History Comics: The Great Chicago Fire: Rising From the Ashes

History Comics: The Great Chicago Fire: Rising From the Ashes was one of the first releases from this new comics line from publisher First Second, who has had great success with their Science Comics. As written by Kate Hannigan and illustrated by Alex Graudins, this is the story of two siblings (and...

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Science Comics Catch-Up: Cats, Rocks and Minerals, Skyscrapers, Digestive System

Science Comics: Rocks and Minerals Geology from Caverns to the Cosmos by Andy Hirsch I’ve really enjoyed Hirsch’s previous entries in this series, Trees and Dogs (my favorite of the series), so I was disappointed that this wasn’t nearly as entertaining for me. I wasn’t expecting the book to start with...

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The Way of the House Husband Volume 1

The Way of the House Husband is based around a funny concept, although I found the execution of some of the early chapters oddly timed. The title character used to be a high-ranking yakuza, a man with a killer reputation, so fierce that anyone who saw him was frightened into submission. Now, he takes...

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An Enola Holmes Mystery: The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets

For those waiting, while reading these graphic novel adaptations of the young adult novels made into a popular Netflix movie, for more involvement from the more famous Holmes, this is the volume you want. In An Enola Holmes Mystery: The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets, Enola Holmes has to rescue a kidnapped...

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The Deadliest Bouquet

The Deadliest Bouquet, now crowdfunding, is a family story about murder. Written by Erica Schultz and illustrated by Carola Borelli, it’s set in 1998 and shows the sisters Rose, Poppy, and Violet coming together, in spite of their differences, after their mother’s death. Jasmine owned a flower shop,...

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Bloom Sequel Coming in Two Years

I appreciate how much work goes into a well-crafted graphic novel, but darn! It’s so hard to wait for a good story. Bloom, a charming coming-of-age romance by Kevin Panetta and Savanna Ganucheau published by First Second in 2019, will have a followup. This story of two young men falling in love at a...

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Friends of Lulu History Panel

Here’s a great thing to watch. Leila del Duca talked with Anina Bennett and Heidi MacDonald in March about Friends of Lulu, the non-profit formed to get women and girls into comics that existed from 1995-2011. The group was incorporated May 25, 1995, and its tax-exempt status was revoked as of May 15,...

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Maker Comics: Survive in the Outdoors!

I’ve been looking forward to this installment of Maker Comics — I’m really curious about learning how to Survive in the Outdoors. As told by Mike Lawrence, Sophia and her younger brother Alonso are spending the weekend with Grandpa, who’s going to take them fishing. They just want to stay on their phones...

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Billionaires: The Lives of the Rich and Powerful

Darryl Cunningham‘s latest is a well-done, depressing read. Billionaires: The Lives of the Rich and Powerful combines three brief biographies: the stories of Rupert Murdoch, the Koch Brothers, and Jeff Bezos, key players in our new gilded age. Cunningham wants to examine the changes the super-rich have...

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The Secret Notebook of Sherlock Holmes

The Secret Notebook of Sherlock Holmes is short, silly fun. It’s got almost 30 stories in about 90 pages, and as you can see from the math, most are only two or three pages. Some involve Holmes being surprised or not exactly distinguishing himself in deduction, but the jokes around settings and details...

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Max & the Midknights

Lincoln Peirce, the author of Big Nate, takes us to a fantasy land in a sword-and-sorcery tale with kid protagonists, told in the popular mixed-media format of short text sections interspersed with comics, in There are a lot of great vocabulary words included, most of which are promptly explained by...

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Lytton #1

After I wrote about Cutaway Comics last year, they got in touch to see if I wanted to check out their comics. Of course, I said yes, so they sent some digital copies to review. As I mentioned previously, Lytton was a mercenary who appeared in the 5th Doctor story “Resurrection of the Daleks” (Tegan’s...

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A Curious Collection of Dates: Through the Year With Sherlock Holmes

I’ve greatly enjoyed reading A Curious Collection of Dates: Through the Year With Sherlock Holmes, one day at a time. It’s an almanac, where every day of the year has one or more entries related to Sherlock Holmes. Some are capsule biographies of people who’ve played Holmes, or John Watson, or a Moriarty,...

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Femme Friday: Celebrating the Women in the Sherlock Holmes Canon and Transformative Works

The Baker Street Babes, a group of women who are Sherlock Holmes fans, put out this short essay collection in 2017, the last year the BBC Sherlock TV show aired. It’s a terrific idea. Typical of his time, Arthur Conan Doyle didn’t always pay a lot of attention to the women in his Sherlock Holmes stories....

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No In-Person SPX This Year

I’m disappointed to once again miss gathering in Bethesda, but I appreciate an organization that wants to protect its attendees and guests. The Small Press Expo organizers have announced that “SPX 2021 will be held virtually” for health and safety reasons. With only four months to go until the show,...

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Go With the Flow

Go With the Flow marks just how prevalent female readers and authors have become in comics. As one of the characters says, “Fifty percent of the population gets a period… but it’s like this HUGE secret we can’t talk about?” This book would not have existed several years ago. As it is, it’s a good starting...

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A Man and His Cat Volume 3

It’s around this time in a manga series with a relatively simple premise — a widower who’s tired of life finds comfort in an older cat that no one else wanted and enjoys the basics of having a pet — that I start wondering how the author is going to keep it going with descending into mere repetition....

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Charlie Milverton and Other Sherlock Holmes Stories

If you’d like to read five classic Arthur Conan Doyle mystery stories, modernized in tawdry, tabloid fashion, Charlie Milverton and Other Sherlock Holmes Stories by Charlotte Anne Walters is the book for you. For me, it was an excellent piece of evidence that putting a present-day Holmes story in print...

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The Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes (Ghostwriter)

I wasn’t the right age for Ghostwriter, which is a shame, cause it sounds like I would have loved it. The original TV show ran 1992-1995, and it featured a group of kids solving mysteries with the aid of a ghost. Apple TV+ brought the series back a year and a half ago, as part of its service launch....

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Graphic Science: Seven Journeys of Discovery

Darryl Cunningham has a unique style for his non-fiction comics, which include How to Fake a Moon Landing (a collection of arguments for science and against popular myths) and The Age of Selfishness (about Ayn Rand and the international financial crisis). His graphic journalism would, without the pictures,...

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BL Metamorphosis Volume 1

BL Metamorphosis is a charming, low-key manga about how friendship can develop based on shared interests, regardless of how different the friends might otherwise be. It’s a lesson I’ve learned myself, and it was refreshing to see it portrayed on paper by Kaori Tsurutani in this English edition published...

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