The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Volume 14

I’m so glad to get another volume of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service! (The previous book, volume 13, last appeared at the end of 2012.) Although it’s horror, it’s one of my favorite manga series, with each volume featuring creative deaths and victim quests that say something about the modern human...

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The Cartoon Guide to Algebra

It amazes me that Larry Gonick is still turning out such interesting cartoon science guides. I remember reading my first one, The Cartoon Guide to (Non)Communication, back in the early 90s, and here, over 20 years later, I’m still learning things from him. The Cartoon Guide to Algebra covers a topic...

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War of Streets and Houses

Sophie Yanow’s War of Streets and Houses is a difficult graphic novel to approach, but a rewarding one. I picked it up because it was described to me as about urban planning, as well as student rebellion during strikes in Montreal in 2012, and my brother is a civil engineer, so I thought he might find...

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Why Murder Mysteries Are Enjoyable

Andrea Tsurumi’s “Murder Mystery Superfan” is a webcomic that explores the appeal of murder mysteries, subtitled “Why I love bodies in the library.” I share this enjoyment. Tsurumi has some great observations about appealing detectives and the need for order. “Someone has to die” from Comics Worth...

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How Much Do I Want to Meet Nathan Fillion?

Wizard World has begun sending out guest announcements for Wizard World Comic Con Chicago, to be held August 20-23, 2015. I don’t normally go in for celebrity sightings, but I am intrigued that this show will include the following faves: Nathan Fillion (Serenity, Castle) Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye in The...

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Saved by the Bell (The Comic)

Since I didn’t care at all about Saved by the Bell (the TV show), I only took a look at Saved by the Bell (the comic) because part of it was drawn by Chyna Clugston Flores, whose comic Blue Monday I adored. (Although I couldn’t tell you which parts, exactly, since the advance PDF I got of the upcoming...

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So Cute It Hurts!! Volume 1

So Cute It Hurts!! is one of those “only in manga” setups. Megumu (girl) and Mitsuru (boy) are twins. Neither has yet found true love, because she plays history games and he’s a player. He’s sporty and adored while she’s a bit of a fan-geek. He’s flunking history, so he badgers his sister into pretending...

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Bravo for Adventure

Alex Toth is rightly recognized as a genius artist, with a particular facility for dramatic black areas. Bravo for Adventure was an aborted comic series about pilot Jesse Bravo, a swashbuckling adventurer, with everything related to it collected here in a handsome, oversized hardcover. The presentation...

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The Princess and the Pony

Kate Beaton (Hark! A Vagrant) created a children’s book, and for many of you, that’s all you need to know. Having actually read The Princess and the Pony, though, I can tell you that it’s cute, thought-provoking, and overturns expectations, all the qualities that make Beaton’s comics so entertaining....

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Secret Volume 1

In a departure from previous series Doubt and Judge by Yoshiki Tonogai, this book doesn’t have students locked in a booby-trapped warehouse and told to kill each other one by one. Instead, they’re in their classrooms, which makes the whole thing creepier, by keeping them in the setting of daily life. A...

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Judge Volume 6

The series by Yoshiki Tonogai about kids forced to murder each other concludes in this volume, and that’s pretty much all you need to know, that here’s where the story ends. I wrote about the first couple volumes of Judge, but I quit talking about — and paying attention to — the intervening books, because...

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Cool-Looking Comics Due in August

Hey, it’s Previews time again! Orders are due to your local comic shop by June 18 if you’re interested in committing to buy anything from the current catalog. Here are some items I found interesting-looking. Zodiac Starforce #1 (JUN15 0045, $3.99) — a four-issue miniseries from Kevin Panetta, Paulina...

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Someone at Archie Took the Summer of 2013 Off

KC’s been indexing the Archie digests, and he ran across this oddity. Can you tell the difference between these two copies? The one on the left is B&V Friends Double Digest #233, published June 2013. The one on the right is #234, published August 2013. The contents of each are different, as are...

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Non-Fiction Minicomics From TCAF

I love non-fiction comics, and I got a handful of great ones from various creators at TCAF last month. Here are the quick descriptions. Trepanation: Elective Surgery You Need Like a Hole in the Head by Emi Gennis. Turns out this reprints a comic that appeared at The Nib, so you can read it yourself....

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