My 2021 Favorites!

I read a lot of graphic novels every year, and I review most of them on this blog. Check out the ones I liked best published in 2021.

Overall Favorite 

 Cyclopedia Exotica

This book is a highly detailed and moving piece of world-building that imagines that cyclops are real and have to deal with many civil/human rights issues in being accepted into society. It's funny, moving, thoughtful, and provocative. Everything I want from a graphic novel!

 

Schweizer-Hale Award for Nonfiction 

American Cult 

I learned so much about this uniquely American phenomenon from this anthology of stories. It's full of hucksters, pseudo-religion, true believers, tragedy, and existentialism. These stories lingered with me for a long time.

 

 

Favorite Adapted Webcomic

Lore Olympus

This gorgeously illustrated book retells the story of Persephone and Hades with a contemporary sensibility. Its characterizations and plotting are exceptional. It's one of my all-time favorite comics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Favorite Adapted Digital Comic

Friday

A book by a couple of my favorite comics creators about a grown-up version of an Encyclopedia Brown/John Bellairs novel? That's pretty much a book made for me. It's a great mystery set in an appropriately creepy and idiosyncratic town with strong characters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Favorite Book About Teaching

Are Comic Books Real?

I also read many books about teaching/education, and this one made me feel what it was like to be a public school teacher. It's frustrating, hopeful, keenly observant, and drawn in disparate styles. If you want to know what teaching is like, read this book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Favorite Sequel

Delicates

I was skeptical that a book could live up to the quirky and moving Sheets, but this one may actually pass it in terms of strong character work and realistic adolescent situations. It's a great melding of YA and ghost stories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Favorite Reissued Book

The Way of the Hive 

Originally published as Clan Apis, this account of the life cycle of a bee is incredibly informative and surprisingly moving. Pretty much a perfect graphic novel, but now in color!

Favorite YA Book

The Fifth Quarter

This book is mostly about youth basketball and one girl's striving to be the best player she can be, which complicates her friendships. It is also a window into a contemporary family and her mother's political aspirations. I loved so much about this book and its characters, and I am eager for the sequel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Favorite Book Featuring A Psychopathic Pair of Underwear

Crash Site

This graphic novel combines manga with European comics conventions, telling an incredible and harrowing survival tale about a couple of drug smugglers (a woman and her dog), a horrific plane crash, and the underpants that wants to kill them both. This book book bends genre conventions and is not for kids.

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's it! That's my list. Happy New Year, everyone!

Are Comic Books Real?

Teaching can be maddening, frustrating, exhausting, rewarding, surprising, and rejuvenating, and Are Comic Books Real? captures those emotions in a visceral way I've not seen another graphic novel do. This series of stories from teaching and glimpses into the lives of elementary school students and their teacher, captures the good days and bad, the days when you question your sanity/life choices, and the times when something happens to make everything seem worthwhile. Some times nothing seems to go right. Others, the students amaze you with their work or crack you up with their observations of the world and/or ways that they interact with each other. There is a certain sense of capriciousness that goes with teaching, and this book depicts that roller-coaster ride with great acuity and empathy.

I loved how it incorporates lots of different sorts of representation, from more traditional ink drawings (both in black and white and in color) to color pencil drawings to single page portraits of students to actual student comic work. I loved seeing how all these various images combined to portray the realities of teaching and learning and how art affects it all. It captures the tenor of the controlled chaos of a classroom as well as the unique politics of students and how their behaviors affect their teachers. Just check out this moment:

I loved this book and found it incredibly moving. It made me laugh and cringe, empathize and recall some of my toughest days, and also called back some of my most memorable students. It made me remember what being a school teacher was like, and I think that it should be read widely by folks who would like to be educators or educators themselves, but perhaps especially by those who purport to know what teaching is like. I think ignorance and abuse of the profession and those who sacrifice much (both financially and mentally) to practice it are some of the biggest issues facing education in our country today. This book entertains and enlightens.

This book's creator Alex Nall is a teacher and an artist. He has published a number of other comics and books, including Lawns, Teaching Comics, and Kids with Guns. He speaks about his comics and teaching in this interview, and there is also more about his work on his (maybe no longer updated?) blog.

Are Comic Books Real? was published by Kilgore Books, and they offer a preview and more information about it here. This book was one published via a Kickstarter campaign this year. I gladly backed it and would hope others might also in their future ones.