#graphicnovelreview

The Montague Twins Vol. 2: The Devil’s Music by Nathan Page & Drew Shannon. Alfred A. Knopf / RH Graphic, 2021. 9780525646808. http://www.powells.com/book/-9780525646808?partnerid=34778&p_bt

Charlie, Pete, and his brother Al are in a band, The Bony Fingers. After their supernatural adventure in the first book, Rowan is continuing to teach them a bit of magic. But a shadowy group of faculty at the university has some concerns about that plus a new member – an uncle the boys have never heard about. There’s also a handsome and mysterious rock star, Gideon Drake, who recently showed up in town and started hanging out. It’s a minor spoiler, but the reason he’s there has something to do with Millie, a girl who also goes to Central High and who, nearly catatonic, almost falls into the harbor in front of the lighthouse. As romances start to develop and a group of mothers protests against rock and roll, there’s some question about what’s up with Gideon (and whether or not it’s demonic).

This is an odd and pleasant follow-up to the first book in that it doesn’t have a rigid mystery plot. I’d have thought this series would have gone toward more a predictable, straightforward Hardy Boys-type plots but Page and Shannon are letting the characters dictate the direction of the series. The result is a great read with beautiful art set in New England in the late 60s (I think) featuring concerned adults, realistic high school kids, and a developing storyline that seems to be setting things up for later books. Here’s hoping there are a lot of those.

Horse Trouble by Kristin Varner. First Second, 2021. 9781250225870. 288pp. including an author’s note, photos of Varner as a kid (including a few riding her horse), plus a few pages sharing sketches and her process for creating comics. http://www.powells.com/book/-9781250225870?partnerid=34778&p_bt

Twelve-year-old Kate hates being chubby and loves riding horses. She goes to school with her popular best friend Becky. Tuesdays and Saturdays she takes riding lessons at Millcreek Farm, where she also helps out to help pay for them. There are mean, unpleasant girls at both school and the barn, and Kate’s brother and his friends are jerks too. The fact that Kate keeps falling off horses as she’s training for competitions doesn’t help her self-esteem, either. The book is about her growing up a little, figuring out that she’s maybe somewhat cool (as is her brother), and that she’s more than a little awesome at riding, too.

My friend Marin has loved riding since she was a kid, and this book demystifies that for me. (My dad loved horses, too, but I’ve preferred motorcycles since my saddle came off an out-of-control horse running at full gallop on a beach.) This book has definitions of specialized vocabulary about horses and riding in “footnotes” that I found really helpful. I now know that the person who saddled the horse I fell off of probably wasn’t paying attention. That horse maybe have been bloating, which allowed the saddle to slip.

Worth noting: The drawings are charming, as is the use of red ink as an occasional accent color. I’ve read that it’s especially hard to draw horses well, and the horses in this book look spectacular, as do all of Kate’s falls and competitions.

Ralph Azham Book 1: Black Are The Stars by Lewis Trondheim. Translation by Kim Thompson and Joe Johnson. Colorign by Brigitte Findakly. Super Genius (Papercutz), 2022. 9781545808795. 150 pp. http://www.powells.com/book/-9781545808795?partnerid=34778&p_bt

Lewis Trondheim has a new book in English! It’s the first part of what was, in French, an amusing 12 volume epic. This one contains three of the original books. It features an a fantasy world full of anthropomorphic characters, strange creatures, and magical artifacts reminiscent of Trondheim and Sfar’s Dungeon series. Characters like Ralph who are blue have special powers – in his case it’s ridiculous (at least at first) – he can tell how many kids a person has. (He develops a more useful and deadly power that involves the ghosts of those one has killed as well.) Over the course of the books Ralph goes from hapless outcast to the kind of direct, plain talking hero I find it easy to root for (though he’s still an idiot sometimes). The whole series is, at least in part, about family, the one you’re born with and the one you choose. Great stuff. The fact that Trondheim’s wife B. Findakly colored his comics makes the art the much more fun.

If this sounds familiar it’s because Fantagraphics published the first French book as a single volume years ago, but then didn’t publish the rest. (It looks like Papercutz is going to though!) It’s worth noting that Papercutz published another book by Trondheim in 2021, a wordless graphic novel titled The Fly. It’s something kids and adults would love. And as I write this it’s still possible to find episodes of Fly Tales, the cartoon based on it, on YouTube.

Treasure in the Lake by Jason Pamment. Harper Alley, 2021. 9780063065185. 208pp. http://www.powells.com/book/-9780063065185?partnerid=34778&p_bt

Iris and Sam love exploring the woods around the lake near Bugden, the town where they live. Sam loves being there more than Iris does, though – she wants to leave Bugden and see the world, maybe as an archeologist, while he seems content to stay there for life. In fact Iris just got into a school in the city, and she’s desperate to go there instead of Bugden High. So when her mom seems cold on the idea, Iris gets upset and heads to the river to be alone for a bit. The river suddenly dries up and Iris makes a big big discovery – long-buried train tracks and a city that is normally hidden in the river. Iris drags Sam into the lost town to look around. They have a falling out when Sam wants to leave (he wants to see Bugden’s new statue revealed). Iris stays there and, after the bell in the old clocktower rings, she has an adventure that is supernatural or in a different time or both. It’s all rather sweet, and it involves Ben, the old guy who passes Sam and Iris on the street early in the story.

Pamment is an Australian animator, director, and designer in addition to being an author-illustrator. His art looks as if it glows! If you don’t believe me, there are amazing cover blurbs endorsing this graphic novel from Kazu Kibuishi (Amulet), Ben Hatke (Zita the Spacegirl) and Shaun Tan (The Arrival). You can see an animated trailer for the book (which shows how great the cover is) at Pamment’s website, http://www.jasonpamment.com/

Himawari House by Harmony Becker. First Second, 2021. 9781250235565. 384pp. with a note on the use of accents in the book + early sketches in the back. http://www.powells.com/book/-9781250235565?partnerid=34778&p_bt

Nao moves from the U.S back to Japan, where she was born, to study Japanese for a year between high school and college. She lives in shared housing with four others: Hyejung, from South Korea, who is studying for university entrance exams in Japan; Tina from Singapore who is doing the same; and two young Japanese dudes, the friendly Shinichi and very quiet Masaki. As Nao reconnects with her childhood self and tries to figure out if she’s gaijin or Japanese, the five form the type of fast, deep friendships that can only happen when everyone is in a new place, trying to help each other. (The other characters inner live are explored a bit in the book, too.) The story includes crushes, holiday parties, karaoke, part-time jobs, a charming grandma who lives down the street, and the best use of accented English I’ve ever seen in a book.

Worth noting: When the characters speak a language other than English, the language is in the word balloons along with English. It makes for a great chance to practice another language if you know a little of it, and it’s so much better than putting translated language in English between << brackets like this >>, which is what I saw in a lot of comics when I was a kid.

Becker previously drew George Takei’s graphic memoir They Called Us Enemy.

The City Of Belgium by Brecht Evens. Drawn & Quarterly, 2021. 9781770463424. 336pp. http://www.powells.com/book/-9781770463424?partnerid=34778&p_bt

The City of Belgium starts with a guy getting ready to move, calling friends to figure out what he’s going to do on his last night in town. It ends with a conversation on a beach that he’s not involved in. In between is a lot of partying, some drama, and a ton of conversations. The voices are amazing, and like in Evens’ other graphic novels they’re lettered in a different color for each character. The flow is great, especially the effortless way the book shifts focus from one character to another and back again (and no one draws characters in conversation better than Evens). But the star of the book, as with Evens’ others (The Making Of, Panther, The Wrong Place) is his art; it feels both loose and exact. Characters’ morph from panel to panel, expressing deep feelings and drunken boisterousness and all-out sadness. And so often in this book I’d turn a page and just stop and say, “Wow!” There’s so much going on on some pages while on others the drawings are minimalistic – but they’re always fantastic. I borrowed this copy from the library but I’m going to immediately buy one for myself – it’s perfect for dipping into here and there, and it will easily double as a compelling coffee table art book for folks to flip through.

Daredevil: Know Fear by Chip Zdarsky (writer) and Marco Checchetto (artist). Colors by Sunny Gho. Marvel, 2019. 9781302914981. Contains Daredevil #1 - 5. Publisher’s Rating: T+. http://www.powells.com/book/-9781302914981?partnerid=34778&p_bt

Daredevil is recovering from an injury but heads out into Hell’s Kitchen to fight crime anyway. When he takes on three men breaking into a store, one of them dies of head trauma not long after. Should he continue to be a hero? (He asks himself this question a lot, and also discusses it at church quite a bit.)

Detective Cole North has just transferred to New York from Chicago. He sees costumed “heroes” like Daredevil as sadistic criminals, and refuses to turn a blind eye to their activities as other cops do. He’s determined to bring Daredevil to justice.  

Complicating the story: Wilson Fisk aka The Kingpin is the current mayor of New York City. And Punisher thinks Daredevil may be coming over to his way of thinking (it’s better to kill criminals than to arrest them). And there’s also a visit at the end of the book from a less-than-friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

I’ve already read through the 4th volume of Zdarsky’s Daredevil run – the entertaining epic that continues across the books contains Elektra, an affair with a bookstore owner, a gang war, and, of course, Bullseye. The 7th volume is due out in spring of 2022. Don’t look at the later volumes’ covers if you want to avoid spoilers.

Otter Lagoon (Sueño Bay Adventures Book 2) by Mike Deas and Nancy Deas. Orca, 2021. 9781459819641. http://www.powells.com/book/-9781459819641?partnerid=34778&p_bt

Jenna is a rule follower, but she’s breaking more than a few as she tries to raise money to help Charlie, an injured dog. When she discovers a glowing object in Otter Lagoon after a dog-walking mishap, she pretty quickly understands it’s the egg of a moon creature, specifically the very large Luner Serpentis. (Her little brother Sleeves has discovered one of its teeth, which also glows.) Jenna decides to try to make money by selling the eggs to exotic animal dealers, which angers the sea serpent, putting a vehicle ferry and the people on it in danger.

Spouses Nancy and Mike Deas live on an island in British Columbia, so it’s no wonder rainy Sueño Bay feels so close to home. (I live in Seattle.) After reading this one I immediately went back and read the first book in the series, Shadow Island, which involves the same four friends, a raccoon-like supernatural creature, and a harsh gym teacher. I love the ambiguity of the characters’ ages and the fact that everyone knows the town is home to supernatural creatures.

The Nightmare Brigade Vol. 1: The Girl From Déjà Vu by Franck Thilliez (story), Yomgui Dumont (art), and Drac (color). Translation by Joe Johnson. Papecutz, 2022. 9781545808771. 112pp. Originally published in French as two separate volumes. http://www.powells.com/book/-9781545808771?partnerid=34778&p_bt

By day Estaban and Tristan attend Jules Ferry High School. By night they help Tristan’s father’s young patients by entering their dreams as members of The Nightmare Brigade. They use a machine the professor invented, along with an airlock that leads into the dreamer’s mind. (Once in a dream that door is Estaban and Tristan’s only way back to reality. If the dreamer wakes up while they’re in their nightmare, Estaban and Tristan will be trapped there.)

Within the graphic novel are two cases, or maybe three. The first is Sarah who, like Estaban, was found in the forest suffering from amnesia a few years before the story starts. If Tristan and Estaban can figure out what’s causing her recurring nightmares they may be able to stop them. It all involves armed adults scouring a walled city looking for kids along with some weirder stuff. (On the plus side, people from reality each get a special power while inside nightmares. On the negative side, if anything from the nightmares ever finds its way out of the airlock, our world will be in real trouble.) The second case involves a kid having nightmares about a nuclear accident and a terrifying fairy. There’s also another young man, a prisoner in the professor’s lab, into whose mind Tristan’s mother disappeared.

It’s a bit strange, and sure to appeal to young teens who fondly remember things like Goosebumps. By the end of this volume, the Nightmare Brigade has a new member and Tristan has discovered his secret origin, which sets up the next book in the series.

Asadora! Volume 1 by Naoki Urasawa / N Wood Studio. Translation & adaptation by John Werry. Viz, 2021. 9781974717460. Publisher’s Rating: T+ Older Teen for ages 16 and up. http://www.powells.com/book/-9781974717460?partnerid=34778&p_bt

This series opens in 2020 Tokyo with a giant monster laying waste to the city. Then it cuts to Nagoya in 1959 where a young girl, Asa, is trying to make it to a doctor’s office as a typhoon closes in on the city. (Her mother needs the doc because she’s in labor, and no one can remember Asa’s name because she has so many siblings.) The storm sounds like some kind of animal, and as Asa starts running home she meets (and passes) her friend Sho, who is training for the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics. By the next day she’ll have been kidnapped, helped steal a plane, and become an integral part of the disaster relief as she looks for her missing family. She’ll also notice a detail that ties the disaster into what’s happening in Tokyo in 2020.

No one starts a series in a way that’s more compelling that Urasawa, and this may be his best yet. Asa is friendly and just outrageous enough that I wanted to root for her right from the start. Volume 2 continues her story and then jumps ahead to when Asa is at 17. By the end of Volume 3 the greater mystery about the giant monster has developed a bit more, and it’s clear that Asa will be an integral part of figuring out what’s going on. Good stuff.

The Aquanaut by Dan Santat. Scholastic, 2022. 9780545497619. 256pp. http://www.powells.com/book/-9780545497619?partnerid=34778&p_bt

Five years ago Michel drowned on a research ship, The Miette, but his brother Paul was rescued. Now Paul is raising Michel’s daughter, Sophia, and trying to run the Aqualand theme park, which commercial concerns have turned into a bit of a joke. One day an old deep sea diving suit walks out of the ocean. It’s filled with some kind of fantastic mechanism to make it appear that a human is inside, but at the controls are a number of sea creatures. They have Michel’s lost journal, and they’re hoping to find safe refuge in Aqualand. But when they get there they just find rides and souvenirs and a show featuring one scared orca. Luckily they also meet and befriend Sophia, who helps keep them secret for a while (despite inviting them to be part of her science fair exhibit for some badly needed extra credit).

Santat’s second graphic novel is both moving and extremely silly. My favorite part is probably the heist sequence in the middle, an attempt to set the orca free, but there’s so many moments to love here. If you buy this for your library’s children’s section make sure to put it on a display where adults can find it, too.

The Butchery by Bastien Vivès. Translated by Jenna Allen. Fantagraphics, 2021. 9781683964476. 86pp. http://www.powells.com/book/-9781683964476?partnerid=34778&p_bt

The story of a relationship from its wondrous beginning right through to its terrible end, told in realistic scenes and metaphors like soldiers about to parachute into combat and (trigger warning?) outright assault. Almost nothing is explained in detail but if you’ve ever been through a painful breakup, you’ll be able to fill in the blanks. This is an amazing book that exemplifies how a comic creator can effectively use layout, white space, and different levels of detail in drawings.

If you have an adult graphic novel collection, buy this and Vivès’ The Grand Odalisque, which he co-created with Ruppert and Mulot. They’re both hilarious and poetic and beautiful, though the latter book has more robberies.

Cats of the Louvre (Louvre Éditions) by Taiyo Matsumoto. Translation and English adaptation by Michael Arias. Viz, 2019. 9781974707089. 432pp. Publisher’s Rating: T/Teen. http://www.powells.com/book/-9781974707089?partnerid=34778&p_bt

This is my favorite of these graphic novels that take place in / around the Louvre Museum in Paris, which have been released in English by various publishers. It has Matsumoto’s signature organic softness, both in terms of the ways he draws characters (cats and humans) and the way the plot moves forward. Basically there are cats in the Louvre, and they’re taken care of by one of those who patrols the museum at night, Monsieur Marcel. Marcel has been looking for his sister for a while – she disappeared in the museum when they were kids. We learn later in the book that he thinks she went into a painting. It’s not much of a surprise at that point because one of the little cats, the most mischievous among them, Snowbébé, who likes to roam the galleries at night and during the day, it’s clear he can go into the some of the paintings. There’s a spider who talks to the cats, a black cat who can’t stand Snowbébé, and a guide who seems to be losing her passion for what she does (but will rediscover it in the course of the book). The cats are depicted realistically when they’re around people, but as talking, anthropomorphized half-cats when they’re alone. It’s all kind of weird and fun, with a few sinister moments and a scary dog or two. The book also provides a chance to get to know a few of the artworks in the museum.  

Coming Back by Jessi Zabarsky. RH Graphic, 2021. 9780593120026. 250pp. http://www.powells.com/book/-9780593120026?partnerid=34778&p_bt

Preet is the best Shaper in the village, and is also good at Shifting into other forms, too. Valissa can’t do much magic, but she works in the village library so you know she’s cool. After a mist fills the library, Valissa volunteers to go in and try to take care of it. (The village can’t spare Preet, whose magic is needed every day.) But while Valissa is gone, Preet violates the way the villagers do things by planting a seed alone and starting to raise the resulting child. She pays a heavy price for this, and it’s unclear if she will ever see Valissa again.

Everything about this book is kind and wonderful except the villagers, who, mid-book, are stuck in their ways. There are strange creatures and flying boats and even the monsters are pretty friendly, so you know it’s all going to have a chance to work out. (This is not a sequel to Zabarsky’s first graphic novel, Witchlight, but it feels like they’re part of the same universe. Or maybe they’re just spiritual sequels.)

A Man’s Skin by Hubert and Zanzim. Ablaze Publishing, 2021. 9781950912483. 160pp. http://www.powells.com/book/-9781950912483?partnerid=34778&p_bt

Bianca is eighteen and her marriage to Giovanni has been arranged. She’s only seen him once but would like to get to know her husband before they’re wed. She’s also hoping to stay friends with Tomaso after she’s married, though he doubts her husband will allow that. Her grandmother offers to let Bianca stay with her, to teach her about life and men a bit. But it’s not lessons she has in mind – instead her grandmother shows Bianca the secret of the women in their family – they have a man’s skin that they can put on and become a man for a bit. They call him Lorenzo.

As Lorenzo Bianca can explore the world of men and get to know her fiancé. Which Bianca does, with unexpected results. Giovanni falls in love with Lorenzo, complicating his married life with Bianca (who is of course also secretly Lorenzo). She offers him her understanding and a radical level of honesty about their relationship and desires even as she continues her deception.

It’s all kind of fun and weird throughout despite the presence of Bianca’s irritating brother Angelo and his fellow clergymen, who see all women as temptresses and who want all men and women to stop sinning. Worth noting: the art is marvelous and the sex scenes are tasteful. I look forward to news stories about folks trying to censor this adult graphic novel because it’s already mocked them ahead of time, and because that will make sure the book gets as large an audience as it deserves.

The Odds by Matt Stanton. HarperAlley, 2020. 9780063068940. 208pp. http://www.powells.com/book/-9780063068940?partnerid=34778&p_bt

Kip awakens one morning to find ten characters have come to life – they’re from a book, video game, TV show, her dreams, the end of her pencil, the comics her dad draws, and more. This is not a dream. Her dad thinks he may be going crazy (he’s not). Kip and her dad have no idea how to return them to their worlds, and keeping them all contained in the apartment where they live is about to prove impossible.

At school Kip prefers to be invisible, mostly because the other kids are mean. Thursday she has to tell her class about something that makes her unique. (Spoiler: her presentation will likely involve her new friends somehow.)

I love how straightforward and silly this book is. It’s for younger kids, but it’s not one of those blah blah, by-the-numbers graphic novels for young readers I’ve read entirely too many of lately. This book has heart, a great dad/daughter relationship, plus a talking dinosaur AND a talking chicken.