I think most comic book readers have at least one creator whose works they’ve kept meaning to try out, but never gotten around to. Some of us even have lists; one of the people on mine for a while now has been Faith [...]]]> By Faith Erin Hicks
224 pages, black and white
Published by First Second Books

I think most comic book readers have at least one creator whose works they’ve kept meaning to try out, but never gotten around to. Some of us even have lists; one of the people on mine for a while now has been Faith Erin Hicks. I’ve heard good things about her past books (writing and drawing Zombies Calling and The War at Ellsmere, and illustrating Brain Camp), and so with Friends With Boys due to be released just around the corner, now seemed a good a time as any to finally give Hicks a whirl. Fortunately, this is one of those situations where it was worth the wait.

Friends With Boys is a slightly odd book when you stop to think about it. On the surface, it’s got two different stories going on. There’s our main character Maggie, who after being home schooled for her mother for eight years, is about to enter high school where the only people she knows are her three older brothers. If that’s not bad enough, the only woman in her life (her mother) has just abandoned the family and gone to parts unknown. Meanwhile, there’s a secondary storyline, involving Maggie being haunted by a ghost from the local cemetery. And at a glance, the two really don’t have that much in common.

I think it was once I hit the halfway point of Friends With Boys that it hit me that this wasn’t a book with two major stories; rather, it’s a book with one story about Maggie trying to find her way in the world, and that some of the finer details (like the ghost in the cemetery) are just that. Looking at it on that level helps focus the book; it makes Maggie’s struggles to fit into high school and her budding friendship with Lucy and Alistair more interesting once you stop waiting for it to get sidelined by the ghost. That’s not to say that the part involving the ghost doesn’t intersect with the rest of the book, but it’s not a primary thrust of the overall story. And at that point, I felt like the book really began to sing. Alistair recounting how he shifted from being part of the cool kids to an outcast is a great anecdote in its own right, but Hicks tells it with such emotion that it feels like you’re actually living the moment through Alistair. It’s the part in the book where you’ll start caring about Alistair, too; in recounting his greatest betrayal of Lucy and his attempts since then to make it up to her, it shows a shift in conscience that you’ll wish more people in real life could have, too.

Maggie herself, though, is the star of Friends With Boys and I think Hicks makes her a likable main character. In some ways she initially reminded me a bit of Sarah Oleksyk’s protagonist from Ivy, but the big difference between Maggie and Ivy is that Maggie manages to make the right decisions in life. She stands up for herself, but privately admits her fears and indecision even while she puts on a good game face in public. And when the story with the ghost shows back up, to me it becomes important in that we see how Maggie has grown throughout Friends With Boys; she’s shifted from running away from or trying to ignore the ghost, to actively trying to address its presence and try to put it to rest. The rest of the supporting cast of Friends With Boys pale a bit in comparison to Maggie and Alistair; twin brothers Lloyd and Zander in particular feel a tiny bit underdeveloped for when they’re suddenly involved in the resolution, but ultimately I’d rather have had more pages of Maggie and Alistair than giving some of that space away for their own plot.

Hicks’ art is that slightly blocky, stripped down style that’s been on the rise in the last decade, and it looks great here. Right off the bat Hicks establishes her style when we see Daniel dragging brothers Lloyd and Zander across the hallway; it’s a little silly, a little cartoonish, and a lot of fun. It’s Maggie’s run through the cemetery, though, that helps solidify what’s good about Hicks’ art. She packs a lot of emotion into her art; not just in the expressions on people’s faces (which are lively and help nail the tenor of a scene), but even in the backgrounds. You get just the right mood looking at the tilted headstones, or the nearby homes. It helps you get a sense of the kind of neighborhood we’re looking at, and the world in which Maggie lives.

Friends With Boys is a coming-of-age story where the main character deals with both the very real (bullies and cliques) and the fantastical (being haunted by a ghost), and deals with them all with equal aplomb. It’s a charming little story that carries just the right emotional wallop when you’re least expecting it. The charm is good for the overall impression, but it’s those emotional gut punches that make me want to read more from Hicks. She’s definitely a cartoonist whose comics I should have read sooner. I won’t make that mistake again.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

I’ll admit right off the bat that I had no idea who Richard Feynman was a month ago. Feynman tells the story of the Nobel Prize winning physicist who not only worked on the Manhattan Project but had a lot to do [...]]]> Written by Jim Ottaviani
Art by Leland Myrick
272 pages, color
Published by First Second Books

I’ll admit right off the bat that I had no idea who Richard Feynman was a month ago. Feynman tells the story of the Nobel Prize winning physicist who not only worked on the Manhattan Project but had a lot to do with quantum electrodynamics and was kind of a big deal. This hardly sells the idea of reading a biography of the man, though. More importantly, Jim Ottaviani and Leland Myrick’s book tells the story of an eccentric genius who was one of the odder people you’d meet, and in a good way. Reading Feynman did what few other books about scientists have done for me; it made me think, "I wish I’d met this guy."

From the moment we meet Feynman here, you can tell he’s a very different kind of guy. Ottaviani opens the book with a lecture Feynman is giving to college students, and as he throws away the idea that all physics work similarly (and that the theory is due to most physicists having a limited amount of imagination), he’s swinging a bowling ball back and forth across the stage, narrowly avoiding being hit. Showy? At a glance, yes. But as you start reading more and more of Feynman, you rapidly realize that it’s not a show. This is how the man’s brain operates; swinging a bowling ball while calling your peers unimaginative is par for the course for Feynman, and that’s part of what makes him such an entertaining subject to read about.

Feynman’s two autobiographies were reportedly told slightly out of order, and Ottaviani replicates that feel in his book about the man. While it primarily moves from childhood to near the end of his life, Ottaviani skips around on occasion, telling the story in an almost conversational manner. Scenes are short and jump to somewhere else with no warning, often in the middle of a page. It took me a little bit of time to get used to this less-structured storytelling, but it was around a quarter of the way through the book it suddenly clicked that Ottaviani was writing Feynman in the same manner that Feynman’s own brain worked, leaping from topic to topic with no warning.

Ottaviani tells not only of Feynman’s great discoveries and moments in life—working on the atomic bomb, solving the mystery behind the Challenger space shuttle disaster, revolutionizing physics—but of his more quirky moments. Sure, some of them cast him merely as a goofball, like how Feynman figured out a way to crack 1940s safes while working on the atomic bomb, until finally the military ordered that if Feynman visited your office, you had to change the combination of your safe. But this is also a book which brings up how Feynman would maneuver himself into long "working" vacations that involved hanging out on the beach, or the fact that he was a major horndog. It’s not digging up any dirt, since Feynman himself included these moments in his autobiographies. But more importantly, Ottaviani by choosing to include them (since obviously much would have to be left out) helps present a more well-rounded portrait of this strange man, and in doing so helps explain to us why he’s such a fascinating person as not only a scientist but as an individual.

Myrick’s art is light and fun, similar to Feynman himself. It’s a simple style, a squiggle of lines to create an entire person. With its bright colors that pop off the page, there’s a certain sense of joy that radiates from the graphic novel. In later parts of the book, Myrick pulls off some nice tricks with form too, like creating people out of a series of 1s and 0s, or illustrating a great deal of Feynman’s diagrams. The one thing I found a little frustrating at times is that Myrick has a limited number of faces that he draws; there are far too many times where I found myself looking for hair style or color to tell characters apart. Fortunately, then I’d turn the page and he’d have little autumn leaves wafting down in the middle of a scene, and I’d be enchanted by the art all over again.

Feynman is a fun book, that rare sort of biography where even if you have no interest in the subject, it will ultimately draw you in through sheer fun. For a person that I’d never heard of before, I’m totally taken by Feynman thanks to Ottaviani and Myrick. Ottaviani’s always been someone who keep an eye on with his books on scientists, and this is another reminder of how he’s managed to carve a name for himself in the comics industry. Definitely check it out.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

Sara Varon’s first graphic novel Sweaterweather shifted her from "she’s a good creator" to "I must read everything she works on." She’s had books since then like the adorable Robot Dreams, or her Cat and Chicken titles for much younger readers, but there’s something about her new [...]]]> By Sara Varon
160 pages, color
Published by First Second

Sara Varon’s first graphic novel Sweaterweather shifted her from "she’s a good creator" to "I must read everything she works on." She’s had books since then like the adorable Robot Dreams, or her Cat and Chicken titles for much younger readers, but there’s something about her new book Bake Sale that particularly grabs my attention. Maybe it’s having the lead character running a bakery, or the underlying theme involving friendship, but there was something in it grabbed me in a way that even her previous works hadn’t already done so.

The idea behind Bake Sale is remarkably simple; Cupcake runs a bakery, while also playing in a band with his best friend Eggplant. He’s obsessed with meeting the pastry chef Turkish Delight, and starts trying to find a way to afford to fly to Istanbul and finally do so. Varon’s pacing in Bake Sale is quiet and subtle, but I never found it anything less than engrossing. From the early scenes where Varon brings us through the life of a smaller bakery owner (with everything from checking the daily log book for orders and ideas, to setting out the coffee for customers), I found myself attracted to Cupcake’s quiet but enjoyable life. Meeting up with Eggplant quickly turns into an important part of Cupcake’s life, and be it playing with the band or going to the turkish baths for some spa time, you can tell how inseparable the two are.

I found myself rapidly impressed with how Varon handles Cupcake’s obsession with Turkish Delight, too; it would have been easy to go for a full-on romantic yearning, but once again it’s slightly more subtle than that. You can ultimately read into Cupcake’s feelings what you want. Is it a professional attraction, or something greater? Varon deliberately leaves it unclear, and both fit well within the context of Bake Sale. I suspect part of it has to do with the fact that even Cupcake doesn’t know for certain, save that it exists. Even when we delve into Cupcake’s dream involving both Turkish Delight and Eggplant, it’s the sort of sequence of events where psychiatrists could come up with multiple theories and all of them would be plausible.

There’s also something wonderfully perverse about Bake Sale the further you think about the world they live in. Early on, I remember being startled that Cupcake was making a carrot cake for a customer when just a few pages later, we see a walking, talking carrot in a scene. Of course, then it hit me that this is also a world where a living cupcake is making tiny cupcakes for people to eat! Somehow this strange "alive or just foodstuff" dichotomy actually makes Bake Sale even more attractive, though. Besides, it’s hard to stop and think about this when you turn the page and get to see Cupcake making peppermint brownies to sell on Valentine’s Day, or even little baked doggie treats outside of a dog show.

The art in Bake Sale can best be described as "cheerful." There’s something just uplifting about it from start to finish; the pieces of food walking around with big smiles on their faces, the happy way in which Cupcake goes about his baking. Even some of the little details, like how Varon adds a "press!" sound effect for turning on the coffee maker, or the identification of items (locker key, towel, robe) at the turkish bath is cute. There’s also a funny little suspension of disbelief that goes on through the art. For instance, Cupcake and Eggplant don’t really wear any clothes (nor do the other pieces of food that make up Bake Sale) but upon arriving at the baths they get a robe to wear when walking around to the saunas… at which point they take off the robes and are back in their normal non-attire. It’s funny and clever in a sly sort of way, and it’s that nod to the audience as Varon draws their lives that makes me smile every time I look at the book.

One surprising touch at the end of Bake Sale is that Varon includes all of the recipes for Cupcake’s various creations. It’s a fun little way to round out the book, and I’ll admit that by the time I got to the recipes I had a serious craving for brownies and other baked goods. I haven’t tried Varon’s recipes yet, but if they’re even half as delectable as Bake Sale itself, I’m sure I’ll be quite pleased with the end results.

Last but not least, I have to say I especially appreciate the ending of Bake Sale. There isn’t a big smashing conclusion, or a moment where everything is spelled out for the reader in a dump of exposition. What Varon does give us is a great deal of warmth, as we see a level of contentment achieved by Cupcake. It’s a charming conclusion to an already great book, and the fact that nothing needs to be said in that final moment speaks volumes about the strength of the relationship on display. Bake Sale might be a book about ambulatory food, but it feels remarkably true to life. Highly recommended.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

Americus is the kind of graphic novel that I wish wasn’t so timely. Centered around a teenager whose town is trying to ban his favorite fantasy book series, it’s the sort of story that plays out in the real world [...]]]> Written by MK Reed
Art by Jonathan Hill
224 pages, black and white
Published by First Second Books

Americus is the kind of graphic novel that I wish wasn’t so timely. Centered around a teenager whose town is trying to ban his favorite fantasy book series, it’s the sort of story that plays out in the real world far too often. MK Reed and Jonathan Hill’s story is painful to read in that respect, but its lead in the form of Neil Barton is the kind of character who’s compelling enough that you’ll read all the way through just to see if he succeeds, not only in stopping the banning but also trying to get a better life for himself.

When I read the first chapter of Americus in Papercutter #7, I remember thinking that it was an enjoyable opening sequence to a larger story, but that a lot of my enjoyment would hinge on where the book went from there. On the whole, I think it succeeds. Neil is a traditional, familiar figure in both reality and fiction; the geeky outcast teen with few friends and in a setting that ranges from passively to actively hostile. And while I completely understand why it’s good to have a character with the deck seriously stacked against him, when the first two chapters takes away his only friend and sets him up for a perfectly miserable life, it veers dangerously into, "So many bad things happening this isn’t enjoyable" territory.

Thankfully, the lowest point of Americus is there, and almost immediately Reed turns the book (and Neil’s life) around. His bonding with his cousin’s boyfriend at a family cookout is one of my favorite parts of the book; it simultaneously tells the reader that the problem isn’t Neil but rather his surroundings (based on how quickly Neil and Devin get along), and also gives you the real feeling that sooner or later Neil’s life is going to get better. And sure enough, from that point on, my interest increased as we see Neil start to navigate the ways of high school, girls, and crazy parents.

The primary storyline of Americus has to do with Neil’s friend’s mother (Nancy Burns) and her quest to remove the "Apathea Ravenchilde" books from the local library. Having decided they’re the work of the devil, the end result is an all-too-familiar sequence where she drums up support, makes accusations about how the books teach children witchcraft, and so on. The storyline is slightly undermined, though, by the over-the-top nature of Mrs. Burns. From slapping her son Danny several times, to coming up with ideas like having her children say the librarian sexually molested them, she’s a little too hard to handle. I understand that she needs to definitely be a villain, but she’s too much, also too easy to dismiss. Still, the storyline is good in spite of Mrs. Burns; I just wish that for a book about a children’s fantasy series, there had been a more menacing monster.

One thing I did appreciate is that while Reed ties up a lot of stories by the end, she restrains herself from making it a perfect ending. Relationships may have begun and the fight over Apathea Ravenchilde might be over, but that doesn’t suddenly move Neil into a better town, or give his family tons of money, that sort of thing. It’s a realistic but upbeat ending, and in some ways it reminds me a touch of Rania Telgemeier’s Smile and how finding your own particular tribe/group can make all the difference in the world. Even better, Americus has a great supporting cast, from the Apathea-obsessed librarian Charlotte, to the other high school students, and even minor characters like next door neighbor Lang who works at the grocery store. They’ve all got their own little subplots, and while they don’t always intersect with Neil’s, it helps give a better feel for the town of Americus. I was a little unsure at first of naming the book after the town, but by the end of the story I felt like we knew about Americus so well that the title was justified.

Hill’s art in Americus is cute, a stripped down, rounded group of characters that would lend themselves well to animation. There are lots of great little touches, like Danny’s siblings all looking similar if not identical, or the cute little smiles on Charlotte and Travis’s face when they finally meet in person. Hill also draws excerpts from the Apathea novels, and cleverly makes them stand out by shifting from pure black and white to pages with ink washes and shades of gray. It makes those sequences feel in many ways much more vivid and alive than Americus, Oklahoma, and it was Hill’s art style that made me look forward to getting more glimpses into Apathea’s world.

After all the attempts to ban the Harry Potter books from libraries, Americus will be a familiar story, and Reed and Hill ride that wave all the way to its conclusion. Small nitpicks aside, I was enchanted by the book, and the wait since reading that initial chapter was well worth it. If you’d like to check it out for yourself for free, Reed and Hill serialized the book on Save Apathea, but be warned that by the time you’ve read a few chapters, you’ll want to own a copy for easy re-reading down the line. (If nothing else, the lecture from the algebra teacher on page 140 is so side-splittingly funny you’ll need it for that alone.) Americus is the first graphic novel from Reed and Hill from a major publisher, and hopefully it won’t be their last.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

Lewis and Clark’s expedition to the West Coast is one of those things that most Americans know about in terms of the absolute basics (they were sent by President Thomas Jefferson to find a water route to the West Coast, one of their guides [...]]]> By Nick Bertozzi
144 pages, black and white
Published by First Second Books

Lewis and Clark’s expedition to the West Coast is one of those things that most Americans know about in terms of the absolute basics (they were sent by President Thomas Jefferson to find a water route to the West Coast, one of their guides was the Native American Sacagawea), but almost none of the details. I hate to admit that I fall into that category, so between learning more about this important expedition and also getting a new Nick Bertozzi graphic novel, Lewis & Clark looked immensely promising. What we got? In some respect it feels almost like Lewis & Clark: The Cliff Notes Edition, but the more I think about it, the more I believe that’s a good thing.

Lewis & Clark focuses primarily on Meriwether Lewis, the temperamental co-leader of the expedition through (and beyond) the newly acquired territory from the Louisiana Purchase. It’s a smart decision on Bertozzi’s part; William Clark, according to history, was a fairly level-headed and calm person, while Lewis was prone to self-doubt, depression, and emotional outbursts. When you consider that Clark isn’t even the third most interesting character in Lewis & Clark, it seals the deal. Lewis himself is an entertaining person to read about; his determination is clearly one of his strongest points, and it shows why even though he had many issues and problems, President Jefferson would still choose him to lead the group to the West Coast. Bertozzi gives a great deal of balance to Lewis, showing both sides to his character and letting the reader ultimately make a final decision on him as a person.

As for the plotting itself, Bertozzi is in a tough spot with trying to condense a three year expedition into just 144 pages. The end result is, as mentioned before, a highly truncated story, but one that still gives enough to let the reader have an overall feel for the journey. So we get the highlights as they move across the country, shown to us in two-to-four page episodes. For the most part, it works; we get an idea of how things are shaping up, then slide along to the next encounter or obstacle. Occasionally, though, once the book moves ahead in time it’s a little frustrating; you want to see more from that particular moment. It’s Sacagawea’s life that I think ultimately becomes the most intriguing in many ways; I finished Lewis & Clark interested in this woman and wishing there had been room to stick with her a bit longer and let us get a stronger grasp of her as a person.

Bertozzi has fun with the art, sometimes moving horizontally across massive two-page spreads, other times going for a more standard approach where each page is its own unit. It’s his experimenting with layout that immediately grabbed my attention; he uses the placement of panels to try and help mimic a lot of their journey. Rough river rides have the panels zig-zag across the page, and a glimpse of a buffalo stampede in Iowa gives the creatures all the space they need to run across the page while the people are almost like specs in comparison to the bounty of land around them. Bertozzi’s focus on his characters works well too; I love the annoyed expressions on Lewis’s face in particular, but in general when his characters show joy or sadness, it’s reflected beautifully on their faces.

If nothing else, Lewis & Clark is a great incentive to read more about this famed expedition. I’m definitely going to add a book or two about them and Sacagawea onto my reading list, because Bertozzi has given me just enough to whet my appetite for more. And ultimately, I think that’s exactly what the book should have done. There’s no way Bertozzi could have told every single detail of their three years away, so this served up just the right amount. Mission accomplished.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

Ben Hatke is one of those creators that when you first encounter, you instantly want to read more of his comics. That’s how I felt when I read his stories in the Flight anthologies, which had a lot of charm and wit about them. So when his [...]]]> By Ben Hatke
192 pages, color
Published by First Second

Ben Hatke is one of those creators that when you first encounter, you instantly want to read more of his comics. That’s how I felt when I read his stories in the Flight anthologies, which had a lot of charm and wit about them. So when his debut graphic novel showed up on my doorstep, it was one of those, "Put everything down and make time to read this first." And I’m glad I did.

Zita the Spacegirl starts off simply enough; Zita and her friend Joseph find a mysterious button that, when pressed, opens up a gateway to a far away planet. Once Joseph is kidnapped, though, it’s up to Zita to go through the portal and try and rescue him, with a wide assortment of humans, aliens, and robots. It’s a clean premise, one that opens up the door for all sorts of adventures about Zita. This first book focuses on Zita’s attempt to find Joseph and get him back before an asteroid destroys the planet in just three days. It’s an important plot element, not only because it provides a sense of urgency to the book, but because it ultimately is the core of the plot web that everything else ties into. It’s a smart move on Hatke’s part, because not only does it make the looming thread get larger with each new moment, but because at the day every single character in Zita the Spacegirl is fighting for survival.

The big charm of Zita the Spacegirl‘s writing isn’t the plot, though, but rather the characters. I love Zita, with her sharp attitude and wits about her. She’s still quite recognizably a kid, and doesn’t come across as a shrunken grown-up, but at the same time she’s old enough to have developed enough morals to know right from wrong, and not to abandon friends. My favorite interactions she has is with the floating robot One, as the two good-naturedly spar back and forth on their travels to find Joseph. One provides an invaluable amount of aid to Zita, but at the same time his believed superiority is a good foil for Zita, especially when she’s proven right in the long run. In many ways One is like Zita getting a younger sibling that tags along, but who also has a certain amount of firepower that’s needed. The rest of the characters are as much fun; even the silent Mouse gets some great moments, and when one of Zita’s friends fails her, it’s in a way that makes sense, not merely so the plot can advance. Hatke creates realistic dilemmas and in a way there is no simple solution.

I liked Hatke’s art before, but I feel like it’s gotten even stronger since the last time I encountered it. From Zita’s sly look as she holds the mysterious button, to the look of terror when she realizes what she has to do next, Hatke gives her a beautifully expressive face. The rest of the characters fare just as well, from inventive looking robots (and I love that they all appear slightly run down) to bizarre aliens, most notably the Screed, which look like a combination of a diving helmet and an octopus. By the time the book’s over, you’re ready for Zita to get out into space to go after more aliens.

The closest thing I have to a complaint about Zita the Spacegirl is that it felt like it was over almost before it started. At 192 pages, it’s not a tiny book, but Hatke’s story zips merrily along, and I think it’s a testament to the book in general that I was surprised to suddenly be at the conclusion. Fortunately, the title page gives it a subtitle and a mention of "Book One," so hopefully we’ll get more Zita the Spacegirl before too long. This is one of those all-ages book that really is for all ages; it’s adorable and fun, with a strong dash of adventure. (Now if the next book could just be 384 pages, well, wouldn’t that be nice?) This is a lot of fun.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

Are you a good person? Do other people see you as a good person? And what are you doing with your life anyway? They’re all questions we’ve asked ourselves at one point or another. Koko Be Good by Jen Wang uses those ideas as a launch [...]]]> By Jen Wang
304 pages, color
Published by First Second Books

Are you a good person? Do other people see you as a good person? And what are you doing with your life anyway? They’re all questions we’ve asked ourselves at one point or another. Koko Be Good by Jen Wang uses those ideas as a launch point, and what initially looks to be a slapstick-styled book ends up being a much more thoughtful and introspective book than you might have expected as its three main characters fumble through turning points in their own lives, and what might be intended to help others doesn’t always turn out that way.

Koko Be Good is a book where our first impressions on characters don’t prove to be terribly accurate. Jon’s a man preparing to give up everything to move from San Francisco to Peru to be with the love of his life. Koko’s an energetic young woman whose entire life is a lark. Faron is Koko’s slightly goofy sidekick. Except, of course, the reality for all three turn out to be different. I think it’s safe to say that this is a deliberate storytelling point of Wang’s, since one of the ideas raised by Koko Be Good is how other people view us versus how we view ourselves. As their lives intersect throughout the book, Wang slowly shows us more about what drives the three of them and how those initial impresssions are both correct and incorrect.

Jon and Koko share the bulk of the book’s spotlight, and for each of them there’s a distinct moment when we start to re-evaluate what we’re seeing. Their relationship throughout the book is probably one of my favorite parts of the entire experience; Wang avoids the obvious pitfalls and paths that they could go down, instead letting them each build their new lives off of one another through seeing what the other possesses that they don’t. Koko’s journey is the most pronounced here, seeing Jon’s plans to travel to another continent to help people as a jumping off point for her own life. I couldn’t help but appreciate that Wang didn’t let all of Koko’s problems miraculously fix themselves at that point, though. People she’d wronged were still mistrustful of Koko’s new passion, and heading into the world and helping people turned out to be less easy than it looked. Koko slowly transforms throughout the book from someone you’d want to steer clear of into a person that you’ll build up respect for. She’s still not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but the Koko at the end of Koko Be Good is someone who definitely has started to turn her life around into something where her self-perception and other people’s perception might start to align.

Jon’s story, by way of comparison, was interesting to me because he seems to at least initially be the most "together" of the three characters, but the reality of his life turns out to be much more flimsy than you’d expect. Wang is careful to seed hints along these lines throughout the first few chapters, but it’s only around the halfway point of the book (as Koko drags out of Jon more information about Emily and their plans to move to Peru) that we start to get a better glimpse of what’s going on inside Jon’s head. It’s interesting, because over time with Koko I started to empathise with her and her struggles, but with Jon I couldn’t help but feel slightly disappointed. He’s someone whose decisions are looking increasingly questionable as the book progresses, and it’s hard to say on some level how much he’s truly learned when the dust settles. So much of Jon’s story seems to be due to the actions of other characters, not Jon himself, and he still seems slightly adrift when the book comes to a close. He might be in a better place when it’s over to try and make a good life for himself, but it’s a question that Wang leaves unanswered.

Faron, by way of comparison, has the most straight-forward story in Koko Be Good, and perhaps because of that the least amount of paget time. His story is really more of an adjunct of Koko’s, there to help move her into some specific places from time to time, than truly having his own story. It’s a shame because I’d have liked to see a little more of his life and what drives him; the glimpses we get of his home life are less than ideal, and you get the impression that Faron still has buried in him a lot of unanswered questions and motivations. Like the other characters in Koko Be Good, he’s in a better place when the book comes to a close, but perhaps because there are so many question marks still hovering over his head, he’s the one that you can worry the most about.

As rich as Wang’s character portraits of Jon and Koko are, though, the biggest star of all is Wang’s gorgeous art. It’s slick and smooth, sliding across the panel, filled in with rich orange and green tones. Her characters are graceful and fluid, with large eyes and smiles that light up their faces whenever something good happens. It’s a lush overall look, and there’s a lot of detail packed into her pages, from the numerous faces in the background when Koko runs across a bar table, to the occasional vista of San Francisco itself. An image as simple as Jon hunched over on his bicycle as he’s pedaling through the city ends up being beautiful, and I absolutely want to see more of Wang’s art and soon.

Koko Be Good is a book that defies easy categorization. Up until now I only knew Wang through much shorter comics in Flight anthologies, but she’s taken her talent to a new level with this book. It’s a strange little sequence of character portraits coupled with tough questions that don’t have simple answers. We may still not know what makes a person "good" or not, but one thing is certain: Koko Be Good is definitely in the "good" column.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

Aaron Renier’s debut graphic novel, Spiral-Bound (Top Secret Summer), was a strong splash by the cartoonist; I remember being almost instantly impressed at how strong he was able to convey a sense of adventure and fun into both his script an art. It’s been a long [...]]]> By Aaron Renier
208 pages, color
Published by First Second Books

Aaron Renier’s debut graphic novel, Spiral-Bound (Top Secret Summer), was a strong splash by the cartoonist; I remember being almost instantly impressed at how strong he was able to convey a sense of adventure and fun into both his script an art. It’s been a long time coming, but his new book The Unsinkable Walker Bean is here. The end result? It’s a book with so many different ideas and concepts that it feels like Renier almost doesn’t have room for them all.

Walker Bean is a young man whose grandfather has fed him stories of adventure on the seas his whole life, but those stories have finally come home to roost when a skull that dooms those who look into its eyes seeking knowledge puts Walker’s grandfather on death’s door. It’s a simple, easy enough hook for the rest of the book; it opens with the story of the two sea monsters who created the wall of cursed skulls, then brings it back around to something that affects our main character. From there, though, Renier’s story expands at an extremely rapid pace. We’re introduced not only to characters in Walker’s home town, but an entire ship of pirates. For the first quarter of the book, new characters, objects, and ideas are thrown into the mix with great abandon, and there are parts when I started to wonder if I was missing a page here and there.

Fortunately, that’s a problem which soon subsides. Once Renier’s script slows down, the pacing feels much more natural and lets the ideas breathe and feel natural. I appreciate that Renier didn’t waste any time in getting things rolling in The Unsinkable Walker Bean, but it’s the second half of the book in particular that sold me on the title. That’s where everything starts to pay off with monsters, mysterious artifacts, and crazy inventions left and right. Walker’s schemes and plans to stop the pirates and get hold of the skull once again are beautiful and intricate, and a spin-off book titled Walker Bean’s Crazy Ideas would be an instant purchase for me.

I also liked how, once the book slowed down, we see Walker’s friendships slowly form throughout The Unsinkable Walker Bean. They’re not instant, and don’t have any moments where characters turn to one another and say, “Let’s be friends!” In other words, they develop over time and feel natural; seeing Walker slowly gain the trust of people on the ship and have them eventually willing to go to bat for him is one of the high points of the book.

The one unsurprising thing about The Unsinkable Walker Bean is Renier’s art, which is even more intricate and detailed than I remember. There’s a moment early on where Walker flees into his grandfather’s old water tower project, and the inside is a teenage boy’s dream come true. Massive bookshelves, ancient tribal masks on the walls, stuffed hammerhead sharks and narwhals hanging from the ceiling, new inventions scattered across the floor… It’s like every great adventure story has been compressed into a single hideout. Renier’s lush drawings, with Alec Longstreth’s rich colors, make The Unsinkable Walker Bean burst to life. Even drawings that are similar in concept to earlier ideas we’ve seen from Renier (the shipboard garden reminds me a lot of the apartment roof garden Renier created for his story in Papercutter #1) seem more vibrant and fully realized here. When massive sea creatures rise up out of the ocean to attack, or Walker’s ideas to change the way the ship move come to life, I found it more riveting than a lot of summer movies I’ve seen this year.

The Unsinkable Walker Bean started off with a lot going on, perhaps a little too much in places. But before long, the book solidifies into a thoroughly enjoyable adventure. There are some elements of the story that are never really explained, and at this point I’m unsure if I want to see them addressed in the promised Volume 2, or if I think leaving them up in the air is the better option. Either way, though, I’m looking forward to reading a lot more about Walker Bean. The Unsinkable Walker Bean is a series I want to read for many years to come.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

I do wonder what the readers of the New York Times Magazine must have thought when Gene Luen Yang’s Prime Baby first started its serialization in its pages. I guess if they’d read American Born Chinese or The Eternal Smile that they might’ve had at [...]]]> By Gene Luen Yang
64 pages, color
Published by First Second Books

I do wonder what the readers of the New York Times Magazine must have thought when Gene Luen Yang’s Prime Baby first started its serialization in its pages. I guess if they’d read American Born Chinese or The Eternal Smile that they might’ve had at least the glimmering of an idea that it was bound to be a little odd. I’ll go a step further, though; not since first encountering Yang’s Gordon Yamato and the King of the Geeks have I seen such a strange book from Yang. Not that I’m complaining. But it’s definitely one of Yang’s more eccentric works.

Prime Baby starts with a simple enough premise, that eight-year-old Thaddeus Fong is less than impressed with his baby sister Maddie. She’s eighteen months old now and the only sound she ever makes is, "Ga," over and over again. But when Thaddeus realizes that she’s making the sound in counts of incremental prime numbers, well, that’s when things get odd. And odder. And then odder still. Prime Baby reminds me of a twisty path where every turn has something so strange that you’ll forget about everything you’ve seen up until that point. What starts as a story about jealousy, and a superiority complex turns into something radically different. with all sorts of new obstacles and weird moments. As a reader, you need to just roll with the punches, accept that you aren’t sure what Yang is going to throw at you next, and brace yourself for the inevitable.

Here’s the thing about Prime Baby, though. Even though the book ends in a very different place than it first began, in terms of setting, Prime Baby is a book that travels full circle. Those earliest emotions of jealousy and superiority come back around again, and manage to tie the entire book together. Without that last bit, I suspect I’d have been at least slightly annoyed by Prime Baby; a rambling, what’s-coming-next? sort of story isn’t easy to pull off, and there needs to be a reason for that winding road. I think Yang gives it to us at the conclusion, and it makes it all work.

Yang’s art is cute as always. Thaddeus manages to have one of the most diabolical smiles you’ll see in comics, no small feat. It’s funny, because Yang writes his protagonist as a scheming little mastermind, but it’s the way that Thaddeus smiles that sold him to me than his actual actions or dialogue. There are some fun little details along the way, too; not just Thaddeus’s designer facial hair, but items like the salt shakers worn on a string around each slug’s neck. (Think of it as the slug version of Christians wearing a cross around their neck and it’ll suddenly fall into place.) Speaking of whom, the slugs are the visual stars of Prime Baby. I could probably look at strips with them distributing bag lunches or knitting socks for hours. Yang takes the absurd and makes it work, here.

Prime Baby is in some ways a bit of a throwaway story; at just 64 pages and only several panels per page, it’s by no means a new major work by Yang. But it’s inexpensively priced, it’s funny, and at the end of the book I felt like I’d spent my time well by reading it. I’m looking forward to Yang’s next full-length book, but until then, it’s nice to have Prime Baby collected into one place. It’s silly, but it’s the good kind of silly.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books

I remember when, years ago, First Second announced some upcoming books in their catalog that included a graphic novel written by Jane Yolen. Yolen is one of those masters of fantasy, with a bibliography rapidly closing on over 300 books, plus numerous [...]]]> Written by Jane Yolen
Art by Mike Cavallaro
160 pages, color
Published by First Second Books

I remember when, years ago, First Second announced some upcoming books in their catalog that included a graphic novel written by Jane Yolen. Yolen is one of those masters of fantasy, with a bibliography rapidly closing on over 300 books, plus numerous short stories and awards to her credit. And, while many of her novels are intended for young adults, she’s written for adults as well. So a graphic novel from Yolen? This seemed too good to be true. Now that I’ve finally read Foiled, I must admit that I’m not entirely sure what to make of it.

Foiled follows Aliera Carstairs, a member of her high school’s fencing team that doesn’t fit in with any of the cliques. It’s a familiar basic setup for a fantasy novel, the outcast character slowly finding their own place in the world. Yolen’s certainly familiar and adept with that situation, and a lot of the first half of the book helps set up Aliera’s world and setting. Watching Aliera push through her mundane world isn’t bad; she’s got a dry narration voice, calmly and caustically describing everyone around her. It’s one of the draws of the book for this half; Aliera clearly views herself as more mature and learned than most around her, but at the same time Yolen lets flashes of Aliera’s teenage spirit push through on occasion. She presents herself as calm and cool, but when new student Avery is teamed up with her for a month-long biology project, she’s anything but collected. Her simultaneous attraction and confusion towards Avery is one of the most perfect distillings of the teenage hormonal surges I’ve seen depicted in comics.

With Foiled being a fantasy as well, though, once that element pushes forward into Foiled things get a little tricky. Once Yolen brings this part of the book into the story, it feels like everything is accelerated into a different pace. We get large exposition dumps presented to both us and Aliera, and it’s hard to entirely swallow how swiftly everything else plays out. What I can’t decide, though, is if Foiled should have been a longer book or not. I think a lot depends on if Foiled is supposed to be a stand-alone book or not. There’s certainly a lot of setup for a series (or even just a sequel), so it’s possible. And if that’s the case, I think I’m more all right with the rapid-fire pace of the second half. If there are additional books down the line, Yolen’s just pushing us to the point where we can have a new series of stories all blossom, once we know the truth about Aliera’s heritage and abilities. If Foiled is meant to stand on its own, though, I’d rather the book had just run an extra 30-60 pages in length. Why sprint towards the new status quo if we aren’t going to see anything to come out of it?

Mark Cavallaro draws Foiled, and when it comes to his work on the book I have no complaints whatsoever. I love the way he draws Aliera and company, from little pert noses to crisply drawn ovals and triangles for heads. It’s a very clean style, but don’t confuse that for one that doesn’t contain detail. Cavallaro knows how to create just the right bang and impact in the visuals; the double-page spread of entering Grand Central Station makes it feel massive and imposing, even to someone who’s been there many times before. And even when he’s drawing something as simple as Aliera getting nervous as time ticks by, he brings her squirming inner feelings to life with her face twisting and grimacing. Cavallaro also makes a decision in drawing the Faerie creatures as cute rather than hideous, but still giving them the right sense of menace when it’s needed. It’s a nice depiction of the characters, and it fits in well with the rest of the style chosen for Foiled.

This might be Yolen’s first graphic novel, but there are some nice tricks along the way she uses. When Aliera loses her foil, there’s a cute visual sequence on what happens to the weapon and where it goes from that point that wouldn’t have worked that well in a prose novel. Watching the various creatures transport the foil in the background while the rest of the story continues onward is a sort of storytelling that wouldn’t work in most other mediums, and I’m pleased to see how she worked it in. Likewise, she and Cavallaro use Aliera’s color-blindness with great effect in Foiled, giving a reason for Cavallaro’s pale blue and green washes across the pages, letting us really see Aliera’s world through her eyes and making the appearance of faerie have that much more of a visual pop off of the page. (Although it does make you wonder if Aliera’s mention of sports drinks looking too much like window cleaner to be a slight mistake, though.)

Foiled is an interesting book, one I’m glad I read. But I do wish the second half had unfolded at a slightly slower pace; barring that, I hope it’s because there’s a sequel (or more) planned down the line. Still, it’s a strong graphic novel debut for Yolen, and she clearly understands the format. Hopefully any more graphic novels from Yolen will have less of a wait involved. I’ll definitely pick up more comics from Yolen, though. It’d be fun to watch her slowly conquer another storytelling medium.

Purchase Links: Amazon.com | Powell’s Books