & Permalink