My Favorite Books of 2020

2020 has been a long, distressing, and memorable year. It was also a year full of some great comics and graphic novels, particularly nonfiction works. Check out this list of my favorites (and follow the links to the full reviews):

Favorite Book Overall

I am a sucker for an inspirational sports story, and Dragon Hoops is that, plus a personal history, plus a look at the identity politics of high school students, plus a commentary on making comics, plus a meditation on balancing your life. It's a massive, incredible work.

 

 

 

 

 

 Favorite Adaptation

Kurt Vonnegut is one of my favorite authors, and this adaptation of Slaughterhouse-Five uses comics in interesting and innovative ways. Most adaptations don't enhance the source material, but this one does.

 

 

 

 

Favorite Nonfiction History (Younger Readers - Not by Nathan Hale)

I have liked all the entries in the History Comics series I have read thus far, but the scope and sense of humor of this book make it exceptional. The Roanoke Colony tells the tale of Native Americans, colonial America, a doomed colony, British royal politics, and pirates. I learned so much from reading it and had fun doing so, too. (Queen Elizabeth I brushed her teeth with honey, can you believe it? Disgusting!)

 

 

 

 

Favorite Nonfiction History (Younger Readers - by Nathan Hale)  

Nathan Hale makes the best history comics, so he gets his own category. Blades of Freedom, the tenth(!) entry in his Hazardous Tales series, shows just how fresh and interesting his work still is while covering a topic (the slave revolt in Haiti) that unravels a complicated web of 18th century US and European history. Another book that opened my eyes to a topic I was sadly ignorant about.

 

 

 

 Favorite Nonfiction (Older Readers)

Kent State is well-researched, based on lots of original documents, interviews, and oral accounts of the massacre of student protestors in 1970. It is a book that highlights the victims who died, showing their humanity while also exposing a system of paranoia and prejudice that sadly persists today.

 

 

 

 Favorite Fictional Biography

Not much is known about the private live of this pivotal actor, but Lon Chaney Speaks pieces together a compelling narrative that melds vaudeville, silent movies, the early days of Hollywood, and plenty of monster movie special effects. The artwork perfectly captures the time period while recreating the movies and movie posters of the day.

 

 

 

 Favorite Superhero Biography

I know that Jack Kirby is not technically a superhero, but he created enough of them in his lifetime that I am counting him as one. I loved this biography that covers his lifespan and accomplishments in a style very similar to his own. The artwork is bombastic, quite fitting for the "King of Comics."

 

 

 

 

 Favorite Superhero Book

One of the highlights of my year was getting to talk with Gene Luen Yang about Superman Smashes the Klan. Even if I had not talked to him, I would rate this work very highly. Based on a serialized radio show from 1946, this book modernizes the tale and hits on the best aspects of the classic superhero while also commenting on racism and the resilience of immigrants.
 

 

 

 

 Favorite Series for Younger Readers 

There are two books in the Investigators series so far, and my oldest child has read them with me multiple times. It's full of puns, cheesy jokes, and inventive mash-ups of characters (including a radioactive bakery-based villain named Cracker-dile, a plumber who literally has a snake for an arm, and a doctor who turns into a news copter when anything news-worthy occurs around him). Fun and addictive!

 

 

Funniest Book, AKA Best Book Featuring Guys in Bear Outfits

Eddie's Week begins with the main character having an inmate (complete with cell) installed in his living room and just gets weirder and more surreal from there. It's a unique and darkly funny book that speaks about modern life wile containing some madcap adventures.
 

 

 

 

 

 Favorite YA Book

A beautifully told and illustrated book, The Magic Fish speaks to the power of stories to convey meaning and build brides that cross time and culture. The main character Tiến is one of the sweetest and most sympathetic protagonists, and his struggles with coming out to his parents gnaw at him. The ending left me tingling.

 

 

 

 Favorite YA Biography

Even though I come from a very different background than Joel Christian Gill, I found much to relate to in this autobiography. Fights chronicles a rough childhood where he had to learn to take up for himself, often in physical ways. It's a heart-rending and inspirational work that captures the confusion and ambiguities of childhood.

 

 

 

 

OK, that's my list. Happy 2021!

Slaughterhouse-Five: A Graphic Novel Adaptation

I should preface this review by stating that Kurt Vonnegut is one of my favorite authors ever. I have read every one of his novels, checked out many of his nonfiction essays, and laughed at his cameo in Back to School countless times. One of the high points of my college career was getting to hear him speak my freshman year. So, to say that I have high expectations for this book is a bit of an understatement. Beyond my own background, some of the weight of my expectations also lay in this book partly being adapted by writer Ryan North, a brilliant comics creator/humorist responsible for some of my favorite works, namely Dinosaur Comics, Jughead, and The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. 

For those who have not read the original novel, Slaughterhouse-Five is about a man named Billy Pilgrim who becomes "unstuck in time."  Throughout the novel he bounces back and forth across his own timeline, witnessing his death, marriage, experiences in World War II, abduction by aliens who placed him in an interstellar zoo, and meetings with literary hero Kilgore Trout, among other things. As a result, he takes a unique view of humanity, forming opinions about the capriciousness of war and societal values.

As you can see from the excerpt above, which opens the book, this adaptation takes advantage of its medium in ways that enrich this reading experience. The tweaks firmly entrench the book in its own historical context as well as the medium of comics, and they are done in very smart ways. This book uses some of the unique features of comics to recast and retell portions of the novel to convey its spirit without being a strictly literal adaptation. For instance, using panels to play with time and imagination:

Or changing into a newspaper comics format to give short bursts of back story:

As you can see, it is almost as if this story was originally conceived to work as a graphic novel. Like its source material, this book is full of pathos, laughs, and dark observations about humanity. It's a witty, fantastically moving, and trenchant book. This adaptation is one of the best I've seen, in any medium, as much a classic as its source material. Perhaps this is faint praise, because most graphic novel adaptations do not take advantage of the affordances the medium allows. I wish I was not so surprised that reading an adaptation of a novel that hinges on continual shifts in time and space in a medium (comics) that constantly manipulates time and space is an excellent experience as this one. I feel that many creators, certainly not most literary adapters, do not take as much advantage as the medium as these ones do.

That the creators of this book have many years of comics experience under their belts should come as no surprise. North has won multiple Eisner and Harvey Awards for his work on Adventure Time comics, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, and Jughead. Artist Albert Monteys was art director of the Spanish satirical magazine El Jueves from 2006-2011 and also created the Eisner Award nominated science fiction series Universe! Both creators speak about their work on this adaptation in this interview, and Monteys shares his take in this interview.

All of the reviews I have read about this book have been raves. In a starred review from Library Journal Tom Batten praised it as "the best, and most effective, graphic novel adaptation of a literary novel in recent memory." In another starred review, Publishers Weekly called it "a rare graphic adaptation that enriches a literary classic." David Weber called it "a perfect graphic novel adaptation" as well as "an absolute joy to read."

Slaughterhouse-Five was published by Archaia, and they offer more info about it here.