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 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.
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 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.
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 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.
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 Original short story by Benjamin Percy
Screenplay by James Ponsoldt
Adapted by Danica Novgorodoff
144 pages, color
Published by First Second Books
A graphic novel based on a screenplay based on a short story? I suppose there are more circuitous routes out there for graphic novels, but none are immediately springing to mind. That’s the slightly thankless task that Danica Novgorodoff has with Refresh, Refresh, a story that gets traced back to a short story by Benjamin Percy. Reading the graphic novel, though, I ended up with a slightly disconcerting feeling that had I just picked up Percy’s short story that I would have ended up with a much stronger and more interesting experience.
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 Written by Adam Rapp
Art by George O’Connor
144 pages, color
Published by First Second Books
I have to hand it to Adam Rapp. When I first picked up Ball Peen Hammer, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’d never seen anything by him before (even though he’s written novels, plays, and directed films), so I was going into the story blindly. And with hindsight, the book’s cover did warn me somewhat of the experience to come, with its stark black cover and single, slightly disturbing image. But by the time I was done with Ball Peen Hammer, I felt somewhat stunned, as if I’d gotten on a familiar bus route and somehow ended up in Hell.
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 Written by Glenn Eichler
Art by Nick Bertozzi
128 pages, color
Published by First Second Books
Even under the best of circumstances, family can be difficult to deal with. That’s how Stuffed! opens itself to the reader, a story about a bizarre inheritance that freaks out the two brothers who find themselves with the delicate situation of dealing with its contents. It’s a basic story premise that’s been around for ages, with people having to either come together or be driven apart by a stressful third party. But while Glenn Eichler’s script is an amusing one, the element that’s missing in its pages may actually surprise you a little bit.
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 Written and drawn by Emmanuel Guibert
Photography by Didier Lefèvre
Design, color, and layout by Frédéric Lemercier
288 pages, color
Published by First Second Books
I’m a little mortified to admit that it’s taken me a couple of months to finally read The Photographer, the story of photojournalist Didier Lefèvre’s journey with Médecins Sans Frontièrs (Doctors Without Borders) into Afghanistan in 1986. It seemed like the kind of book that I couldn’t take lightly, that I wanted to reserve extra time to read. Finally, the rest of the world slowed down around me, and over the course of two days I dove into the book. What I found made me wish that somehow I could relive that initial experience of reading it all over again.
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 Written by Appollo and Lewis Trondheim
Art by Lewis Trondheim
288 pages, black and white
Published by First Second Books
When is a pirate book not a pirate book? Appollo and Lewis Trondheim’s Bourbon Island 1730 perhaps fulfills the answer to that rhetorical question, set on the Indian Ocean of Bourbon Island (present-day Réunion) as the age of pirates is slowly coming to an end. It’s a combination of adventure and historical fiction showing off the social interactions of the island, but I’m not entirely convinced that the book entirely succeeds on either front.
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 By Kim Dong Hwa
320 pages, black and white
Published by First Second Books
When the manga boom first really erupted into North America, a lot of publishers began also translating Korean comics (or manhwa) into English. One of the big benefits was that manhwa already is read left-to-right, so it didn’t have to go through the whole issue of "flipping" versus reading right-to-left. These days very little manhwa is being translated as the boom has settled back down into a more reasonable level, but occasionally a new manhwa shows up, like Kim Dong Hwa’s The Color of Earth. I think most people would agree that it’s books like The Color of Earth that are a good reminder why ignoring manhwa would cut us off from a whole wealth of really good comics.
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 Written by Gene Luen Yang
Art by Derek Kirk Kim
176 pages, color
Published by First Second Books
Two and a half years ago, Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese was released with huge (and well-deserved) critical acclaim. While he’s had a few books from other publishers years ago, since then the wait for a new Yang book has begun. Fans of American Born Chinese will no doubt be eager to hear that his new book, with artist Derek Kirk Kim, is now out. And, happily? There’s a lot to love here, too, with three stories that one-by-one tear the veil away from their initial situations to reveal something slightly different.
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