Wordplay

Making books that appeal to young children can be tough, especially striking a balance between being engaging and educational. This graphic novel, Wordplay, accomplishes that feat in fine manner. When I got it, I read it to my two boys (ages 2 and 4), and not only did they sit through the entire thing they asked me to read it again, which is a huge compliment. That night, my 2-year-old pulled it out for his bedtime book and after I finished he said, "Again!"

A big part of what makes this book so appealing is its playful illustrations. The plot involves a teacher presenting a lesson about compound words, and the protagonist Annemarie starts imaging them all in literal terms, which are depicted in detail. It is silly to see houses doing work (for homework) and even other ones vacuuming (for housework), but those are just the beginning.

There were a couple of words that I felt had some limited use today (like milkmaid), but some of the choices are inspired and hilarious. Just check out the cool drawing of a handyman:

In all, I think this book is a great way to both engage and entertain young readers while also teaching them some specifics about the English language. It certainly demonstrates what compound words are and provides multiple examples of them as well. This would be an excellent book for preschool, kindergarten, or first grade.

This book's creator Ivan Brunetti is an artist and educator who has been working in comics for a few decades. He is currently an associate professor at Columbia College Chicago, and he has done multiple covers for The New Yorker. He has created all kinds of solo work, including lots of independent comics and lately a growing number of titles for younger readers, like 3X4 and Comics: Easy As ABC. He speaks about his work on Wordplay in this interview.

All of the reviews I have read of this book have been positive. Kirkus Reviews gave it a starred review that called it "Praiseworthy!" J. Caleb Mozzocco wrote that "it’s hard to imagine a better candidate for explaining compound words." Publishers Weekly concluded, "Brunetti buoyantly conveys the joy of diving into newly acquired knowledge and the idea that learning and play aren’t mutually exclusive."

Wordplay was published by TOON Books, and they offer a preview and more here.

House of the Black Spot

I try to read as many new graphic novels every year, but sometimes I just fall behind. House of the Black Spot was published in the summer, and it's the latest entry in Ben Sears's Double+ series. As with other books in the series, it follows the escapades of Plus Man and Hank. Plus Man is a young adventurer who works delivery jobs while frequently foiling criminals. Hank is his more sensible and mature robot friend.

Plus Man: Not necessarily the guy you want to deliver your groceries.

In this book, we travel to Gear Town, where Hank's uncle Bill lives. Or lived rather, because he was murdered. It turns out that there is a nefarious scheme to gentrify Gear Town, with real estate developers intimidating residents to sell their properties. They are seemingly aided by the town's founder, a ghostly figure who was long thought to be dead.

Our heroes happen upon this situation at the reading of Uncle Ben's will, where friends, family, and antagonists are all locked in the house until his murderer is revealed. This being a good mystery, of course there are many things that are not as they seem...

I very much enjoyed the murder/adventure plot of this book, but the best part of it was Sears's colorful artwork. He does superb work at world-building, and I spent much time looking over his deceptively simple-looking images. The buildings' architecture is inventive and fun, and I just loved looking at all the details, such as what people have on their kitchen counters in this world. Plus, there are lots of nods to classic murder story elements, like secret passages and paintings where the eyes follow people around. As with the other books in the series, this one is a true all ages book, with lots of features to please and amuse readers young and old.

All the reviews I have read about this book have been positive. Leonard Pierce wrote, "Sears’ strength is absolutely as a visual storyteller, but there’s enough happening in his engaging characters, involving storylines, and light-fingered explorations of contemporary issues that the books are always something to look forward to." James Ardis commented that "for a graphic novel accessible to both children and young adults to tackle gentrification in any capacity is quite ambitious." Tom Shapira opined that "charm is something Ben Sears has in spades. The art, the colors, even the lettering, everything in this story screams for unencumbered joy."

House of the Black Spot was published by Koyama Press, and they offer a preview and more here.

My Favorite Graphic Novels of 2019

Every year, I read a lot of graphic novels. These are the ones published in the past year that have stuck with me the most. In no particular order, and in no set categories, here are my favorites:

Favorite Overall Graphic Novel

The Hard Tomorrow is a tale set in the not-so-far-future where Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is the US president, social media is used for surveillance, and civil rights are under siege. The story of relationships nested within this context is complex, moving, and very relatable for me. The ending of this book literally gave me goosebumps.






Favorite Book by a Hernandez Brother

For once, Jaime out-published Gilbert in terms of books in a calendar year. A 30-year punk rock reunion concert is the setting for Is This How You See Me?, and it pulls off the great trick of flitting from the present to the past to show a broad picture of growing up or changing in terms of people and music scenes. Although it did not give me goosebumps, the final page of this book put a perfect exclamation mark on the whole enterprise.





Favorite Adaptation

Using all sorts of styles and media variations, Anne Frank's Diary is a moving translation that does justice to the book and makes it even more relatable to a modern context. I read a lot of graphic novel adaptations, but this one knocked my socks off.







Favorite Scifi/Horror

Nathan Hale regularly appears in my end-of-year posts for his nonfiction Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales series, but this book is a work of fiction. Apocalypse Taco is about some school drama students who get caught up in nightmare scenario involving inter-dimensional beings trying to replicate and replace our world, and it is full of great twists and body horror. Plus, one of the eventual heroes is a graduate student. Hooray for graduate students! (This book would have also won my Best Title category, for the record.)




Favorite Book for Younger Readers

My rating here is based on two criteria: 1. number of times my 4-year-old requested to read it, and 2. just how charming and inventive the whole thing was. Red Panda & Moon Bear is about two superheroic kids who protect their neighborhood from various menaces, from bad dogs to ghosts to ice cream monsters. I loved seeing how they solved their problems with ingenuity and empathy. We loved this book in my house!




Favorite Nonfiction Book

Box Brown is a regular in my end-of-year lists as well, but this book surprised me with just how much it taught me. Cannabis is a history of the contentious plant, showing the science behind how it works, its international roots, and how a long-term process of racism and misinformation has colored how we view it today. It is an excellent cultural history.






Favorite Scifi

Last Pick: Born to Run is two things: an gripping scifi story about an alien invasion of Earth and what people who are underestimated can accomplish. This look at what are typically considered disabilities or disablement made for great drama to accompany strong characterization and great, gruesome monster designs.






Favorite Young Adult Book

The insights into an African-American young man and the experiences he has at a private school make New Kid a unique and important book. Not only does it explore the social dimensions of adolescence, it also raises timely questions about social justice and equity in a way that involves multiple shareholders. Additionally, I very much enjoyed getting to know Jordan Banks, the main character, as he learns the lay of land while trying to develop his artistic skills. It features a great message but with a sense of both humor and humanity.




Favorite Memoir

Lucy Knisley is another regular in my end-of-year lists, and in Kid Gloves she offers multiple features in one book. It is a memoir about her own process of getting pregnant, pregnancy, and giving birth. It also contains a bunch of historical sections about how those three life processes have been viewed and evolved over time and across cultures. It also contains a good deal of graphic medicine about specific conditions and treatments. All of these features combine to give the reader much to learn about, chew over, and also be entertained and moved by. This is an excellent book for anyone who is a parent or who would like to be one.



OK, that's my list. Happy New Year!

2019 By the Numbers

I know this is usually the most riveting post of the year, my list of the number of books I have reviewed arranged in descending order by publisher. Enjoy!

First Second 8

Birdcage Bottom Books 4

Harper Collins 4

Top Shelf 4

Fantagraphics 3

Graphic Universe 3

Graphix 3

Hard Case Crime/Titan Books 3

Image Comics 3

Abrams 2

Dark Horse 2

Drawn & Quarterly 2

IDW 2

Little, Brown Young Readers 2

Animal Media Group 1

Balzer + Bray 1

Bloomsbury 1

Candlewick Press 1

DC Comics 1

DC Ink 1

Dynamite 1

Evil Twin Comics 1

First Look Media 1

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 1

Lion Forge 1

Morrow Gift 1

NoBrow Press 1

Oni Press 1

Pantheon 1

Pegasus Books 1

Random House Graphic 1

Renegade Arts Entertainment 1

Roar 1

The Nib 1

Yen Press 1

Have a happy and safe New Year's Eve!

Are You Listening?

Are You Listening? is a beautiful book about dealing with pain and trauma. At the center is a road trip. 27-year-old Lou is driving across Texas about a year after her mother's death, going to visit her grandmother. On the way she picks up 18-year-old Bea, who is running away from her family. Their trip is mostly silent, punctuated by an occasional question or comment, when they find and pick up a cat. They resolve to return it to its owner, even though the town on the tag is difficult to locate (i.e. so small it's not on any map). Soon enough, they find out this is no ordinary cat. Also, there are dark, mysterious men who want that cat.

What my summary leaves out is what the book is really about, which is coming to terms with oneself and one's life. Lou has not dealt with the grief of her mother's death, which (/SPOILER) is compounded by her not coming out to her when she had the chance (end/SPOILER). Bea is running away because of some prolonged trauma, which she does not want to talk about, and it becomes pretty clear to Lu that she is also a lesbian. Eventually, the fact that these two women spend so much time in a car (and on various accompanying misadventures) they start to reveal what they've kept bottled up to each other. I have to say that much of what they discuss could be triggering, as it touches on deeply personal trauma, but it is conveyed in thoughtful, delicate, and artful manner.

The artwork in this story is one the main reasons this whole endeavor works as well as it does. There is a lot of pain in these pages, and there is also a lot of driving. The faces and backgrounds blend together in visually interesting ways that both propel the story as well as the characters' emotional journeys. The sequential art blend into map features at time, and the book takes on the characterization of a true road story. It is definitely a book more about tone, even if it does feature a riveting and spare plot. I have not read many stories like this one, and it left me with all kinds of feels with the ending.

This book's creator Tillie Walden is one of my favorite comics creators. Even though she is a relative newcomer, she has already racked up a few huge accolades, including the 2018 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work for her graphic memoir Spinning (also one of my favorite books of the year). Her second major graphic novel On a Sunbeam was nominated for a 2017 Eisner in the category of Digital Comic (even though it is technically a webcomic). I had the distinct privilege of speaking to her about On a Sunbeam in this interview on the Comics Alternative Podcast.

The reviews I have read of this book laud it for its complexity and artwork. Oliver Sava praised "Walden’s distinct perspective," particular in its way of "blending dreamy visuals with hard-hitting stories about the challenges of growing up." Hillary Brown called it "a good midpoint between Walden’s previous two books. It’s not as abstruse as On a Sunbeam, not as simple as Spinning." Kirkus Reviews summed it up, "A tsunami of emotions—sharp and heavy."


Are You Listening? was published by First Second, and they offer a preview and much more here. I think this book definitely would appeal to a YA audience, though it does feature some heavy traumatic content that may affect less mature readers.

Is This How You See Me?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Jaime Hernandez is one of my favorite comics makers ever, and I don't know how he keeps topping himself, but he's done it again. Is This How You See Me? is a book about a reunion. The Locas, characters Hernandez has been writing about since the early 1980s all convene 30 years later for a special concert of their old favorites and some of the new Turks who were inspired by them. It also features old friends and acquaintances coming back together, some happily and others not so much. What is phenomenal to me is just how vibrant and complex a quilt Hernandez weaves in a relatively short space in this book.

All of the major players here have aged, most have mellowed, and it is interesting to see how their lives have shifted over time. Of course, this book focuses much of the time on Maggie and Hopey, the on-again, off-again friends and lovers who were the primary focus of the classic Locas tales. Their adventures have always featured lots of personal drama and upheaval, and it is fascinating to see how that still plays out 30 years later.

This book features a lot of juxtaposition. It hops back in forth in time to show characters then and now. It shows what the folks at the reunion are up to while also showing what their significant others are doing while left at home. And although a few things remain relatively the same, it shows the ocean changes the exist between then and now. Perhaps most strikingly for me was the difference between the sorts of trouble Maggie and Hopey can get into to. Their past run-ins with punks and drug dealers seemed almost quaint and fun next to the two episodes of hate they run into in the present, which were full of menace and danger.

One of the strong points is just how iconic and potent the illustrations are. Hernandez has honed his craft over the decades to be able to capture an emotion or deliver a visual zinger in economical fashion. There were multiple times I found myself poring back over pages to admire his characters and how he brings them to life via his artwork.

Another of the strongest parts of this book for me was its dialogue. There are a number of big crowd scenes where people are watching shows, catching up, or hanging out late night in diners, and their conversations are mundane, silly, pointed, and sometimes poignant. I know that comics work best when there is a playful, intentional interplay between the images and the words, and Hernandez shows he is a maestro of drawing, writing, and also marrying the two.

I feel that I have a difficult time doing this book justice, because it does so much. It delivers quality slice-of-life type tales while also showing what happens across a lifespan. It is funny, sometimes sad, and very rewarding. There are lots of pay-offs for longtime Love & Rockets readers but also quite enough context to entertain and engage those new to this universe. I cannot recommend this book enough.

The reviews I have read of this book have been glowing. Edwin Turner wrote, "It's fascinating too to see how naturally Hernandez has realized the aging of his characters, as if they were not drawings on a page, but rather real people." In a starred review, Publishers Weekly concluded, "While longtime fans will discover extra levels of joy and regret in this installment, even those who pick this up as their introduction to the series will be moved by its tale of growing older without necessarily growing up." Hernandez speaks about his work on this book in this interview.

Is This How You See Me? was published by Fantagraphics, and they provide a preview and much more here. It features profanity, some violence, and sexual content, so it is recommended for readers mature enough to handle those things.

Major Impossible

I love, love, love, LOVE the Nathan Hale Hazardous Tales books, and Major Impossible, the ninth(!) entry in the series focuses on John Wesley Powell. He was an abolitionist and aspiring scientist who served in the Civil War. He rose in the ranks to brevet lieutenant colonel, and also lost most of his right arm. In 1869, he gathered nine men, four boats, and provisions for ten months to explore the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. Not everyone made it back, but those who did chronicled their arduous journey well with journals. Those primary sources offered lots of great material that appears in this book.

One of the best features of this book is its attention to those historical details and facts. I learned much about exploration of the American west over the course of this book, but the characters are made to be engaging and interesting, too. Also rewarding about this book is its meta-narrative that builds in elements from other books. Of course, we see more interactions between the narrator Nathan Hale, the hangman, and the proctor:

 

 

These pages introduce the book, and they reward longtime readers of the series but also offer a quick introduction to new readers. I just gave this book to my 11-year-old nephew, and he got into it quickly and did not want to put it down. The combination of facts, vivid characterization, and a good dose of humor make this another excellent entry in a consistently strong series.

If you have been reading my blog for any length of time, you likely know that I love Nathan Hale's comics and graphic novels. This nonfiction series Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales is the gold standard for historical graphic novels, as far as I am concerned. I loved his takes on fairy tales and the southwest, Rapunzel's Revenge and Calamity Jack. And I really liked his original sci-fi graphic novel One Trick Pony as well as his scifi/horror tale Apocalypse Taco, also released this year.

I have not been able to find many reviews of this book online, but the ones I have read praise the book. Vic Sage wrote, "The greatest gift that Hale’s books give is not just knowledge but an entertaining education – there has not been a book yet where I didn’t find myself going down a rabbit hole trying to find out more about what I’ve read in a Hazardous Tales offering." You can see a selection of other reviews at Goodreads, where the book currently has a 4.19 (out of 5) star rating.

Major Impossible was published by Amulet Books, and they offer a preview and more info about it here.