Scarlett Hart: Monster Hunter

First off, let me say that I am a sucker for books like this. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of my favorite shows ever, and I love the turn-of-the-century England, steampunk-style, monster hunter vibe displayed in these pages. Scarlett Hart: Monster Hunter is a fun, action-packed, and sometimes creepy graphic novel. The title character is an orphaned teenager who lives with two servants. The first is Napoleon White, a butler/chauffeur, and the second is his wife Mrs. White, a governess. Together they look after Scarlett and Ravenwood, her family's estate, which is in a state of disrepair since her parents' death. She came into monster hunting as the family business, but she does not just hunt monsters because it is her calling or there's some mystical need, she does it to earn the reward money needed to keep ahead of their creditors.

One obstacle that Scarlett faces is that she is legally too young to hunt monsters, and the local "Watch" is onto her. The second is Count Stankovic, a rival monster hunter who has a special desire to not only foil Scarlett but ruin her life. As there are frequent monster attacks in this version of London, the two adversaries come into frequent contact. And when Scarlett tracks some monsters to their source and sees the Count involved, she begins to feel that he is not only hunting monsters but summoning them as well.

I felt that this book had a great amount of action and intrigue. I can't say that it is the most original or complex plot I have ever read, but it is a fun, well crafted piece of genre fiction. I got sucked into reading the whole thing in one sitting, even though I told myself I was only going to read the opening vignette. It's ghoulishly delightful, and if you like books with gruesome monsters and steampunk weaponry, this one will be right up your alley. Also, I should add that this book has a clear ending, though it leaves the door open for a sequel. I hope that it sells well so we get one.

This book was a collaboration between writer Marcus Sedgwick and artist Thomas Taylor. Sedgwick has written several novels and won the Printz Award for his book Midwinterblood. Taylor is an accomplished children's book author and is most famous for being the first illustrator of the Harry Potter series. I very much like the tone and style of the art here, which I find to resemble an amalgamation of those of Joann Sfar and Richard Sala. It's appropriately creepy, muted, and ominous, perfect for a tale such as this. Both creators speak about their work on Scarlett Hart in this interview.

The reviews I have read about this book have been fairly positive. Kirkus Reviews summed up that it would be "fun for a spooky night, anchored by likable characters and a zippy story." Publisher Weekly wrote, "Taylor’s energetic artwork captures the time and place through the use of metallic grays and browns, while integrating an array of gothic and steampunk motifs." Elizabeth Bush was less taken with the plot and wrote that "this debut graphic novel series chugs along with little more than a workmanlike, repetitious plot of monster appearance/confrontation action scene/Hart-vs.-Stankovic rivalry."

Scarlett Hart: Monster Hunter was published by First Second, and they offer a preview and more here.

A review copy was provided by the publisher.

The Stone Heart

The Stone Heart is the second book in the eventual The Nameless City trilogy, and I know that second books can often feel like filler to get through before the dramatic conclusion, but this one left me breathless. So much happens in it that kept me wondering what was to come next that I really don't want to give much detail and spoil things for others. Let me just say that the political scheming gets complicated, there is a murder, and a new war for the city seems to be looming.

Pretty much the detail I will reveal is that a couple of new characters get introduced, friends of Rat. Iniko and Hannya are a couple of street performers. Iniko plays guitar (badly) in a band, and Hannya and her family are acrobats. They are not around for much of the book, but because of them we learn that Kai is pretty good as a musician.

 

Part of what makes this book so compelling is its interesting characters and their relationship dynamics. There are a couple of father/son conflicts, between Kai and his dad as well as between the General of All Blades and his son Erzi, which make for good points of juxtaposition. Also, we learn more about Kai's and Rat's parents. Still with all of this great character work, there is no shortage of action in this book. I cannot wait to see how all of it comes to a conclusion in the next volume.

This book's author Faith Erin Hicks has been an excellent, prolific comics creator, and she is one of my favorite artists. Among her growing list of graphic novel publications are Friends with Boys, Brain Camp, and Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong. She also has published webcomics, including The Adventures of Superhero Girl, which won an Eisner Award. She was joined by Jordie Bellaire who colored this book in beautiful fashion, adding lots of rich, lush flourishes to the detailed illustrations. Hicks speaks about her work on this book in this interview, where it is also announced that this trilogy will be made into a cartoon series.

All of the reviews I have read about this book have been glowing. Kirkus Reviews gave it a starred review and explained that it "introduces a few new characters but mostly provides a vital and enthralling closer look at those readers have already met as well as unfurling more of the Chinese-inspired city’s past, as colorist Bellaire brings all to stunning emotional life." Elizabeth Reid wrote that in addition to "its page-turning plot, every page of The Stone Heart has gorgeous, full-color artwork." Oliver Sava commented that it is full of "smart, evocative creative decisions."

The Stone Heart was published by First Second, and they have a preview and much more available here.

A review copy of this book was provided by the publisher.

Geis: A Matter of Life & Death

Geis: A Matter of Life & Death is a fascinating and exciting graphic novel debut. Impressively, it is also the first book of  a trilogy. The plot here is set in a medieval time, when the Great Chief Matarka is dying without leaving an heir. In this land, the custom is to have a contest among 50 worthy people to determine who the new chief will be. The twist in the proceedings is that an evil sorceress has tricked those 50 participants into signing a geis, a taboo spell that bounds them to specific quests. Should they fail in those quests, they not only die but their souls will become bound to the sorceress.

 

 

I thought that the artwork and the plot of this book were both exceptional. There are multiple twists that kept me guessing and intrigued for what was to come, and the book ends on a cliffhanger. The artwork is expressive and elegantly detailed, even with its muted color palette. But perhaps the best part of the book is its characters, who are brilliantly complicated figures full of contradictions and nuance. I cannot wait to see where this series goes.

This book's creator Alexis Deacon is an accomplished children's book author, two-time winner of the The New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Books Award. Among his many works are Beegu, Slow Loris, and While You Are Sleeping. He speaks about his work on Geis in this interview.

All of the reviews I have read about this book have been very positive. Kirkus Reviews wrote, "Scenes switch among the players with cinematic authority, offering both unforgettable images and unanswered questions aplenty." Matthew Garcia remarked that it was full of "spectacular storytelling." John Dubrawa called it "a wholly sensational piece of fiction" and "one beautiful looking nightmare."

Geis: A Matter of Life & Death was published by NoBrow Press. They have a preview and more available here.

The Nameless City

The Nameless City is the first book of a trilogy, and I must say it is an impressive introduction that left me eager for the forthcoming volumes. The narrative is set in a fictional Asian city that has no name, or rather it has so many names because it is constantly being conquered and overrun by warring factions that all they are meaningless. The main players are a couple of adolescents named Kaidu and Rat. Kaidu was born a Dao, one of the current occupiers of the city, and he is being trained to be a soldier. Rat is a native to the city, and she lives a hardscrabble existence.

These unlikely friends begin with a very utilitarian relationship: she will teach him to run across rooftops in exchange for him bringing her food and other necessities. Still, their friendship is forbidden, and he should not even be outside by himself in the city. Their secret gets complicated when the pair overhears an assassination plot and are moved to action, but so much of what I appreciated and enjoyed about the story was seeing how a weary partnership led to growing respect and an organic friendship. I foresee many readers growing to feel strongly for Kaidu and Rat in quick fashion.

Additionally, there is a lot of world-building going on here, with entire peoples, legends, classes, tribes, and places being established. But much of it feels very familiar and intriguing, and I was impressed by how quickly I got into the narrative and grew to like these characters. The artwork is impressive; the storytelling expert, and the entire enterprise is exceptionally well packaged. If there is any justice in the world, this book will be very popular.

This book's author Faith Erin Hicks has been an excellent, prolific comics creator, and she is one of my favorite artists. Among her growing list of graphic novel publications are Friends with Boys, Brain Camp, and Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong. She also has published webcomics, including The Adventures of Superhero Girl, which won an Eisner Award. She speaks about her work on this book in this interview.

All of the reviews I have read of this book find it well crafted, and it already has garnered a number of starred reviews. One, from Kirkus Reviews, called it "A superb beginning" and stated that fans "will appreciate its mix of fun and adventure and its exploration of questions of identity, belonging, and history." Another, from Publishers Weekly, praised the "polished " artwork and "significant depth" of the story. Claire Thorne offered a contrary opinion, finding the book too neat, writing that "the simple and predictable nature of the plot left me searching for more intrigue, more tension, and more entanglements between the characters."

The Nameless City was published by First Second, and they have a preview and much more available here.

Thank you, Gina, for the review copy!

Breath of Bones: A Tale of the Golem

Breath of Bones is a collection of a three issue limited series. The story focuses on Noah, a young man who we see as a slightly older soldier in a framing sequence. The main narrative focuses on him and his family during World War II. They live in a small, rural village and they all fear the advances of the Nazi German forces. One day, the younger, able-bodied men, including Noah's dad, decide they must join in the defense of their country and assemble to join the larger army. The town is then left populated with women, children, and older people. All is quiet, but tense, until the day a plane crashes nearby.

Inside is a British soldier, whom they rescue and give aid, but not far behind are Hitler's forces. Much fear is struck into the populace, and some want to send the British pilot away without sanctuary. Another debate arises whether to flee or to stay, hoping that either the Nazis don't show up or that they will not create conflict in the town. In the end, they do stay and the Nazis do show up. Noah's grandfather decides it's time he told his grandson some truths about his family and culture, and he is given the knowledge to create a golem to protect his people. What follows is a tale tinged with magic and hope in even the most dire circumstances. Most of the book is set in a time before the Nazis or the golem arrive, so there is a fair and good amount of character work, and I especially like how the relationship between Noah and his grandfather is developed.

In the end, even though I appreciate the character work, I am not sure what I feel about the story. It is revisionist in its scope, not in a way that is so disrespectful or irreverent as something like Inglourious Basterds, but it is a piece of convenient wish fulfillment. The fictional drama here may be diminished in comparison to real accounts of Nazi occupation, and I am not sure I quite buy the magical realism within, but what is exceptional in this book is the artwork created by Dave Wachter. His characters are well defined and full of affect. His pacing and storytelling are excellent, and the larger page size of this collection really features his exquisite line work and watercolor shading. This book contains a beautiful display of visual artistry.

The story in this book is by Steve Niles and Matt Santoro. Niles is known primarily as a horror writer, and his first major work was the comic book series 30 Days of Night, which was adapted into a major motion picture. Santoro is an actor, and as far as I can tell this is his only work in comics. Wachter has a number of comics credits, but is probably best known for the series Scar Tissue and The Guns of Shadow Valley. Niles and Wachter speak about their work on this book in this interview.

This series was well received, and it has been picked up as a property for development into a movie. The reviews about it I have read have been mostly celebratory. Gary Makries called it "amazing" and stated that he "cannot recommend this enough." Gregory Paul Silber was very impressed with the artwork, but in the end was disappointed by some story details, finding it "a bit problematic that there is not a single mention of Jews or Judaism throughout the story" and also troubled that no specific geographic setting is named. Kimberly summed up that if you are "a fan of great artwork and great storytelling, you cannot go wrong with Breath of Bones."

Breath of Bones was published by Dark Horse, and they provide a preview and more here.

Boxers & Saints

Author Gene Yang is an award-winning, celebrated graphic novel known for combining elements of biography, reality, legend, and fiction in works such as American Born Chinese, The Eternal Smile, Prime Baby, and Level Up. Ambitiously, he has undertaken a similar path in not one but two graphic novels released concurrently. Boxers and Saints focus on the Boxer Rebellion, a period from 1987 to 1900 where Chinese peasants banded together to expel foreigners who they perceived as weakening Chinese culture. These books focus on two sides of the conflict, sharing some common characters whose stories overlap in mundane, consequential, and heartbreaking ways.

Boxers is the more colorful of the two books. It follows the story of Bao, a young man whose village and family start having run-ins with foreigners and assorted roving hooligans. He ends up a part of a band called the Big Sword Society. These men have learned a way to channel ancient spirits through training and ritual, and when they are possessed of these spirits they are formidable and almost unbeatable in battle. Bao is possessed and haunted by Ch'in Shih-huang, the first emperor of the Ch'in Dynasty. He becomes a leader and debates this spirit often in his mind, conflicted by traditions, justice, and the realities of conflict that seem unfair and unjust. In the end, Bao makes some decisions that could be seen as destructive and reckless though they are tactically advantageous. Highlighted here is the transformative power of warfare, for both good and ill, and how there are no easy answers (or true heroes) in many of these situations.

A page from Boxers

The protagonist of Saints is a young girl who does not even have a proper name. Four-Girl has no status and no standing but she finds validation, friendship, and a name (Vibiana) through Christianity. These Christians were a small and endangered group in China at the time, because their faith was an emblem of the foreigners who were seen by the "Righteous and Harmonious Fists" (the Boxers) as enemies of the state. Like Bao, Vibiana is also visited continually by a spirit, in her case St. Joan of Arc. She struggles with her faith in these troubled times, and she finds herself in the group that Bao's band is hunting and fighting, which adds poignancy and emotion from a much different angle than in Boxers.

A page from Saints

What I appreciated most about these books, apart from the taut plotting and excellent illustrations, was how though provoking they are. Much ambivalence accompanies this (or any) conflict, and there are no easy answers here and no pure right side. Reviews I have read point to many of the books' positive features. Crystal called both "a beautifully illustrated and well told tale that you won’t want to miss." Ay-Leen the Peacemaker commented about both books' "emotional impact" and concluded that they combine for "an ambitious work that makes for compelling reading." Elizabeth Burns from the School Library Journal added them both to her Favorite Books Read in 2013.

Yang speaks about both of these books in this video interview as well as in this print one with GeekDad.

Boxers and Saints are both published by First Second. If you click on the titles in that last sentence you will find previews and much more for each book.

Thank you, Gina, for the review copies!

ADDENDUM 9/16/2013: Boxers and Saints made the long list for this year's National Book Award in the Young People's Literature category: http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2013.html#.Ujcgl4nD9dj

ADDENDUM 9/20/2013: There is another good interview with Yang at Good Comics for Kids: http://blogs.slj.com/goodcomicsforkids/2013/09/19/interview-gene-luen-yang-on-boxers-saints/

ADDENDUM 11/17/2013: An excellent interview with Yang at The Comics Reporter: http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/cr_sunday_interview_gene_yang/ 

Sailor Twain, or The Mermaid in the Hudson

Over time, many fairy tales have been sanitized, stripped of their sex and violence, and made more appropriate for children. Sailor Twain is a throwback to a more primordial, frightening kind of fairy tale where magical creatures typically trap and doom people. Twain is the captain of the aptly named Hudson River steamboat Lorelei, and strange things are happening on his vessel. There are affairs, people who go missing, castaways, and a fascination with a mysterious author. One day, Captain Twain finds a wounded mermaid and decides to nurse her back to health. This creature augurs bad news, as mermaids are known to drawn sailors to their deaths with their compelling song.

Twain finds himself artistically and personally inspired though, neglecting his wife and nautical duties. At the same time a number of mysteries about people's actual identities begin to crop up, making for some intrigue. Some people on-board appear to want to harm the mermaid, and she appears to be linked to a few past maritime disasters. Although the art and story have some sinister overtones, this is not quite a story about good and evil. It is more about how murky, misty, and indistinct life decisions and human relationships can be.

The backgrounds, buildings, boats, and geometrical faces are all beautifully rendered by artist and writer Mark Siegel, the award-winning editorial director of one of the premier graphic novel publishers, First Second. He co-created the ballerina graphic novel To Dance with his wife and has a few children's books to his credit. He speaks extensively about his work on Sailor Twain in this interview.

Reviews of this book I have read have been very positive. Seth T. Hahne called the book "breathtaking" and found it "beautiful and haunting." Barnes & Noble's Paul Di Filippo felt that it "exerts a mystical attraction." In a more measured review Greg Burgas wrote, "For the most part, Siegel does a very nice job building a strange mystery full of interesting characters, and he does challenge the reader in many ways, which is always good to see," but he felt that the ending did not come together satisfactorily.

This book is published by First Second. It was originally published serially online, and its homepage is a fount of previews, information, and more.

Finally, one word about audience: Although this book does have fairy tale overtones, it also has some language, violence, and nudity that make it more appropriate for more mature readers.

Five Fists of Science

A sort of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in a historical vein, The Five Fists of Science is basically a steampunk adventure where Nikola Tesla, Mark Twain, and Bertha von Suttner combine forces to bring about world peace by sharing giant robots with every nation. Their adversaries, including Thomas Edison, J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and Guglielmo Marconi rise up against them, building an ominous structure called the Innsmouth Tower (a reference to the works of HP Lovecraft, a writer of fantastic and horrific fiction), a cauldron of black magic that threatens humanity and freedom. Tesla and his allies combat this menace using their wits and piloting giant metal robot warriors. Seeing Mark Twain fight Thomas Edison using a giant rock-em sock-em robot is a pretty fantastic and unexpected delight.

This rollicking volume is the creation of Matt Fraction and Steven Sanders. Fraction is a longtime writer most known for his work on the Marvel Comics characters Iron Man, Thor, and Iron Fist as well as his creator-owned sci-fi/superspy series Casanova. Sanders is a commercial artist and occasional comic book artist who has mostly worked on X-Men spin-offs and S.W.O.R.D. for Marvel Comics. Fraction talks more about the creation of FFoS in this interview.

The reviews for The Five Fists of Science has been pretty positive. Jog called it "fun, very fast, very light, and probably worth seeking out for those who dig the idea of turn-of-the-century historical personalities thrust into a comedic action/sci-fi plot, with a cup of Lovecraft poured on top, drizzled with anime kitsch." Mitro of the Alternative History Weekly Update wrote about the book's accuracy, "While the personalities of the villains may have been tweaked, Twain's humor and Tesla's quirks were effectively captured and Bertha worked well as the cliche hot steampunk girl." Jamie S. Rich wrote that it "isn't a perfect graphic novel," but it is still a "good ol' pulpy adventure with familiar faces living out the roles we always imagined they could." Comics Should Be Good's Brian Cronin found some faults with the book as well, including that "the final confrontation seemed a bit rushed...but that doesn’t detract from most of the comic, which was action-packed, fun and funny."

This graphic novel was published by Image Comics. A black and white preview is available here from Fraction. The actual book is in color.