This frenzied and occasionally befuddling series opener from Pires and Casalanguida (New America) spins conspiracy theories about the Illuminati—five filthy-rich families who control world business and politics—into a glittery web of schemers and backstabbers. When Medici patriarch Cosimo dies in a bloody attack during an Illuminati meeting, Paolo Medici inherits command of the family and its secret operations, but his ascendancy is complicated by the intricacies and subterfuges of his father’s life. Alliances shatter, enemies scheme, and Paolo falls in love with the wrong girl: Ming, of the rival Yinling family. Casalanguida’s energetic artwork revels in the story’s sex, violence, and dirty deeds. The script jump cuts through a confusingly large cast of characters—who often don’t get named or placed within a family alliance for pages after they appear. The sweep and action of the narrative is exciting nonetheless, even if readers may need to keep flipping back to each chapter’s opening page, which lays out a who’s-who of characters that appear in the following pages. The comic ends on a cliffhanger—promising the beginning of “the end of the world” but delivering a “wait and see.” Readers will be curious to find out what happens next. (Dec.)

Reviewed on 01/03/2025 | Details & Permalink

In this adroitly drawn but narratively bland manga-styled action-fantasy from Vorniére, his English-language debut, monsters roam a world of endless night, only attacking if they hear a loud noise. A young man named Saber tends to the children in a tiny settlement inside an old church. The inhabitants communicate in (cleverly depicted) sign language, and only some of the men are allowed to venture out to fish and trap game. They invite Saber on his first foray, but when he glimpses a mysterious humanoid figure, he’s startled into an exhalation, causing a fiery boar-monster to attack and seriously injure his mentor. Saber secretly ventures out again to try and make things right, and the figure reveals herself to be the mystical Lune, who hails from the mountaintop settlement of High-Fort. She shows Saber how to harness the monsters’ powers by cooking their organs into a stew. Saber jumps at the chance to help save his people, but their journey to High-Fort is complicated not just by what lurks in the shadows but by his community’s fear of the unknown. Vorniere’s creative monster designs (inspired by French folklore) and dynamic fight sequences are more impressive than his characters, which fit standard fantasy tropes. The art, however, is savvy enough to bring manga fans back for a second installment. Here’s hoping the sequel turns up the volume. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 01/03/2025 | Details & Permalink

Geary (the Treasury of Murder series) ably adapts Klickstein’s whimsical novel, written in the naive voice of real-life Victorian child author Daisy Ashford (1881–1972). Apple-cheeked, pinafore-sporting Daisy is sitting on her lawn when, out of nowhere, a rocket ship lands and disgorges a black-clad man from the moon named Zogolbythm. Just like that, she jets off on a space adventure: wandering an underground moon colony, battling alien monsters and invaders from Venus, and meeting a visitor from the future who comes bearing a television. Daisy’s escapades capture the stream-of-consciousness rhythm of a story told by an actual child, and Klickstein’s narration copies Ashford’s idiosyncratic syntax and spelling: “She sat there sometimes jotting down this or that as idears did pop into her head.” As events loop around like the moon in orbit, the plot becomes increasingly self-referential and Daisy wonders, “Am I writing this story or is it writing me?” Geary’s artwork, with touches that recall turn-of-the-century comic strips and antique printing techniques, is perfectly suited to Victoriana. Readers with limited patience for nonsense may grow impatient with the story’s disjointed inventiveness. But by Daisy’s own standards—“You cannot be peculiar enough as a true writer, and the only sin is boredom”—it more than succeeds. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 01/03/2025 | Details & Permalink

Oeming follows The Mice Templar with another anthropomorphic animal adventure wrapped inside a vivid historical horror story. In a 12th-century England fractured by civil war and inhabited by walking and talking beasts, raccoon monk William uses the power of his faith to put supernatural threats to rest. He appeases the lonely spirit of a woman’s dead husband, a tormented ghostly chaplain, and soul-stealing fairies. The head of the monastery disapproves of these otherworldly activities, but Winnie, a spunky mouse thief, is sufficiently impressed to reform and become William’s apprentice. “A lost soul often looks for another lost soul, Winnie,” William warns. “And when I look around this world, that’s all I see.” Oeming’s boldly inked, deeply shadowed artwork owes an unmistakable debt to Mike Mignola’s Hellboy series but with visual touches inspired by the era’s illuminated manuscripts and woodcut illustrations. Readers are immersed in a medieval European’s perspective on a demon-haunted world where skeletons fly and biblically accurate angels (many-eyed and wielding swords) might descend at any moment. The well-researched historical details include such plot points as the unsolved mystery of the Green Children of Woolpit. This deserves a place on every fantasy reader’s shelf. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 01/03/2025 | Details & Permalink

This cockeyed superhero story from Esposito (Batman: Urban Legends) and Von Gorman (Secret Adventures of Houdini) mixes urban paranoia and the paranormal. In Summer City, a dead-end town with a tendency to “swallow everything and everyone,” an unusual hero appears: a silent, white-suited speed walker who rescues citizens while scrupulously observing traffic laws. Assorted locals investigate the mystery of the Pedestrian, including a police detective, a pizza delivery woman, a pair of precocious twins, and Kira, a teenager who becomes curious after the offbeat hero saves her from a mugger. As these characters’ paths cross, unexpected connections emerge between them and other townspeople. Meanwhile, the Pedestrian acquires a nemesis, a sinister figure in black and red who possesses townspeople and makes them give in to anger and despair. Von Gorman’s art is at its best in the comic’s moments of traffic-themed Grant Morrison–esque surrealism: a vision of stoplight-headed celestial beings, characters transported and trapped inside a lit up “walk” symbol. With hints of evil conspiracies and cosmic forces brewing beneath the surface of the aggressively dull town, this offers a jaunty detour from the norm. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 01/03/2025 | Details & Permalink

Shirato’s politically aware ninja manga, which ran from 1964 to 1971, makes its English-language debut in this glorious collection, the first of 10 volumes. In 17th-century Japan, the ninja Kamui is born an “outcast,” the lowest caste in the feudal system. He rabble rouses tirelessly against the peasantry’s lot (“The more you tremble the more they’ll exploit you!”), and war between the castes soon breaks out. Other key players in the sprawling drama include Ryūnoshin, a promising young samurai; Shōsuke, another frustrated teenage peasant; and Shōsuke’s girlfriend, Omine, who is sold against her will to the local lord. But the real central character is the setting, which Shirato explores layer by layer, capturing the beauty and brutality of medieval life. He spends pages patiently following a boar hunt, a children’s wrestling match, or the annual rice harvest on which the farmers’ lives depend—though they can’t afford to eat rice themselves. Every scene simmers with outrage at inequality and injustice, which Shirato links to the politics of the 1960s: “If everyone’s legitimate demands were crushed and ignored,” he writes in one of many side essays, “how sad and indignant we would be!” In the early sections, simply drawn characters pop against carefully researched and rendered backgrounds. Then, as the plot thickens, thick, slashing brush lines highlight the violent action. Part adventure epic, part historical fiction, part political call to arms, this manga defies easy categorization. But as Shirato says, “The fish who swims against the current is more vibrant and beautiful than any other.” Readers will want to dive in. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 01/06/2025 | Details & Permalink

Bertocchini’s tense and harrowing English-language debut documents the 1972 crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 57, avoiding sensationalism through a focus on the faith and friendship of the survivors, among them members of a rugby team. The basic details of the tragedy are familiar from 1974’s Alive and its subsequent film adaptations, and it’s mostly remembered as a tale of cannibalism. Here, narration by Roberto Canessa, one of the few passengers with rudimentary medical training, lends personality and humanity to the stark struggle of the survivors. His ongoing conflicts with rugby team captain Nando Parrado drive the narrative as Nando’s optimism becomes manic. Those who survive the crash do eventually end up eating flesh from the dead, but it almost becomes a background detail amid the daily trials of their endurance. As the passengers begin to die, they face brutal high-altitude snowstorms and avalanches, and attempt impossible exploratory attempts to the east before a torturous trek to the west finally brings help. Diette and Nino’s dynamic artwork captures the despair and desolation and the unforgiving landscape. The result is a driving and cinematic account of survival. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 01/06/2025 | Details & Permalink

In D’Andrade’s thought-provoking debut, he depicts himself as a suburban 10-year-old in the late 1970s, recounting how he saw the nude, dead body of his murdered neighbor after her own young sons discovered it, and in denial, begged him to go look. In adulthood, the disturbing memory is a persistent source of anxiety and dread—which he tries to reason away (the proximity was frightening, yet it was not his family member). Cue self-loathing, which he shares with his therapist in present-day scenes as he struggles with “toxic masculinity,” which he loathes but fears he embodies, despite trying to be a “different kind of man.” Through therapy, he mourns his kind neighbor, wonders about the at-large murderer, and regains his sense of safety. This is not a whodunit, though the murderer is found eventually via familial DNA. In bold line drawings, the colors deployed are primarily aqua with blood-red accents—with the exception of a scene in which Hugh imagines telling himself as a child, in full-color drawings of the murder scene, “When you put the bright colors next to all that black, it makes them appear even brighter.” It’s an empathetic look at the lifelong quest to find light amid the dark. Agent: Madison Smartt Bell, Pande Literary. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 01/06/2025 | Details & Permalink

Umber (Sound of Snow Falling) presents nine unsettling graphic shorts that delve into darkness, grief, and the author’s fascination with James Harris, a demonic figure from a 17th-century ballad. The collection eschews a standard comics-style narrative in favor of evoking an eerie and contemplative vibe, through ephemeral black and gray story fragments and portraits. In “Rine,” a faceless man and woman marry in an abandoned Victorian mansion before the man fades into shadow, leaving the woman alone. A woman on a ship falls in love with a cloven-footed man in “The Devil Is a Hell of a Dancer,” only to drown in the sea on which they sail. A ghost rows a lonely, lost woman in a small boat in “The Rock.” Harris haunts the collection, showing up as a suit-clad suitor, a dapper lover, and the devil himself. Umber’s gestural sketches with gothic tones add to the spectral atmosphere. Fans of Frank Gogel’s Grief anthology will find a comfortable discomfort here. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 12/13/2024 | Details & Permalink

Martin (Lost Boy) delivers a fast-paced if predictable redemption story set against the backdrop of a second American civil war. Nick Carson is an apathetic young man who hopes that the political tumult simply “blows over.” Soon, however, he’s forced into the Army of the New Confederacy, fighting on the front lines just a stone’s throw from his hometown. After he’s wounded in combat and is left for dead, he rather miraculously recovers and goes AWOL (“I’m getting the hell out of this bloody war”). Trekking across the ravaged and desolate countryside, he falls in with a pair of scavengers—grizzled Charlie Cuba and his nine-year-old traveling companion, Little Bob. While their predatory tactics help them survive, Charlie’s capacity for violence and cruelty eventually leads Nick to a new crisis of conscience. Martin’s worldbuilding tends to feel boilerplate, with the civil war serving as a canvas for a hero’s journey that skirts direct commentary on contemporary politics. Characters similarly conform to type, from the hard-charging captain with the war movie vernacular to the sociopathic vagabond. But the artwork is a high point, boasting evocative use of colors and energetic body language reminiscent of Paul Pope. The result is dystopian fiction lite—a kinder, gentler, shallower version of The Road. (Dec.)

Reviewed on 12/13/2024 | Details & Permalink