Author: Jason Loo

Review – The All-Nighter, vol 2

Posted June 27, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – The All-Nighter, vol 2

The All-Nighter

by Chip Zdarsky, Jason Loo, Paris Alleyne, Aditya Bidikar, Allison O'Toole

Genres: Fantasy, Graphic Novels
Pages: 119
Series: The All-Nighter #2
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

In the wake of Ian's disappearance, tensions are running high at the diner. Alex and Joy are stuck covering shifts when they'd rather be out fighting bad guys. To make things worse, people start disappearing just as a new super hero team arrives in town--could the two be related?

What if they're dealing with something bigger and more dangerous than super villains--and what if Alex's decision to become Nightshock put it all in motion?

“Season Two” of Chip Zdarsky’s The All-Nighter picks up not long after the first volume, with everyone trying to reckon with the disappearance of Ian at the end of the volume. We see a bit more of the “found family” aspect in this volume, even if it fragments a bit toward the end, and we also see a bit more development of Cynthia as a character.

And of course, come the end of the book there are some preeeetty big consequences for Alex’s actions, and everyone’s thrown into even worse turmoil.

I haven’t said much about the art so far. It doesn’t bowl me over but it works, characters and events are pretty clear and easy to follow.

Overall, the middle volume is okay, and the ending sets things up for an explosive finale.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – The All-Nighter, vol 1

Posted May 23, 2025 by Nicky in Uncategorized / 4 Comments

Review – The All-Nighter, vol 1

The All-Nighter

by Chip Zdarsky, Jason Loo, Paris Alleyne, Aditya Bidikar

Genres: Fantasy, Graphic Novels
Pages: 136
Series: The All-Nighter #1
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

Welcome to The All-Nighter, the only diner in town where you can get coffee and a meal from sunset to sunrise! The staff are friendly (kind of) and happy to serve you (sometimes), and it would never cross their minds to drink their customers’ blood


Alex is bored—flipping burgers for strangers all night is no way for a vampire to live. But he and his fellow vampires Joy, Cynthia, and Ian have agreed to blend into human society. Inspired by superhero movies, one of few passions in his un-life, Alex decides to don a cape and start fighting bad guys. But his decision will have bigger consequences than he realizes—for himself and for everyone he wants to protect.

I read all three volumes of Chip Zdarsky’s The All-Nighter in pretty short order, so apologies if I get the events of each book a little overlapped! The basic premise of the series is that stories have the power to create the creatures they discuss — Dracula came into being for real thanks to Bram Stoker, Frankenstein’s monster due to Mary Shelley, etc. They remember their fictional pasts, but they’ve also lived on since then. And there are, of course, rules. They must not reveal themselves, or The Takers come.

So there’s a bunch of vampires running a diner, appearing only at night, and trying to fake that they’re just humans to avoid a run-in with The Takers. This isn’t always a very satisfying life, though, and one of them (Alex) ends up giving into his urge to show off his strength and power by playing the hero and rescuing someone. It turns out to be a loophole: he can pretend to be a superhero, instead, a vigilante hero who works at night, Batman-style…

And obviously things go wrong. There’s a found-family situation at the diner and of course they get dragged into it, though most of them (other than Joy) aren’t fleshed out much in this first volume, which makes it a bit more difficult to care about that.

In the end, they all come together to solve the mess Alex has caused as all kinds of creatures come out of the woodwork using the same loophole of superheroes and supervillains… but obviously the genie can’t be put back in the bottle.

Rating: 3/5

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