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 By Breena Wiederhoeft
272 pages, black and white
Published by Easel Ain’t Easy
A 272-page graphic novel isn’t going to be written and drawn overnight, so it’s all the more impressive when you think about how timely Breena Wiederhoeft’s Picket Line is. With a young woman struggling to find a job, her place in the world, and figure out at what point working for a large company isn’t worth the financial security, it’s a book that hits a lot of the ideas currently gaining national traction on the news. And while there are some peculiar portions of the plot, Picket Line is ultimately a satisfying book that might not have a lot of answers for its readers, but will ask a lot of questions.
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 Written by Sina Evil, Jennifer Camper, Michael Fahy, Craig Bostick, and David Kelly
Art by Jon Macy, Jennifer Camper, Michael Fahy, Craig Bostick, and David Kelly
32 pages, color
Published by Rob Kirby Comics
One of my favorite anthologies from last year was Three #1, so having a second issue in 2011 was definitely reason to celebrate. After the first issue’s strong debut (and with Eric Orner’s "Weekends Abroad" garnering an Ignatz nomination as well as inclusion in Best American Comics 2011, as well as a second Ignatz nomination for the entire anthology), I’ll admit I was slightly worried that the second issue might not be able to keep up the high level of quality. What I got, though, was three new short stories that each provided something very different from one another, but all of which kept my attention from start to finish.
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 By Greg Ruth
120 pages, black and white
Published by Allen Spiegel Fine Arts
By now, you’ve probably heard of Kickstarter, a website that allows people to try and find funding for projects, and offer as incentive various premiums for different levels. (Often starting out with a copy of the project, and then going up in scale from there.) One Kickstarter project I did help fund earlier this year recently arrived at my door. And now that I’ve got it, well, here’s hoping that people who missed the Kickstarter train for Greg Ruth’s The 52 Weeks Project will eventually get another chance to buy this book.
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 By Naoko Takeuchi
240 pages, black and white
Published by Kodansha Comics
Sailor Moon (or rather, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon as the cover states) is one of those comics that up until now, I knew a lot about but had never actually read. When both the manga and the anime were translated to English and brought to North America in the ’90s, saying it was a hit was an understatement. It’s probably safe to say that the amazing success of Sailor Moon is what helped position TokyoPop (then Mixx Entertainment) into a position of publishing strength for most of the last decade. And of course, I knew that Sailor Moon‘s target audience was teenage girls, something I’ve never had a problem reading in the past. But actually reading Sailor Moon? I must admit that this was not at all what I expected.
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 By Frank Miller
120 pages, black and white, with spot color
Published by Legendary Comics
Frank Miller made his name on comics like Daredevil, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year One, and Sin City. Since then, though, his career has been anything but predictable; comics like 300, All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, and Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Back have all had their share of both praise and hate, plus his forays into directing with Sin City and The Spirit. So when Holy Terror was first announced, the idea sent eyebrows shooting up for miles. The actual book, I suspect, won’t let those eyebrows go down any time soon.
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 Written by Charles "Zan" Christensen
Art by Mark Brill
32 pages, color
Published by Northwest Press
The Power Within is that sort of comic where I find myself wishing that comics in general had a wider readership. Inspired by the number of bullying-related suicides of teenagers over the past few years, Charles "Zan" Christensen and Mark Brill took the 24-Hour Comics Day challenge to create The Power Within, where the lead character goes through his own particular trial by fire. And while those not in its target audience will probably miss out on a lot of the emotional heft in this comic, its core message is strong and it makes me like to imagine copies of the comic ending up with the kids who need it the most.
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 By Mike Dawson
272 pages, black and white
Published by Secret Acres
Troop 142 is a prime example of how reading an online comic versus a collected edition can be quite a different experience. I originally read Mike Dawson’s latest book in a serialized fashion, checking out the latest uploads to his website every time they trickled out. And read in that fashion, I enjoyed the book a great deal. It was fun, that sort of story about young men at camp that instantly feels real. But reading again a year later, all in one sitting? There’s a much stronger emotional heft to the story that I think is slightly lost in serialized format. Now that I’ve read it in both formats, I feel like the collected edition is the way to go.
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 By Sonny Liew
128 pages, color
Many years ago, I first encountered Sonny Liew’s comics thanks to a Xeric Grant funded comic called Malinky Robot: Stinky Fish Blues. It was inventive and entertaining, and instantly made Liew a creator that I would plan on watching out for in the future. He’s gone onto a lot of great comics since then (like My Faith in Frankie, Re-Gifters, and an adaptation of Sense & Sensibility) but I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Malinky Robot. With the release of Malinky Robot: Collected Stories and Other Bits, now you can get a chance to see just why he’s a creator whose work I’ll always keep an eye out for.
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 By Yumi Unita
224 pages, black and white
Published by Yen Press
It’s always sad to see a book store closing, but sometimes it ends up steering me toward books I might not have otherwise read. For example, I’d heard good things about Yumi Unita’s Bunny Drop, but with so many other series fighting for my money, hadn’t gotten around to reading it. Then a store going out of business had the first two offered at 50% off, and the next thing I knew? Well, not only had I bought and read them, but I just bought and read the recently-released third volume at my regular store. For a book with such a relatively simple concept, it’s a surprisingly rich book.
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 By Kiyohiko Azuma
208 pages, black and white
Published by Yen Press
There are a small handful of comics that when it comes to reading, I stall. New volumes don’t show up on a regular basis, and I know that as soon as I’m done with it, the wait for the next volume is painful. That’s why I’ve sat on Yotsuba&! Vol. 9 for three months; not because I had better things to read, but rather because I knew that I didn’t have anything else that would even remotely compare. For a series with such a relatively simple concept, it’s shocking how I’ve yet to find a book which replicates everything that’s wonderful about Yotsuba&!.
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