YALSA Top Ten GNs 2011: Ghostopolis

Ghostopolis
Written and illustrated by Doug TenNapel.
Published by Graphix (2010)

Ghostopolis is about a city for dead people. Not just ghosts live there, but also skeletons, mummies, (mummys?), giant bugs, goblins, and other weird folk. Garth, a living boy, accidentally gets sucked into Ghostopolis when an agent of the Supernatural Immigration Task Force accidentally zaps him there (along with a skeleton horse). He has to deal with being a living boy trapped in this world for the dead, while people back on Earth desperately try to get to Ghostopolis and save him.

Doug TenNapel is the creator of Earthworm Jim, a video game that I enjoyed playing for the SNES a long time ago (I also really dug the cartoon and can probably still sing the theme song). He's also produced an almost surprising number of graphic novels (over ten). But more importantly, he's a conservative Christian, which has more or less caused me to stay away from his work in general.

That was not always the case, as I bought his first graphic novel Creature Tech when it was originally released (and before I realized he was Christian), and for the most part I enjoyed it's weirdness. Except... Generally I don't think a book or comic or whatever can be ruined by a single page, but for Creature Tech I made an exception. The final page (and it's Christian message) really ruined that book for me. I don't care if you write a story about the Shroud of Turin as a magic object, but I'd prefer if it was just that, and not a symbol of religious power or something.

Anyway, back to Ghostpolis. TenNapel is a good artist, and I can definitely see how a comic filled with mummy warriors, sentient dinosaur skeletons, werewolves, and gross bug monsters would definitely appeal to kids. Even I think they're pretty cool looking.

But, the story itself has some problems.

The first is the bad guy. He's convinced that Garth is out to get him, and so spends his time tracking him down and attacking him. Of course, if he hadn't done this Garth would have gone back home and never encountered him. This isn't necessarily a problem with the plot, it's more that the bad guy is just dumb.

The second is a larger problem that is pretty common in fiction (though apparently not common enough for me to find on TVtropes): a competent female is paired with an incompetent male. (I didn't just make this trope up right?) Frank Gallows is the agent who sent Garth to the spirit world, he is kind of a total screw up, gets fired from his job, and is generally bad at everything. His ex-fiance is Claire Voyant, who is capable and competent and built a teleportation device and for some reason gets back together with Frank. There's a lack of representation of characters who aren't white and male (or a bug) in general, so this kind of sticks out.

There's also a message about something at the end (and the story put a little too much emphasis on people having children for my taste), but overall the story is fine. Of course, there are the "heavy-handed Christian overtones" that I didn't even pick up on. Looking into it more, apparently in the part where I thought everyone was getting transported to another dimension/planet to be reborn as aliens, they are actually going to Heaven. Dang, my version is totally better.

There are also some subplots that aren't fully developed, plot holes, and the ending seems somewhat sudden and random. The more I write about this book the worse it seems to be, but kids probably won't care that much. It has skeleton dinosaurs and monsters! (Though I'm not sure how much it would appeal to teens...)

YALSA top ten GNs 2013: Stargazing Dog

Stargazing Dog 
Written and illustrated by Takashi Murakami.

Published by NBM (2011).

Have you heard of Into the Wild? It's about a true story about a guy who wandered off into the Alaskan wilderness and died of starvation. Some people probably think it's romantic. Stargazing Dog is a somewhat similar story, except told from the point of view of a dog.

To put all of my biases up front, I don't really like dogs, and this comic kind of provides examples of why. Specifically, their personalities and apparently unending loyalty are not things I view as positives (though I am aware that many other people do). So a comic told from the point of view of a dog (and not an incredibly intelligent one) that seems to in part about how great that loyalty is has an uphill battle with me.

A girl finds a puppy, and convinces her parents to adopt it. Like most children, she soon pays little attention to the animal and her parents end up taking care of it. The human father, referred to as "Daddy" by the dog, seems to spend more time hanging out with, and talking to, the dog than he does to his wife and child. Eventually, he loses his job, loses his family, and goes off on a doomed road trip where more bad things happen to him and he dies (not really a spoiler, since it's revealed on the first page).

What really pissed me off was the afterward, where Murakami stated that his reason for creating this comic was because:

"In the past, he ["Daddy"] would have been an ordinary, good father.
However, in today's environment, it's adept or die. And that's not right. I really feel fed up with this hideous situation."

And really? Fuck that. He may have been an "ordinary" father, but in no way was he a good one. He paid no attention to his wife or child in any way, and was so uninterested in their lives and feelings, that he is shocked when his wife wants a divorce. That's hardly a "good" father in my eyes (though maybe it says something about Japanese society and familial expectations).

The back cover says that this is an "inspiring" story, but I'm not sure how I'm supposed to be inspired. A guy doesn't get his own way, so starves to death in the middle of nowhere while condemning an animal to the same fate? The message seems to be that if things aren't going your way you should leave everything behind, never ask anyone for help, and die because you're incredibly stubborn. This is even pointed out in a later part of the story where a character says "If he had gone to see you for some advice, Mr. Okutsu. He wouldn't have been dead now." 

Kind of weirdly, this manga was actually flipped so that it reads left-to-right like western books. You can definitely notice it as there are some signs in the pages where signs are backwards (and so are all of the Japanese sound effects), and there are references to right and left that don't always match up with the art. It's kind of strange to see a book published in this format so recently, as it seems the vast majority of manga is now published in right-to-left format. One of the complaints of flipping manga is that it brings out flaws in the artwork, and the awkwardness of some of the panels here seems to indicate some truth to that. Apart from that the artwork is well done. The dogs are drawn well, and the rest of the story telling is pretty clear (though there are some problems with scale).

But really, if you want to read a comic about a homeless person in Japan, read Disappearance Diary by Hideo Azuma. It's way more interesting, in part because it's an autobiography. Reading that review kind of reveals a lot more about the societal pressures that exist in Japan than this comic does. But because Stargazing Dog was created for a Japanese audience, all of that knowledge can just be assumed by the author as already known, and none of it has to be said on the page. If this comic actually explained some of the pressures of Japanese life it might have made "Daddy" a more sympathetic character. 

YALSA top ten GNs 2012: Thor: The Mighty Avenger

Thor: The Mighty Avenger (Volumes 1-2) 
Written by Roger Langridge. Illustrated by Chris Samnee
Published by Marvel (Volume 1, 2010; Volume 2, 2011)

So first, a confession. I didn't actually reading the two volumes that were placed on the YALSA list from this year. Instead I read Thor: The Mighty Avenger: The Complete Collection published in 2013. It has all 8 issues of Thor: The Mighty Avenger (plus the Free Comic Book Day story), but doesn't include the old Journey into Mystery issues (#83-86) that are included in the original collections. I'm pretty sure their inclusion didn't affect these books making it onto this list, but feel free to say otherwise.

Despite all the positive things I'd heard about this book, I went in with low expectations (though why I felt that way I couldn't really tell you). Maybe I'd just read too many YALSA top ten books that I didn't really care for (it looks like I've disliked, the last five I reviewed for this site). However, I was pleasantly surprised. This book is really cute and fun! It is, to my surprise, much more romantic than I would have thought a Thor comic would be. Jane Foster (that's her on the cover up above) works in a museum, and ends up helping Thor when she thinks he's a hobo (with a heart of gold). Soon he's sleeping on her couch and there's an amount of crushes and flirting and stuff that is sweet without it making me completely uninterested.

That's not to say it's not a superhero comic. While it's not set in any version of the Marvel Universe that exists anywhere else (that I know of) characters like Iron Man, Namor, and Captain Britain show up, and Thor fights robots and super villains and giant sea monsters. So it's pretty typical in that regard, but I also found it more enjoyable than a lot of the superhero comics I read.

Chris Samnee is an artist a lot of people really like (he won an Eisner award for his work on this series), but the limited stuff by him that I've read hasn't really clicked for me. In this book I can definitely see why people enjoy his work, as a lot of the art is great! But then the next panel will just be unappealing to me for some reason I can't put my finger on (the inking style? The width of the lines?). I wonder if it might be something to do with the way the line work interacts with the colours. The colours (by Matthew Wilson) are generally really good, though as with pretty much all modern books the colours are far more than just flat colours, but are used to give depth, hightlight physical features, and more. I wish I could see some of the original black and white line work and compare the two to see where my problem comes from. Regardless of my feelings, you do at least get to see Thor wearing an apron after cooking a meal.

The most frustrating thing about this series is the fact that it doesn't actually end. Apparently it was intended to be a 12 issues series, but it was cancelled after issue eight, leaving readers to wonder who the mysterious Mr. K was, why Thor got banished to Earth, and other questions. The only thing we do know (based on the sketches in the back) is that Hulk was going to show up. The series was successful enough in collected form that it got reprinted, so it's too bad Marvel didn't put out a four issue miniseries to wrap things up.

YALSA top ten GNs 2007: Identity Crisis

Identity Crisis 
Written by Brad Meltzer. Illustrated by Rags Morales and Mike Bair.

Published by DC Comics (2006)

[Note: The issues that made up this series originally came out in 2004, but the paperback edition of the collection didn't make it out until 2006.]

I remember back when this series was coming out there was some controversy as to how it treated the characters. It took characters who had been in the Justice League in the 1970s and 1980s and retconned things so that the old stories seemed a lot darker than they had been. I remember that I didn't really have any relation to those characters, so at first I didn't "get" what some of the criticism was. But I went and read issues of Justice League International (and similar series) out of quarter bins, and I soon grew to enjoy those old series and was kind of saddened by how the characters were treated in this series.

A decade later, I kind of wonder why on earth this series was put on a YALSA top ten list. The only real excuse I can think of, is that 2007 was the first year they created one of these lists, they didn't really know what they were doing, and that it was a big event comic (so of course it's good?), because fuck it is kind of terrible. So terrible it's been put on a list of the worst comics of 2000-2009.

So, what is it, and why is it so bad? It's a mystery where the "whodunit" turns out to be someone completely unrelated to all of the previous hints and clues, and whose personality was radically changed in order to make them the perpetrator. It's a superhero story with murder, rape, misogyny, and other horrible stuff done so as to "humanize" the characters. (Of course, none of that happens to any of the superheroes, instead it all happens to members of their family. To make them FEEL THINGS.) I'm not saying superhero comics can't tell deep, emotional stories that feature those elements, but doing it to Elongated Man (or whoever) seems to cheapen everything else they've done. Superhero comics basically work on suspension of disbelief, and this comic seems to go out of it's way to break characters and make you realize how nonsensical the DC universe is. It has superheroes doing things that they they seem like assholes, and the problem with shared universes is that the characters and stories don't exist in isolation. Someone else is going to use the characters later, and they'll have to deal with this stuff.

You'd think Meltzer might understand that as one of the reasons he wrote this comic was to explain why Dr. Light was a terrible villain in the comics he read as a kid. He had to do this in a "realistic" way, making things grim and gritty, and ignoring the facts that pretty much everyone was a terrible villain back then and that they're superhero comics. It's not always appropriate to make characters do "realistic" things.

Okay, let's talk about Women in Refrigerators. This is a term (created by comic writer Gail Simone) to describe the many, many terrible things that happen to women characters in comics, frequently just so that the main (male) characters can have something bad happen to them without it actually _happening_ to them. The titular case was when a Green Lantern came home to find that his girlfriend had been killed and stuffed inside his fridge.

Identity Crisis does this in spades. Sure bad things happen to some male characters too, but even in death the female characters seem more screwed over. I mean, why be killed by a boomerang when you can be raped, and then killed, and then set on fire?

The last year or so has really seen an increase in comics that feature female leads, which is great, but reading something like this makes me wonder how long it is until Ms. Marvel gets raped or has her arms ripped off or something. A lot of writers, editors, and other people involved in comics seem to think that superheros need to be dark and gritty and...terrible. I wish they'd stop.

There was recently a controversy over an alternative cover for an issue of the Batgirl series currently coming out. Some fans felt (rightly so) that the cover (which heavily suggests sexual assault and can make Batgirl look like a victim) was inappropriate for the type of book that Batgirl is. I agree. Regardless of whether you think the cover is a good piece of art, you can't take it out of context. You have to view it as a cover for a comic, and consider what the contents of that comic are going to be. People (and there seem to be a lot of them) who say "No! It's a great cover! It's creepy and well drawn." are missing the point. It's not whether it's good, it's whether it's appropriate for it's context. A lot of people seem to feel it's appropriate for Batgirl, and I wonder what other comics they'd have been fine with this cover being on. Batman Adventures? Scooby Doo? Tiny Titans?

The reaction of those fans makes me pretty sad. So of course you'll all be happy to know that a tenth anniversary hardcover of Identity Crisis came out in December of last year. I'm sure a lot of fans love it's "realistic" take on superheroes.

YALSA top ten 2008: Blue Beetle

 

Blue Beetle (Volumes 1-2)
Written by Keith Giffen and John Rogers. Illustrated by Cully Hamner, Rafael Albuquerque, and others.
Published by DC Comics (2006-2007)

So ages and ages ago I was originally going to read and review these graphic novels in something more like chronological order, and I read (or attempted) to read books from the first few years of these awards. (This plan didn't last long.) In the case of Blue Beetle my local library system didn't have the first two volumes of Blue Beetle, so I read every other Blue Beetle thing they had at the time. Since lots of copies of books had gone missing, this amounted to two books, a later volume of this series (Vol. 4: End Game), and the Blue Beetle Companion, which tracked the history of the character from the 1930s up to around 2008 and educated me about the Blue Beetle radio show from 1940 (it is terrible).

There's really no reason to mention this, because now I've actually read the first two volumes, but I figured I needed to link to those radio shows _somehow_. Anyway, reading the first volume of Blue Beetle nine years after it came out is somewhat confusing. Now, this is because Blue Beetle is a shared universe superhero title, and like many of them it refers to other superhero comics that were coming out at the time. I didn't realize/remember this (despite the fact that I think I've read this volume before), and really it's not that big of a deal, but there's some amount of story that's happening in the Infinite Crisis event crossover that isn't really explained that well/at all until the second volume.

Okay! So what is Blue Beetle about? It's about a kid who finds a magic (or alien?) scarab beetle thing  that gives him crazy cool armour and he (of course) becomes a superhero. Of course, there are some fun bits that do make it different from Spider-Man or other teenage heroes. First, it's set in El Paso, which actually has way more superpowered people than you would expect, but also doesn't exactly have Superman hanging out. Second, Jaime's parents know he's the Blue Beetle, this leads to some pretty fun interactions between them when they're asking if he has his homework done before he can head out to save the world.

The design for this Blue Beetle is still pretty cool looking, and I think it's kind of impressive how this version of Blue Beetle has actually become the one that is shown in other media. The Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle appeared in Smallville, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Young Justice, a number of video games, and even a live action test trailer for a TV show.. That probably makes him one of the more successful non-white superhero characters ever, let alone one that was created less than a decade ago.

While these two volumes do feature six pencillers over twelve issues, the art manages to stay fairly consistent. There's also some pretty nice colouring in there that I wasn't expecting. (There's also some fairly terrible colouring that makes it seem as though Jaime has horrible growths on his face instead of facial hair, but you can't win them all.)

So the art's generally well done, the supporting cast (and their relationships with each other) is pretty good, the mystery about the scarab is decent, Jaime is a likeable character, and the book overall is fun. (This is what people have been saying for about a decade now...) If you gave me more issues I'd read them. Mostly though, I think I'm just glad that Jaime has proven popular enough to still be around, and not be killed off in some crossover or other like so many other characters.

YALSA 2015 Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens

Every year since 2007 Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) section of the American Library Association (ALA) has created both a long list and a top ten list of "great graphic novels for teens". You can see all the lists here. Previously they had included some graphic novels on their "best books for young adults" lists.

About a year ago I was invited to give a guest lecture on the history of comics and graphic novels for children and young adults, and upon looking at these lists realized that I had read less than half of the book on the top ten lists (and hadn't even heard of others!). As a so called "expert" on graphic novels in libraries I didn't really think that this was appropriate, and decided to read as many of the volumes that I hadn't read as possible. (I have at least read more than half of this year's list!)

I'll be reviewing them as I read (or reread) them, and this page will eventually contain links to all the books from 2015. Here's the full list of nominations from 2015, and the top ten list. They occasionally have weird formatting or credits.

Afterlife with Archie: Escape from Riverdale by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Francesco Francavilla.

Bad Machinery V.3: The Case of the Simple Soul by John Allison. 

47 Ronin by Mike Richardson and Stan Sakai.

In Real Life by Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang.

Ms. Marvel: V.1. No Normal by G. Willow Wison and Adrian Alphona.

Seconds: a Graphic Novel by Bryan Lee O’Malley.

The Shadow Hero by Gene Luen Yang and Sonny Liew.

Through The Woods by Emily Carroll

Trillium by Jeff Lemire. 

Wolf Children: Ame & Yuki by Mamoru Hosoda and Yu.

YALSA top ten GNs 2014: Dogs of War

Dogs of War
Written by Sheila Keenan. Illustrated by Nathan Fox.
Published by Graphix/Scholastic (2013)

When I saw that Nathan Fox had drawn this comic I was excited. Then I realized that I hadn't heard anything about this book from anywhere, and that I couldn't name anything he'd be working on recently so I clearly hadn't been following Fox's work that closely. Perhaps I don't actually like his work that much. I mean, I like Fluorescent Black don't I? Or maybe I've just read it... Or maybe I just own it because I literally remember nothing about it other than it's size (it's large!).

Flicking through the book now I look at individual panels and pages and think "Yeah, that looks pretty good", but at the same time I don't remember thinking about the art at all while I read it, so evidently it didn't leave that much of a mark. Was it just the subject matter not appealing to me? Or was it something else?

First I guess we need to look at what this comic is actually about. It's split into three separate stories set during different wars: World War I in France, World War II in Greenland, and the Vietnam War. Each story is all about puppies!

Okay, not so much, each story is actually about dogs. The first one features a sixteen year old kid who ran off and joined in the war as a medic. A medic dog saves his life several times, there's a soccer game, hurray!

The second is interesting at least in it's setting. I've never heard much (or anything) about Greenland during the second world war, so it was interesting to learn that both Americans and Germans were there setting up bases. Here's a Wikipedia article if you want more information. Apparently Greenland was determined not be occupied by Canada!

The final story is the only one that I felt actually dealt with how horrible war is. A soldier who's returned to America from the Vietnam war is living in a trailer park, having nightmares, and dealing with PTSD. He bonds with a kid and his pet dog by telling him about his experiences in Vietnam.

Despite the final story I found this book to be, if not actually pro war, overly supportive of people fighting. The first two stories are a bit too "rah rah rah" for my liking and while the third story was better on this account, I also felt it dehumanized the Vietnamese people. While there does appear to be an element of "the soldiers are not in the wrong, it's the people who are telling them to fight" in this book, I really can't feel positive in regards to anything that's supportive of war in pretty much any way. Other people feel differently.

YALSA top ten GNs 2014: Will & Whit

Will & Whit
Written and illustrated by Laura Lee Gulledge
Published by Amulet (2013)

I read a lot of comics, but what I tend to read are comics put out by traditional comic shop publishers (e.g. Dark Horse, etc.). Sure, there are exceptions, but for the most part I'm not super aware of what's being put out by book publishers, and I'm especially unaware of things put out by book publishers and aimed at teenage girls. (Which is kind of why these YALSA lists are great! Exposing me to new comics is always good.)

Will & Whit is about Wilhelmina, a 17-year-old girl who lives in a small town, has "an old-fashioned soul", and wants an "unplugged summer" vacation. Now, if I was reading this as the blurb on a novel I probably would have given up already, as I clearly have no time for stories where the main character isn't a robot or wants to be a robot.

Will's parents died a year ago and she's been living with her aunt and trying to deal with things since then. She helps out at the antique store her aunt owns, and makes lamps (this seems kind of weird). Will a massive storm and/or a group of teens who are starting a carnival style art show help Will deal with her emotions? More than likely as there wouldn't be a story if they didn't.

This comic is fine, but in a lot of ways it just seems really generic. Teens feel isolated, teens are all super creative, technology doesn't help us interact with each other, etc. However, I'm not a teenager, am (hopefully) more okay with being who I am than many of them, and have read more books about being isolated and alone than they have. My issues are not really with the quality of the book, just that I've read other stuff with the same feel before. ("Then why do you read superhero comics that are all pretty much the same?" you ask while I try to change the subject.)

However, I do have a major problem with the art in this book: the two main male characters look (and act) more or less identical. They're both straight white teenagers with who dress pretty similarly (you could swap their clothes and never know) and have unspoken crushes on girls. Okay, so their noses are drawn a little differently, and the book is in black and white so the lack of colour limits how you can tell characters apart, but  I'm pretty sure their hair is even parted on the same side. The story could have made them twins and I would have believed it. Gulledge is capable of drawing females who both look and dress differently, and there's another male character who is distinguishable from other people, but she totally fails on this count. Make one of these guys goth or black (or both!) or _anything_.

This brings to light another problem with this (and many other books). Yes there are supporting characters who aren't white (hurray), but they aren't really driving the story forward. In this case the main character (or their love interest) could easily be non-white, but they aren't. I don't usually complain about this sort of thing (white is frequently the default...), and this isn't really aimed at this book specifically, but representation of minorities in fiction (and not just in supporting roles) is something that should be discussed pretty much always.

YALSA top ten GNs 2014: March

 

March (Volume 1)
Written by by  John Lewis and Andrew Aydin. Illustrated by and Nate Powell.
Published by Top Shelf (2013)

While he's now best known for his comic work like Swallow Me Whole, I first learned of Nate Powell through Soophie Nun Squad, a rather bizarre band slotted into the punk movement at least partially because of the content of their lyrics and who they hung out rather than anything else (Powell was roommates with a member of Defiance, Ohio for a while). Their live shows frequently featured puppets and costumes and it's too bad they don't perform any more as I'd like to see them. The CD I have by them features a cover and other artwork by Powell (who is also credited for "voice, claps, hit a button, puppets"), and it's great to see him working on book such as this.

March is a book chronicling the civil rights movement in the United States through the eyes of John Lewis, a US congressman and an "American icon" that I've never heard of... Of course, I am a Canadian, and so I presumably know less about this than Americans do, but I felt that there could have been a little bit more context for what segregation and the civil rights movement where. I guess that while American kids are taught about all this stuff, I can imagine a kid in Canada (and remember this is a book aimed at kids and young adults) or elsewhere being confused by what's going on. (Though without access or experience with them it''s impossible for me to really know.)

The book starts telling Lewis' life starting in the 1940s rural America and continuing up to the lunch counter protests in 1960. Throughout we're given Lewis' thoughts on the movement, and the emphasis many people put on non-violent protests. Reading about the institutionalized racism portrayed in this comic is pretty upsetting. I mean, my birth is closer to those events than to the present day, but I can't even imagine restaurants here refusing to serve people because of the colour of their skin. It really makes me wonder what groups we're discriminating against today that, thirty years from now, will make us feel appalled by our own actions.

While the information given in this comic is solid, I found the book as a whole is a little frustrating. The story is effectively told, but as it's just "part one" the story isn't complete in any real way. Secondly, there's a kind of weird almost present day (2009) framing sequence of Lewis talking about his life to kids and other people. It  crops up at various points of the book, and based on the dates I guess the final book is going to end with the inauguration of Barack Obama. While I understand why that is important, and would be a fitting conclusion, I also felt that it just ate up pages that could have been better used to give more historical details. Finally, and this is fairly minor, there's a term used that I consider a racial slur about Irish people, which is a little off putting.

Powell's art is good, but I'm apparently worse at describing artwork than I am at actual stories, so it's probably best if you just look at a preview.

YALSA top ten GNs 2008: King of Thorn

King of Thorn (Volumes 1-2)

Written and illustrated by Yuji Iwahara.

Published by Tokyopop (2007)

Sometimes a book can deliver everything you want, despite what the author's original intents were. But more on that later. I'm trying to get into the habit of reading books and comics without knowing anything about them. I don't read the blurb on the back (spoilers!), and it's often so long since I added the book to my "to read" list that I don't even remember why I wanted to read it in the first place. So I go in with no knowledge of what's going to happen at all except for whatever's on the cover. This means that early twists and surprises actually surprise me!

The cover of King of Thorn doesn't really reveal anything about the story at all (there are humans and monsters?), but I remember years ago thinking about reading this book because I really enjoyed the way the cover was designed. The use of blank white space within the "thorns" seeming to "eat" into the rest of the image, while the soft purple-y colour of the cover made it stand out to me for some reason. Maybe it's just that the colour purple being used on the cover is supposed to sell more comics.

Inside the story starts by revealing that a terrible disease, the Medusa virus, is turning people into stone and killing them and...hold on, isn't this the plot at the beginning of Eden: It's an Endless World? Kasumi is one of a pair of twins who have contracted the virus, but she alone has been chosen as one of 160 people to be placed into suspended animation in hopes that a cure will be uncovered. There's plenty of angst about leaving her sister behind as she's placed into the capsule and put to sleep.

And then...dinosaur attack! Okay, the dinosaur attack doesn't happen _yet_. First we jump forward some unknown amount of time into the future. The lab which holds the cryo-capsules has been completely overgrown with huge vines covered in thorns. Some of the capsules seem to be completely destroyed, but a number are still intact and people start to wake up and wonder what on Earth is going on. Then the dinosaur, or at least a giant lizard creature, attacks. In the ensuing fear, panic, and stampedes most of the survivors end up dead, leaving only seven people alive. The rest of the book follows their attempt to escape from the building, but floating over their heads is the dark realization that the virus which caused them to be placed into cryogenic sleep in the first place hasn't been cured, and the longest any of them has to live is six weeks. Gripping stuff!

So what was the thing I disliked about this book? The main character. The girl on the cover with huge glasses and who, as you can probably guess if you've ever read any manga, is a shy and awkward teenage schoolgirl who is also nice and kind and maybe brave. She has seemingly no characteristics beyond that, practically sleepwalks through the plot, getting rescued multiple times, and could, in my opinion, just not have been included at all. I feel like I've seen this character in numerous manga before (though, I could not actually tell you which ones), and they're not a character type that I really care for. A character can have self doubt over their actions, but Kasumi's self doubt (at least in this volume) is whether she should even bother continuing to live. It's survivor's guilt that starts before she even enters the capsule. I'm assuming that Iwahara wants us to identify with, or at least care about, Kasumi, but it wouldn't bother me if she died in volume two. Actually, that'd be pretty gutsy so I'd be impressed, but I'm doubting that'll happen.

The other characters aren't that much better: there's a kid, a woman (who of course ends up looking after the kid), an older rich business man guy, another guy (who apparently has less of a personality than Kasumi), a black guy (who is of course big and strong), and a super 1337 hacker criminal (the big muscley guy with the tattoos on the cover). The hacker is, at least so far, the real protagonist insofar as he has driven pretty much every element of the plot: leading the characters, suggesting plans, coming up with ideas, saving people, thinking about what's going on. He's a stereotype too, but one I'm more interested in reading about.

Still the entire plot and situation of the comic really grabbed me, even if the characters themselves didn't seem like anything particularly special. I'm totally ready to read more of this series (especially since, as it's only six volumes long, it will actually end), but unfortunately the VPL only has volume 1 and every volume is out of print since Tokyopop, its original publisher, has basically not existed as a company in several years. Thankfully it doesn't look like prices on the secondary market are that high, so hopefully I can pick them up somewhere. I'm also interested in checking out some of Iwahara's other series, two of which, I've just discovered, have been translated into English.

YALSA top ten 2008: After School Nightmare

After School Nightmare (Volumes 1-5)
Written and illustrated by Setona Mizushiro.
Published by Go! Comi (Volume 1, 2006; Volumes 2-5, 2007)

When I read a comic (or a book, or watch a TV show, etc.) and I really have problems with it I tend to go and read reviews to see if other people had similar problems or if they could justify their experience in a way that made sense to me. (I also do this with media I really enjoy, except then I read reviews of people who hated whatever I liked.) However, when the opinion I have is not only not reflected in any other review I can find, but not even mentioned, I guess I feel as though I'm not reading the comic "right". That's really the case with After School Nightmare: I have multiple problems with it, but nobody else even talks about what I think are sorta serious issues. Now, this is a ten volume series, and the first five were all listed (as one item) on the top ten list, but I only read the first book. (The copy I borrowed was also missing a page at the beginning, that was actually kind of important, but I read it online.)

First of all I admit, and this is going to come up multiple times as I read the comics on these YALSA lists, that I am not a teenage girl and, in fact, have never been one. Thus, shojo comics (Japanese comics aimed at teenage girls) are not something I enjoy very often. I haven't read that much, but other than like Sailor Moon and Magic Knight Rayearth (both of which I read back in the '90s), I'm not sure if I've actually enjoyed any shojo comics at all. So why is this? I mean, I've read and enjoyed the Baby-sitters Club graphic novel that Raina Telegemeier did, so I'm clearly not _that_ averse to comics aimed at young females (though there are lots of western ones that I also don't care for), but clearly something about these titles hasn't clicked with me. However, even saying something like that is unfair, as shojo isn't a genre, and the titles published under that title can be anything from sports to science fiction. But of the ones I've read, the overly dramatic characters and focus on absurd "romances" have left me cold.

After School Nightmare is set in a bizarre school where students have to attend a "class" where they are put to sleep and must reveal their true selves/darkest secrets to other students. In order to graduate they have to find a "key" which is hidden inside the body of another student. This is kind of weird, though I'd be more okay with it if there wasn't so much non-consent involved. The mysterious "nurse" who tells the main character that they have to do this doesn't tell them what it is they have to do or what's going to happen beforehand (or even afterwards!), instead they just drug them with some weird type of tea, and another student eventually explains what this "class" is about. After the main character has unwillingly entered a dream world where students get to repeatedly relive horrible experiences like sexual and physical assault.

But that's not even my real problem with this comic, and we'll get to that in a second after I give a brief plot overview. The main character Ichijo Mashiro's "upper half is male" and their "lower half is female", and a major element of the plot is them trying to come to terms with their own gender identity. This is fine, good even! Teenagers frequently struggle with elements of sexual orientation and gender identity (amongst other aspects of their personal identities), and providing media about that probably helps them understand that they're not alone in how they feel.

However, my problem with this comic is the way the nurse, who is basically the only adult/person in a position of power/supposed role model in the entire comic, acts. Upon meeting Ichijo this character says "I know everything about you. After all, I am your teacher". When Ichijo says "I'm a guy" the nurse says "No, you're merely wear a man's clothing and hope to be believed". Similarly, other characters repeatedly say that Ichijo's "true self" is female, because that's how they show up in the dreams (whereas other students appear as a suit of armour, a person with huge holes were their face and chests are, a disembodied arm, and so forth). It just seems super transphobic to me to have almost everyone refuse to accept this character as the gender they identify as, but nobody else discussing the comic seems to have ever mentioned this, so maybe I'm just reading it wrong.

Thankfully, it isn't all like that. One of the characters (a love interest) actually says "I prefer you being a boy". There's a reasonable story to be told in characters trying to figure out if they're gay or not when they don't identify with their physical gender, and it seems as though later volumes of the series discuss that more. But those aspects didn't really click with me until I read reviews of the series, and then reread this volume (and geeze guys, I just reread a comic I disliked in order to properly say why I disliked it.).

Ignoring any positive or negative thoughts regarding the plot of the book, I found the romance aspects of this incredibly boring. Like there are pages of dialogue that I cannot believe I read as they are just so banal. This is clearly my personal opinion and I'm not saying that _this_ part of the comic is bad, just that it's not something that I generally enjoy, and based solely on that (but also for other reasons) I won't be seeking out any more of this title.

YALSA 2013 Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens

Every year since 2007 Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) section of the American Library Association (ALA) has created both a long list and a top ten list of "great graphic novels for teens". You can see all the lists here. Previously they had included some graphic novels on their "best books for young adults" lists.

I was recently invited to give a guest lecture on the history of comics and graphic novels for children and young adults, and upon looking at these lists realized that I had read less than half of the book on the top ten lists (and hadn't even heard of others!). As a so called "expert" on graphic novels in libraries I didn't really think that this was appropriate, and decided to read as many of the volumes that I hadn't read as possible.

I'll be reviewing them as I read (or reread) them, and this page will eventually contain links to all the books from 2013. Here's the full list of nominations from 2013, and the top ten list. They occasionally have weird formatting or credits.

My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf.

Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm.

Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller by Joseph Lambert.

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man (Volume 1) by Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli.

Friends with Boys by Faith Erin Hicks.

A Flight of Angels by Rebecca Guay, and others.

The Silence of Our Friends by Mark Long, Jim Demonakos, and Nate Powell.

Stargazing Dog by Takashi Murakami.

Drama by Raina Telgemeier.

Daredevil (Volume 1) by Mark Waid, Paolo Manuel Rivera, and Marcos Martin.

YALSA top ten 2007: Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. (Volume 1)

Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. (Volume 1): This is What They Want
Written by Warren Ellis. Illustrated by Stuart Immonen.
Published by Marvel Comics (2006)

A friend of mine used to have a zine that was focused around monsters. Each issue spotlighted a different monster, and she'd have a section of movie reviews which she called "what I remember reviews". It didn't matter how long ago she saw the movie, or how much (if anything) she remembered about it, she'd write something about it. That's going to be the case with some of the reviews of these YALSA top ten books too, I have actually read a bunch of them, though in some cases it was quite some time ago...

Nextwave was a title I read when it was originally coming out as single issues. I'd have happily read it again, but the VPL doesn't have either volume in their catalogue. Honestly though I'm not that surprised, cause they'd probably have been stolen if they ever did have them.

Warren Ellis is (twice over) the reason I'm so into comic books. First with his run on Excalibur which got me to start going to comic book shops so that I could get every issue, and then later with the Warren Ellis Forum where I discovered many, many different creators and titles, and even made friends! However, while Ellis has written some stuff I've liked a lot (and has been influential to the comics medium), there hasn't been much released in the last decade that I can say I thought was really good. Now admittedly he's releasing a lot less material than he used to, but I just read through his bibliography and was like "oh yeah, I read all of Freak Angels, that was pretty decent", but keep in mind that I had completely forgotten that I read a six volume series.

However, Nextwave is the last title that Ellis was involved with that I think can be classified as "really good"! It's a superhero comic, but it's more of a comedy than most "mainstream" superhero comics are. The main cast are a bunch of minor characters that not many people cared about, and over all it's pretty ridiculous. For some of the characters Ellis pretty much just ignored the existing personality traits entirely and made up new ones. While this is frequently seen as bad writing, in this case the new versions of the characters seemed to be far more interesting than the ones that had existed before and later appearances of some of the characters, namely Machine Man and his newly human/fleshy one hating, beer drinking self, have reflected this.

I honestly can't remember that much about the art other than that it was "good", but Stuart Immonen is a pretty rad artist overall, and Ellis definitely wrote him some great scenes to illustrate in this comic.

When it was first announced that the series was going to end at issue 12, I wasn't that sad as I thought the comedy aspect of the title would get old if it had kept coming out indefinitely. But once it was finished I did miss it, and wish there was slightly more of it in existence. So yeah, if you're at all interested in superheroes as a subject this is probably worth reading, but if you don't spend your spare time reading Wikipedia articles about obscure Marvel characters be prepared to have some of the jokes go over your head.

Plus it has an official theme song! How many comics get that?

YALSA top ten 2007: Sloth

Sloth
Written and illustrated by Gilbert Hernandez
Published by DC/Vertigo (2006)

First review on this site and I start by saying something that clearly marks me out as a horrible person amongst comic book fans: I don't really care for Gilbert Hernandez's comics.

This isn't just based on Sloth. I've read some of Love and Rockets (the first volume of...some edition, the square-ish ones?), Grip: The Strange World of Men, and Speak of the Devil (maybe?). I barely remember anything about them other than them being at best "okay", and a friend complaining about the huge busted women in the art (she was surprised to hear that Hernandez was an award winning and respected creator).

Sloth is about a high school student who wakes up from a coma and is now just really slow. He moves slow, he wants his band to play slower music, he sleeps all the time. There's a bit about some weird monster that maybe exists in a lemon orchard, but then it just falls into a dream world or something. I'm kind of shocked I'm saying this about a book with a monster and a possible alternative dimension, but I just found it really boring.

Marble Season, another Gilbert Hernandez book, is on one of the later lists, so I'll get around to it eventually. But based on the free comic book day preview, which I don't think I bothered finishing, I don't really expect to enjoy it that much either.

This graphic novel is from YALSA's 2007 top ten great graphic novels for teens.

YALSA 2012 Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens

Every year since 2007 Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) section of the American Library Association (ALA) has created both a long list and a top ten list of "great graphic novels for teens". You can see all the lists here. Previously they had included some graphic novels on their "best books for young adults" lists.

I was recently invited to give a guest lecture on the history of comics and graphic novels for children and young adults, and upon looking at these lists realized that I had read less than half of the book on the top ten lists (and hadn't even heard of others!). As a so called "expert" on graphic novels in libraries I didn't really think that this was appropriate, and decided to read as many of the volumes that I hadn't read as possible.

I'll be reviewing them as I read (or reread) them, and this page will eventually contain links to all the books from 2012. Here's the full list of nominations from 2012, and the top ten list. They occasionally have weird formatting or credits.

Zahra’s Paradise by Amir and Khalil.

Scarlet by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev.

Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgal.

The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media by Brooke Gladstone and Josh Neufeld.

Thor: The Mighty Avenger (Volumes 1-2) by Roger Langridge, Chris Samnee, and others.

Infinite Kung Fu by Kagan McLeod.

A Bride’s Story (Volume 1) by Kaoru Mori.

Axe Cop (Volume 1) by Malachai Nicolle and Ethan Nicolle.

Daybreak by Brian Ralph.

Wandering Son (Volume 1) by Takako Shimura.

YALSA 2011 Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens

Every year since 2007 Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) section of the American Library Association (ALA) has created both a long list and a top ten list of "great graphic novels for teens". You can see all the lists here. Previously they had included some graphic novels on their "best books for young adults" lists.

I was recently invited to give a guest lecture on the history of comics and graphic novels for children and young adults, and upon looking at these lists realized that I had read less than half of the book on the top ten lists (and hadn't even heard of others!). As a so called "expert" on graphic novels in libraries I didn't really think that this was appropriate, and decided to read as many of the volumes that I hadn't read as possible.

I'll be reviewing them as I read (or reread) them, and this page will eventually contain links to all the books from 2011. Here's the full list of nominations from 2011, and the top ten list. They occasionally have weird formatting or credits.

The Zabime Sisters by Aristophane.

Green Monk by Brandon Dayton.

Saturn Apartments (Volume 1) by Hisae Iwaoka.

Brain Camp by Susan Kim, Laurence Klavan, and Faith Erin Hicks.

Chew (Volume 1) by John Layman and Rob Guillory.

Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty by G. Neri and Randy Duburke.

Meanwhile by Jason Shiga.

Smile by Raina Telgemeier.

Ghostopolis by Doug TenNapel.

Set to Sea by Drew Weing.

YALSA 2010 Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens

Every year since 2007 Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) section of the American Library Association (ALA) has created both a long list and a top ten list of "great graphic novels for teens". You can see all the lists here. Previously they had included some graphic novels on their "best books for young adults" lists.

I was recently invited to give a guest lecture on the history of comics and graphic novels for children and young adults, and upon looking at these lists realized that I had read less than half of the book on the top ten lists (and hadn't even heard of others!). As a so called "expert" on graphic novels in libraries I didn't really think that this was appropriate, and decided to read as many of the volumes that I hadn't read as possible.

I'll be reviewing them as I read (or reread) them, and this page will eventually contain links to all the books from 2010. Here's the full list of nominations from 2010, and the top ten list. They occasionally have weird formatting or credits.

The Helm by Jim Hardison and Bart Sears.

Children of the Sea (Volume 1) by Daisuke Igarashi.

Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer by Van Jensen and Dusty Higgins.

I Kill Giants by Joe Kelly and J.M. Ken Niimura.

Omega the Unknown by Jonathan Lethem and Farel Dalrymple.

Bayou (Volume 1) by Jeremy Love.

A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge by Josh Neufeld.

Gunnerkrigg Court (Volume 1) by Tom Siddell.

Pluto by Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki.

Ooku: The Inner Chambers (Volume 1) by Fumi Yoshinaga.

YALSA 2009 Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens

Every year since 2007 Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) section of the American Library Association (ALA) has created both a long list and a top ten list of "great graphic novels for teens". You can see all the lists here. Previously they had included some graphic novels on their "best books for young adults" lists.

I was recently invited to give a guest lecture on the history of comics and graphic novels for children and young adults, and upon looking at these lists realized that I had read less than half of the book on the top ten lists (and hadn't even heard of others!). As a so called "expert" on graphic novels in libraries I didn't really think that this was appropriate, and decided to read as many of the volumes that I hadn't read as possible.

I'll be reviewing them as I read (or reread) them, and this page will eventually contain links to all the books from 2009. Here's the full list of nominations from 2009, and the top ten list. They occasionally have weird formatting or credits.

Life Sucks by Jessica Abel, Gabriel Soria, and Warren Pleece.

Sand Chronicles (Volumes 1-3) by Hinako Ashihara.

Atomic Robo: Atomic Robo and the Fightin' Scientists of Tesladyne by Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener.

Real (Volumes 1-2) by Takehiko Inoue.

Uzumaki (Volume 1) by Junji Ito. 

Pitch Black by Youme Landowne and Anthony Horton.

Japan Ai: A Tall Girl’s Adventures in Japan by Aimee Major Steinberger.

Skim by Mariko Tamaki and Jilliam Tamaki

Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba.

Cairo by G. Willow Wilson and M. K. Perker.

YALSA 2008 Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens

Every year since 2007 Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) section of the American Library Association (ALA) has created both a long list and a top ten list of "great graphic novels for teens". You can see all the lists here. Previously they had included some graphic novels on their "best books for young adults" lists.

I was recently invited to give a guest lecture on the history of comics and graphic novels for children and young adults, and upon looking at these lists realized that I had read less than half of the book on the top ten lists (and hadn't even heard of others!). As a so called "expert" on graphic novels in libraries I didn't really think that this was appropriate, and decided to read as many of the volumes that I hadn't read as possible.

I'll be reviewing them as I read (or reread) them, and this page will eventually contain links to all the books from 2008. Here's the full list of nominations from 2008, and the top ten list. They occasionally have weird formatting or credits.

Laika by Nick Abadzis.

Re-Gifters by Mike Carey, Marc Hempel, and Sonny Liew.

The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam by Ann Marie Fleming.

Blue Beetle (Volumes 1-2) by Keith Giffen, John Rogers, Cully Hamner, Rafael Albuquerque, and others.

King of Thorn (Volumes 1-2) by Yuji Iwahara.

Sidescrollers by Matthew Loux.

After School Nightmare (Volumes 1-5) by Setona Mizushiro.

Emma (Volumes 1-5) by Kaoru Mori.

The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sis.

The Arrival by Shaun Tan. 

YALSA 2007 Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens

Every year since 2007 Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) section of the American Library Association (ALA) has created both a long list and a top ten list of "great graphic novels for teens". You can see all the lists here. Previously they had included some graphic novels on their "best books for young adults" lists.

I was recently invited to give a guest lecture on the history of comics and graphic novels for children and young adults, and upon looking at these lists realized that I had read less than half of the book on the top ten lists (and hadn't even heard of others!). As a so called "expert" on graphic novels in libraries I didn't really think that this was appropriate, and decided to read as many of the volumes that I hadn't read as possible.

I'll be reviewing them as I read (or reread) them, and this page will eventually contain links to all the books from 2007. Here's the full list of nominations from 2007, and the top ten list. They occasionally have weird formatting or credits.

Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. (Volume 1) by Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen. 

Sloth by Gilbert Hernandez.  

Castle Waiting (Volume 1) by Linda Medley.  

Identity Crisis by Brad Meltzer and Rags Morales. 

Death Note (Volumes 1-3) by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. 

Runaways (Volumes 4-6) by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona. 

Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon.

Death, Jr by Gary Whitta and Ted Naifeh.

Demo (Volume 1) by Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan.

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang.