Posted October 24, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite
Genres: Fantasy,
Graphic Novels,
Science Fiction Pages: 184
Series: The Umbrella Academy #1 Rating: 
Synopsis: In an inexplicable worldwide event, forty-three extraordinary children were spontaneously born to women who'd previously shown no signs of pregnancy. Millionaire inventor Reginald Hargreeves adopted seven of the children; when asked why, his only explanation was, "To save the world." These seven children form the Umbrella Academy, a dysfunctional family of superheroes with bizarre powers. Their first adventure at the age of ten pits them against an erratic and deadly Eiffel Tower, piloted by the fearsome zombie-robot Gustave Eiffel. Nearly a decade later, the team disbands, but when Hargreeves unexpectedly dies, these disgruntled siblings reunite just in time to save the world once again.
I thought I’d give Gerard Way’s The Umbrella Academy a shot, though I didn’t know anything about it other than that there’s a Netflix(?) series, and I kinda liked the violin-woman design on the cover.
It’s… a bit of a mess, to be honest; there are some interesting character designs, but it jumps around, motivations aren’t clear, characters don’t really have coherent arcs, etc, etc. The idea of taking a bunch of “special” kids and training them to fight/unlock their powers/etc is a classic, but barely really used here; why they’re so dysfunctional, alluded to but barely touched on; the whole situation for Vanya, nope…
I don’t really get it, overall. Though I still think the violin-body design is astounding to look at.
Rating: 1/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Dave Stewart, Gabriel Ba, Gerard Way, graphic novels, Nate Piekos, SF/F
Posted September 26, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment
The Baker and the Bard
Genres: Fantasy,
Graphic Novels,
Romance Pages: 160
Rating: 
Synopsis: Author-artist Fern Haught weaves an enchanting, gentle fantasy tale of friendship, determination, and respecting nature in their debut graphic novel, The Baker and the Bard. Perfect for fans of The Tea Dragon Society, Legends & Lattes, and Animal Crossing.
Juniper and Hadley have a good thing going in Larkspur, spending their respective days apprenticing at a little bakery and performing at the local inn. But when a stranger makes an unusual order at the bakery, the two friends (and Hadley’s pet snake, Fern) set out on a journey to forage the magical mushrooms needed to make the requested galette pastries.
Along the way, Juniper and Hadley stumble across a mystery too compelling to ignore: Something has been coming out of the woods at night and eating the local farmers' crops, leaving only a trail of glowy goo behind. Intent on finally going on an adventure that could fuel their bardic craft, Hadley tows Juniper into the woods to investigate.
What started as a simple errand to pick mushrooms soon turns into a thrilling quest to save some furry new friends—and their caretaker, a softspoken little fey named Thistle—who are in danger of losing their home.
The Baker and the Bard, by Fern Haught, is a short and sweet graphic novel which has justifiably been compared to the Tea Dragon Society books. The two main characters, Juniper and Hadley, are apprentices who leap at the chance to go on a bit of an adventure to find a particular glowing mushroom to fulfil a big order for a client. In the process, they make a few friends and maybe make things a bit better for some people.
It’s very slight, not going into a lot of depth about anything, but the dynamic between Juniper and Hadley is cute, and the little snake is very cute.
There is a bit of a jarring bit where Hadley asks Thistle about gender stuff; rather than an organic part of the journey, it feels like a bit of a Teaching Moment, because it’s not been clear up to that moment that Hadley had any such questions or was anything other than comfortable with themself. And to be clear, I’m not saying it shouldn’t be included or that the presence of a non-binary character needs to have a reason, but it felt like that specific scene came out of left-field.
Overall, a fun enough short read, probably aiming at middle-grade reading age, I’d guess? The art is pretty cute, with a pastel sort of aesthetic.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, graphic novels, romance, SF/F
Posted September 15, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Love Everlasting
Genres: Fantasy,
Graphic Novels,
Horror,
Romance Pages: 137
Series: Love Everlasting #2 Rating: Synopsis: The mind-bending story of Joan Peterson's journey through love and horror continues in the second epic and heartbreaking arc of this critically acclaimed, Harvey-nominated series. After traveling from romance to romance, Joan finds herself trapped inside just one story, growing older with the love of her life instead of escaping again and again. And as she becomes a wife, a mother, a grandmother, she is on a bloody quest to discover if everyone in this new world is insane, or if she alone is broken.
Volume two of Tom King’s Love Everlasting is a bit different to the first: instead of multiple short romances, now Joan finds herself trapped in a different kind of love story. This time she gets married, has children and grandchildren, while all the while being haunted by the fact that she knows nothing is real: everything is happening in the year 1962.
The art style is great and expressive, and mostly I just want to be thrown a bit more of a bone story-wise. Just as it felt like it lingered too long on the random romances, it felt like it lingered too long on Joan’s fake family. We get no nearer to knowing why her mother(?) is putting her through this.
I’m still intrigued and would still pick up the third TPB if one gets released (seemingly not so far). But I do feel like as a reader I need a little more to hang onto here.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Clayton Cowles, Elsa Charretier, horror, Matt Hollingsworth, romance, SF/F, Tom King
Posted September 6, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment
Clear
Genres: Graphic Novels,
Science Fiction Pages: 137
Rating: Synopsis: In the not-too-distant future, mankind no longer sees the world as it truly is. The invention of neurological filters has made it so one can view reality however they may choose—Old Hollywood monochrome, zombie apocalypse, anime… the possibilities are endless.
Neo-shamus Sam Dunes is one of only a handful who choose to live without a filter. When the death of an old flame reveals foul play, Dunes is set on a wild and twisting mystery that will take him from the city’s deadly underworld to the even deadlier heights of wealth and power.
Scott Snyder’s Clear is set in a world where the US lost World War III, and all its citizens go around using “veils” to hide reality from themselves. Everybody’s using a different veil, there’s very little shared reality now. It’s unclear how that’s meant to work when people with different veils are interacting: at times it seems like it’s just a visual thing, and then it says that you can go around with everyone in the world desiring you. How? Does it change behaviour, then? Then how does anyone ever interact? How would you ever know what anyone else is doing? And yet people are interacting, throughout the comic.
There’s a twist that makes very little sense, as well. Isn’t it obvious, I mean? If you have to pay to have a veil but you also have to pay — even more! — to have no veil (“clear”), then how does that work? What happens if you don’t pay for anything? I guess the answer is that that only happens if you can’t pay, and then you probably become a “wrk” or something and you’re not able to tell anyone what’s going on, but to me it was obvious that the twist was coming as soon as Dunes said he was paying more and more each year for clear.
The more I think about it, the more it all falls apart. Maybe with a bit more time/world-building it could resolve those issues — and also I’m sure there are people content to just fill in the gaps themselves, take it as read, and not ask “why” too much. It’s also possible there are explanations I missed; I’m not very visual, and graphic novels can be a bit overwhelming in terms of the amount of information they give me. Still, the impression I was left with was one of swiss cheese.
Rating: 1/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Francis Manapul, Scott Snyder, SF/F
Posted August 26, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Dominion: The Fist of God
Genres: Fantasy,
Graphic Novels Pages: 50
Series: Dominion #3 Rating: 
Synopsis: A gripping supernatural thriller of biblical proportions...quite literally. When detective Jason Ash arrives on the scene of a particularly strange murder in the suburbs of New Orleans, little does he know that he is about to take on the case of a lifetime. As dead people begin to come back to life, revealing that they hail from a realm where angels fight for power, it becomes clear that an epic battle between good and evil is at play, one threatening the very future of humanity.
This third volume, Dominion: The Fist of God, pulls Thomas Fenton’s comic to an abrupt end. There’s been some development up to now, but it feels like this third act is rushed more than ever: having barely accepted his powers in the previous book, and not really yet understanding them or ready to cope with them, Jason Ash gets a lot shoved onto his shoulders all at once. Nothing less than saving the whole world will do!
I think there’s some interesting setup in the story between the Legion and the Dominion and whoever the Thorn are exactly, but the character design of all the angels is way, way too similar, and it gets really hard to tell who is who and what side they might be on. Combine that with the rushed story, and it feels like half the detail gets left out.
Someone on Amazon did make the comment in their review that this is really the middle of a story: the beginning lies back in the mists of time, alluded to as Jason learns a little more about what’s going on, and the end is in the unknowable future. Jason’s been caught up in a story that began long ago, and will continue; we just see him joining his place in it. That makes a certain amount of sense to me, but I still think there are a lot of gaps in the implementation here.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Jamal Igle, SF/F, Steven Cummings, Thomas Fenton
Posted August 8, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Dominion: The Sandman
Genres: Fantasy,
Graphic Novels,
Mystery Pages: 50
Series: Dominion #2 Rating: Synopsis: A gripping supernatural thriller of biblical proportions...quite literally. When detective Jason Ash arrives on the scene of a particularly strange murder in the suburbs of New Orleans, little does he know that he is about to take on the case of a lifetime. As dead people begin to come back to life, revealing that they hail from a realm where angels fight for power, it becomes clear that an epic battle between good and evil is at play, one threatening the very future of humanity.
The second volume of Thomas Fenton’s Dominion, The Sandman, still has the weird page numbering issue I mentioned with my review of the first volume: some places say 150 pages (ish), while Amazon says 50. The version I read said 50. That said, it picked up from the first volume in a way that made sense, and it doesn’t feel like I’m missing any story, so I guess it’s a weirdness in page-numbering on the Amazon files (or just bad numbering from other places).
The second volume has Jason Ash discovering a little bit more about what’s happened to him, finding that he can read the script of angels, getting unexpected offers of help, and finding himself to be apparently psychic (at least, when he needs to be). It continues to be fairly predictable in its story beats.
It was surprising to me how swiftly the various abduction sub plots are wrapped up, and yet I’m really not sure how Jason’s story can be wrapped up satisfactorily with just one more volume of this length. I guess that remains to be seen; I remain curious enough to continue.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Jamal Igle, mystery, SF/F, Steven Cummings, Thomas Fenton
Posted August 1, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
Love Everlasting
Genres: Fantasy,
Graphic Novels,
Horror,
Mystery,
Romance Pages: 136
Series: Love Everlasting #1 Rating: 
Synopsis: Joan Peterson discovers that she is trapped in an endless, terrifying cycle of"romance" -- a problem to be solved, a man to marry -- and everytime she falls in love she's torn from her world and thrust into another tear-soaked tale.
I really loved the art in volume one of Tom King and Elsa Charretier’s Love Everlasting. It’s stylised and expressive, with well-differentiated characters and designs. It’s a fun race through a bunch of different styles of love story, with the main character Joan Peterson always dying just as soon as she’s declared her love for someone.
The fact that Joan — and a weird masked cowboy — are the only constants does mean that there’s not really much character-building, especially as Joan herself isn’t really exactly the same in every single scenario. The concept is the most interesting thing there, rather than the character (though Joan’s approach to her problems is, ah, entertaining).
By the end, it’s getting a touch too repetitive without any explanation, but it’s a really fun concept, and I am itching to know a bit more. I hope the second volume will explore the plot stuff from the fifth issue and deepen the story a bit.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Elsa Charretier, horror, Matt Hollingsworth, romance, SF/F, Tom King
Posted July 25, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Dominion: The Resurrection of Jason Ash
Genres: Fantasy,
Graphic Novels Pages: 49
Series: Dominion #1 Rating: Synopsis: A gripping supernatural thriller of biblical proportions...quite literally. When detective Jason Ash arrives on the scene of a particularly strange murder in the suburbs of New Orleans, little does he know that he is about to take on the case of a lifetime. As dead people begin to come back to life, revealing that they hail from a realm where angels fight for power, it becomes clear that an epic battle between good and evil is at play, one threatening the very future of humanity.
I’m not entirely sure what’s going on with the page numbering and so on with Thomas Fenton’s Dominion, as the versions of each volume on Amazon have only around 50 pages, though elsewhere they consistently get shown as 150 pages. The cover images match the cover images for the versions with 150 pages, so… it’s just weird.
So hopefully what I’m reading isn’t just a fragment missing the last two thirds, but I can only read what’s available, in any case. Volume one of Dominion feels fairly typical: the beginning is a little confusing, but then it switches to the point of view of a young cop, who quickly gets drawn into a conflict involving angels (and gains strange powers as a result).
That’s about as far as this first volume goes, with the conflict wrapped around the story of child kidnappings that gets the cops involved. I’m curious where it’s going, but it feels like I’ve seen this story around before… several times.
Still, I’ll be picking up the next volume to see what the author does with the setup, so though I’m fairly lukewarm, it’s not that the story was bad.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Jamal Igle, SF/F, Steven Cummings, Thomas Fenton
Posted July 14, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Foxes in Love
Genres: Graphic Novels Pages: 114
Series: Foxes in Love #3 Rating: Synopsis: This is a simple comic about simple foxes. Come join Green and Blue once again for their simple adventures through everyday life in the third heart-warming volume of Foxes in Love.
Toivo Kaartinen’s Foxes in Love is an adorable comic with a simple format. It doesn’t really have a story, it just follows two foxes (Green and Blue) and their daily lives, their quirks, their problem-solving techniques, their silly conversations, etc. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen one of their comics and thought, “yep, this is just like me and my wife.”
I feel like the strips are really best experienced one at a time, or a few at a time, rather than in a book like this — I like having the collections, because the internet for sure isn’t forever, but because there’s no story and the character development is more cumulative than chronological, it’s not so much one for sitting down and reading straight through.
If you’ve never given Green and Blue a try, then I recommend it! Take a look.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Toivo Kaartinen
Posted June 23, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment
Foxes in Love
Genres: Graphic Novels Pages: 114
Series: Foxes in Love #2 Rating: 
Synopsis: This is a simple comic about simple foxes. Blue and Green continue their simple adventures in the second volume of Foxes in Love. This series is a heartwarming and humorous collection of comics exploring family, life, and relationships, told by two foxes living their lives together.
Volume 2 contains 9 exclusive comics which were never released online as well as 8 colorized comics which were previously only released in black and white.
I absolutely adore Toivo Kaartinen’s Foxes in Love comics. I’ve read most of them, over time, but I was glad to get a copy of this as well to keep on my shelf and support the author. The comics are sometimes just funny, sometimes really romantic, sometimes a little bit profound… it’s a mix.
It’s perhaps best not to read the whole thing in one sitting: charming as the comics are, they don’t have a storyline or anything, and it can get a little “samey”. I picked up volume 3, but I’ll give it a little time before I read it.
Obviously you can also just follow the comic online in various places if you want to see if it’s to your taste.
Rating: 5/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Toivo Kaartinen
