Pax Romana by Jonathan Hickman - This came out in trade a few months ago. I read it then and loved it. Re-read it again a few nights ago. Fantastic premise (what would happen if the Catholic Church funded time travel research) and great art and design overall.

I liked his first book, The Nightly News, but it was a little dense for my taste. Pax is a much smoother ride, and it leaves me wanting much more, if only because the story is too short.

It also kinda reminds me of The Sparrow and Children of God by Mary Doria Russell (two-part story; probably my favorite books ever).

I'll second Pax Romana. Great book. Hickman is my favorite "new" writer at this point.

Back at the Cabal, Johnny Utah recommended Night Fisher by R. Kikuko Johnson (thanks!). I could relate to Loren being in trouble at home for just a B in A.P. Biology, and to feeling Shane grow more distant from 11-17, but I couldn't relate to his being a jerk to Lacey. Then having the plot twist and the panels include hallucinatory mascots was an interesting change of pace... As for the visuals, the occasional diagrams (maps, knots, etc.) were a nice bonus between the narrative panels too (and turning the page to all of a sudden see a Royal Patent take up a whole page was a fun shock).


Yeah, I like that one too! Have you tried his A Red Mass for Mars (issue #4 still isn't out yet) and Transhuman?

Meanwhile...

I also tried Abandon the Old in Tokyo and Good-Bye by Tatsumi Yoshihiro. They're 2 more gekiga collections, like his The Push Man and Other Stories that Red Lantern recommended back in the Cabal. Abandon the Old in Tokyo is even creepier (the 'plight of the everyman' includes spying on adult daughters' affairs and raping dogs). "The Washer" and "The Hole" are especially creepy. The title story, however, is more sad and less morbid. If you liked Push Man then maybe you might like this too.

Good-Bye is just as gloomy and has some creepiness too but as a whole the tone feels more sympathetic (like no more aren't-housewives-bitches-for-caring-about-stuff-like-heating-bills? attitude) especially in "Life is So Sad" and "The Woman in the Mirror." The title story is especially bleak. Also, the opening story "Hell" is longer than most stories in these 3 books, and has a wider horizon that includes flashbacks and politics. If you disliked Push Man then maybe you might like this instead.

Insomnia Café : A Graphic Novel by M. K. Perker (who drew Cairo and draws Air) is a short B&W book about an expert on rare books. He was on the run from black marketers until he quit his auction house job. After settling for an office job and not caring what others think (not even calling 911 when he hears an attempted murder upstairs), he stumbles onto a magic Archive and starts running again. In a way it's more "indie" than some of the indie comics I've read.

Luna Park written by Kevin Baker and drawn by Danijel Zezelj is another Vertigo noir, this time in muted tones instead of B&W or full-color. It focuses on Grozny-veteran-turned-gangster Alik on Coney Island; his girlfriend Miriam trying to escape slavery; their memories of poetry and drugs; and the cycles of Russian-American history... By the end there's way more than the usual noir, so even if you don't like that genre you might still like this. Also, it definitely reminded me of The Winter Men without rehashing it, so if you like that miniseries read this story too.

A,A' by Hagio Moto is a collection of 3 josei and SF stories sharing a milieu. There's space travel here, telekinesis there, clones and memory implants, etc. and subtle tensions instead of melodrama in the relationships. The B&W visuals are very well-drawn too. Also, if you don't like reading comics with the panels going from right to left, Viz's © 1997 English edition is fully left-to-right with flipped art.

Farewell, Georgia is Ben Towle's album-size retelling of 4 Southern folktales (with a page of references at the end so you can go read more!). "King of the Road" packs a lot onto 7 pages, while "Thunderstruck" felt like 2 tales in one. A good read, especially when you start to feel "WTF is with comics being all NYC or Tokyo all the time?!"

In the Shadow of No Towers by Art Spiegelman is huge - it's got cardboard pages and two-page spreads almost the size of newspaper pages. Spiegelman starts off the book with an essay about outrunning the clouds of toxic dust from the North Tower and gradually reacting to 9/11 and returning to comix from 2001-2004, before covering that in a full-color mix of styles. There's also a supplement, with another essay on newspaper cartooning's roots in NYC (complete with samples of the originals).

Looking Up by Ursula Murray Husted is a slice-of-life story about a young couple, waitress and gardener Olive and miner Colt, in a small West Virginia town. They face a back injury threatening Colt's job, a very deep sinkhole in their yard, their memories, and tensions in their marriage. It's got a subtle calm and sweetness without sugariness.

Lower Regions by Alex Robinson is a shorter B&W dungeon crawl taken from role-play gaming to comics format, including healing spells and rescuing a prince in distress...but not including words.

Smoke and Guns by Kirsten Baldock and Fábio Moon is a noir in an alternate 1920s-40s U.S. in which cigarette girls vie for tobacco-dealing street turf instead of just vending at supper clubs and speakeasies. Scarlett's a Grand Avenue Puff suspended for 3 weeks for blowing up the Broadway Belles' HQ so she takes a cocktail-party waitress gig and then things get out of hand...

Mesmo Delivery, The Missing White Dragon, and "The Murder of the Terminal Patient" are also interesting and short works, and I'll cover them in the BD, manhwa, etc. thread.




Proofreading in a text file is easier than proofreading in the little text entry box on the webpage (especially when I'm using a lot of BBCode). Then once I've done that, why bother deleting it after I copy and paste and post?


OK, here we go! I removed the dead forum links, added recommender credits, and when I first previewed this post I got the message "Your message contains too many smilies. The maximum number of smilies allowed is 35." so I'll fix things for that too...

110 Per¢ by Tony Consiglio is yet another take on fandom (and its infighting), but middle-aged housewives who are fangirls of a boy band this time instead of the fandoms I've seen more often in comics.

2 Sisters : A Super-Spy Graphic Novel is now another one of my favorites. It reminded me a lot of Cryptonomicon, given the World War II and Buccaneer-era storylines. The way the ending cast a whole new light on a side storyline was very sad and good too. Meanwhile, it would have been even cooler to see more connections between the spy and the pirate, though. Recommended by charles littlesky.

5 is the Perfect Number was pretty surreal - not just the dream sequences, but also the gang war itself. What did their feud start about? Would they even remember? I liked the way it made organized crime look way more pathetic and less glamorous than 100 Bullets does. The part where Peppi and Ciro discussed comics was neat too. Recommended by obsolete.

9 Faces of Love is a very good collection. It's a diverse mix of love stories, including science fiction and fantasy and just plain realistic. One of the relationships is straight and gay at the same time (read the book to see how). Another one of them seems to be partly set in colonial Massachusetts.

Ana written by Gabriel Solano López and drawn by Francisco Solano López reminded me of V for Vendetta except it's in B&W, has one heroine instead of a V counterpart too, and is much grittier.

Beautiful People by Mihara Mitsukazu is a semi-gothy collection of short stories. I heard it's more typical of her stuff than The Embalmer, and both are great.

Berlin: City of Stones worked well both at using the Weimar Republic as a setting in its own right (I hadn't read any stories like that before) and as a suspense story. It left me wondering how much longer Kurt and Mathe would keep out of the fray (or even stay alive). Also, Elga and Heinz reminded me a little of Jack Yufe and Oskar Stohr. Recommended by Brian K. Vaughan.

With Berlin : City of Smoke, Jason Lutes keeps up the good suspenseful work he started in Berlin : City of Stones (see the list of recs Brian posted to the Cabal version ). It starts off in media res with a new group of American characters, before catching up with Silvia (who crosses paths with David - the storylines are starting to come together). The interviews throughout Smoke with secondary characters are a good follow-up to the May 1st bloodshed in Stone, and add more depth to Lute's protrayal of Weimar 1929-1930.

Even though I'm not usually into roman à clef or teen drama, I liked Blankets a lot - probably because it was both. Not everyone's first love turns into some troubled-teen cliché, and I guess Craig's didn't either. The way the snow and rural distance reflected the title was cool. Some parts of the ending were confusing but that's more realistic than wrapping it all up neatly. Recommended by Brennan, charles littlesky, L, mikie, and Nilson.

Blue Pills was very sweet and sad. Reading this after reading Pedro and Me and Seven Miles A Second reminded me of how the "typical HIV patient" image is moving from "gay man" to "wife." Meanwhile, the jump from Zamora's "you should be very frightened of AIDS, not people with AIDS" to Peeters's dislike of HIV having a name reminded me of how immune systems, hearing, etc. sometimes get dissed as sour grapes. Recommended by Brian K. Vaughan.

Box Office Poison started off OK, then meh (James), then became a pretty good episodic epic. Jane and Stephan having Sherman for a roommate reminded me of Shannon and Felix having Kestrel for a roommate in Queen of Wands. Also, the cast Q&A pages were a fun extra. Recommended by Brennan and Nilson.

Robinson did even better with its sequel Tricked. I liked the shift from cartooning about cartooning and writing about writing to a less meta plot around the music industry and waiting tables. Seeing Caprice again was cool too. Is there more in the series? Recommended by charles littlesky.

Cages reminds me of what I like about Gaiman's stuff, and has way less of what I don't like about some of his stuff. It's fantasy I'd recommend even for people who aren't big fantasy fans. The mixed-media imagery is cool too. Recommended by obsolete.

Cairo is great. It's a neat urban fantasy that focuses on the city and Egyptian legends instead of the Middle East in general. BTW, a short while after I read it, I realized "it's like Vertigo Pop! came back!" even though this is a B&W hardcover rather than 4 color issues. Recommended by L and Brian K. Vaughan.

Calling You, written by Otsuichi and drawn by Tsuzuki Setsuri, has 2 stories, both slipstream speculative fiction set in present-day Japan. One's got telepathy and time travel, and another's about transferring wounds. Both are tragic but hopeful in the end.

Demo's cool. I liked the way the ending could be seen as shifting back towards superpowers but to say more would spoil it. Recommended by skussozomrov and Ian Wally.

One of the local librarians recommended Déogratias by J.P. Stassen. I'm not sure if it counts as nouvelle manga. On one hand, it's a Franco-Belgian comic about everyday life instead of a science fiction action epic. OTOH, it's about everyday life in and after 1994 Rwanda. Déogratias also reminds me of Maus and We Are on Our Own apart from being very colorful instead of B&W and fiction instead of biography. No wonder - how many biocomics of Holocaust survivors were out by 1957? Maybe Miriam Katin's and Vladek Spiegelman's Rwandan counterparts aren't ready to release their memoirs just yet...

Dr. Strange : The Oath is cool. The focus on medicine (including the Hippocratic Oath and insurance copays) as well as superheroics meshes neatly. Another good job by Brian. I still got the feeling I was missing a bunch of backstory, though. Recommended by ThreeFifty.

Elk's Run works well. The art's sense of claustrophobia really emphasized the isolation of the town. It wasn't very clear whether or not Sara wanted to keep both Johns for herself, or what the town's fate would be, and that's OK since the main plot did get resolved. Recommended by Fad23 and mikie.

Epileptic is very good. The way it shows upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s even without focusing on sex, illegal drugs, music, etc. was interesting. I also hadn't realized how much epilepsy could suck even close to here and now. My first aid class in 7th grade covered the seizures but not the stigma so I thought life between the seizures would be as ordinary as it is for the rest of us. Recommended by mkwng.

Exit Wounds is another one of those rare non-speculative-fiction comics in color. The plot's a romance and mystery set in present-day Tel Aviv, and more of a whowuzit than a whodunit this time. Numi also reminded me of Setsuko in Kwaïdan and Jalisco in Chicanos a little. Meanwhile, check out Modan's interview with Joe Sacco about it. recommended by Brian K. Vaughan.

Flight vol. 1 is a neat anthology of 24 very short stories (many only 1 scene long). The stories range from non-genre (kites, airports, etc.) to fantasy (flying whales, etc.) to SF (dirigibles, robots, etc.) to surrealist (waking up with wings, etc.) to mystery (circus trapeze acts, etc.) to more. The art's a great mix too - drawing, painting, collage, everything. There's also an note by Scott McCloud's Brain added for the 2054 reprint. While I was wondering if there was a 2nd volume, I found out that there's already 6 volumes and some of the stories continue elsewhere. So much for fitting into 1 volume, but it's still good.

Fortune and Glory was fun. Seeing Bendis keep his perspective about having his story's movie options bought and unfilmed was very cool. It also reminded me of True Story Swear to God, another autobiography well-written by a bald comic book writer (Tom Beland this time). Does Brian have one in the works too? Recommended by Brian K. Vaughan.

Fun Home was an unpredictably winding trip, from starting in This Old House territory to meta-twists at the end. Bechdel kinda left hints at even more, like the part where her mom compares her coming out to her dad's misdeeds. It reminded me of the part of Ayu Utami's Saman in which unmarried Laila figures her affair with married Sihar means he's betraying his wife and she's betraying her father. o_O Recommended by mkwng and Red Lantern.

For some reason Ghost World reminded me of the movie Slackers, even though it didn't drift from character to character (maybe it was the stream-of-consciousnesses/slice-of-life format in both?). It was interesting to see Becky and Enid think they're so non-mainstream yet play the same prank call mind games that some of my very mainstream neighbors played in undergrad. Recommended by obsolete.

Both volumes of Global Frequency are cool - one of the few action comics I've read that seemed way more about peacekeeping (and open-source peacekeeping at that!) than about war. I liked the mix of different art styles mostly having a color scheme in common too. Also, did those cell phones remind anyone else of Get Smart? Recommended by Brian K. Vaughan.

The "Devil's Ways" part of Grendel Tales: Devils and Deaths reminded me a little of Broken April by Ismail Kadare. "Meat Machine" seemed much less clear, but the contrast between the macabre events and the fuscia & turquoise palette was still jolting. Recommended by dzuka.

Heavy Liquid is really good. I liked the way the story has piles of twists and still stayed clear. That and the near-future setting reminded me of Ocean by Warren Ellis, and Luna's cooking reminded me a little of pancakes. The reds-and-blues thing is a fun change of pace from the full-color or B&W usuals. Recommended by obsolete.

Houdini - The Handcuff King written by Jason Lutes and drawn by Nick Bertozzi is actually as much about fame and celebrity culture as it is about escape artistry. It's also got an extra historical-context section at the end, which is cool.

At first I Die at Midnight's plot reminded me of Run Lola Run, its art reminded me of the 1960s and 1970s, and its format reminded me of op-ed cartoons. It got even better as I kept reading (and once I suspended a little disbelief that he couldn't vomit the pills at home). Recommended by charles littlesky.

It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken by Seth is cartooning about cartooning, but has wider horizons than the [medium] about [medium] I'm used to. Both the main character and the art linger on retro landscapes and streetscapes, but he doesn't assume everything was better back in the day. Chet and Ruthie were cool too. Adding news clippings and photos at the end instead of limiting the story to panels was a nice bonus. Recommended by Brian K. Vaughan.

Like A Velvet Glove Cast in Iron was a pretty surreal stream-of-consciousness thing. It's like Ghost World but even more so. Recommended by obsolete.

Bryan Lee O'Malley released Lost at Sea in 2003 and it's even better than the parts of Scott Pilgrim I've read. This time a lonely teen thinks a cat took her soul, ends up on a road trip with a few popular classmates, and finds out what she really needs.

The title story of The Man Who Loved Breasts had me wondering "didn't they have mimeographs in 1963?" at first and "wasn't bra-burning more urban legend than trendy?" later. Also, Stanley's pep talk with Mme. Neodinakova was sweet. In "George Olavatia : Amputee Fetishist," I liked the way Goodin included a bystander with a "MARINES" t-shirt and a metal arm (reminding us of why amputations happen...). Meanwhile, "A 21st Century Cartoonist in King Arthur's Court" reminded me of Alice in Sunderland, in which Bryan Talbot counts the Bayeux Tapestry as cartooning. Recommended by Fad23.

Midnight Nation reminded me of Preacher. At first I guessed that Laurel had completed the Long Walk to get her own soul back, so I was a bit surprised when spoiler instead. Then spoiler reminded me of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, which was cool. I suspended my disbelief a lot and enjoyed the story, then looked back and was all "wait a minute, what?" but that's OK. Recommended by ghostly1.

Mister O by Lewis Trondheim is more like a flipbook than anything. It's kinda short, so instead of risking a spoiler I'll just second the recommendation. Recommended by mkwng.

Steve Rolston's One Bad Day is very good too. The heroine's guilt-tripped into attending a cousin's party, and on the way things spiral out of control as an old classmate, gun battles, and a certain videotape cross her path... It's like a poignant action movie with character depth.

Palestine was a pretty interesting near-reportage. I like the way Sacco shows conflicts and disagreements among Palestinians too instead of polarizing things. Sacco covers a lot more here than in The Fixer, so I guess the coverage this time had to be a bit less deep while it was broader. Recommended by Brian K. Vaughan.

Pedro and Me was pretty interesting too. I was actually around when it all happened, but I don't remember it (not having watched more than an episode or two of The Real World), so I'm glad I caught up. Recommended by Elijya.

Persepolis vol. 2, "The Story of a Return" (available both as the second half of The Complete Persepolis and as a separate volume from Persepolis vol. 1, "The Story of a Childhood") is also very good. I like the way Satrapi included both her adolescence and punk clique in Austria and her life and family in Iran, and showed the culture shock and wider context in both places. Also, keep an eye out for how close she gets to being the Walt Disney of Iran. The art's pretty clear too. Recommended by L and Brian K. Vaughan.

Pop Gun War vol. 1, "Gift," was great. The short stories add up to a cool surrealist novel. Is the next volume's worth of issues a sequel or a new story (like the way I heard Northlanders's 2nd story arc will be instead of sticking with Sven) or what? Recommended by obsolete.

The Push Man (& Other Stories) was the first gekiga manga I've read. I was a bit surprised at how bleak the stories all were (except maybe "Make-Up"), and I liked the drawing style a lot. Which other gekiga are good? Recommended by Red Lantern.

Pyongyang by Guy Delisle is good. The drawing style emphasizes the surreality and isolation of his trip well. The degree of dictatorship control didn't surprise me, although some details of it did. Also, I wasn't expecting the info on the outsourced animation biz that he included, which was interesting too. Recommended by Elijya.

Red, written by Warren Ellis and drawn by Cully Hammer, is good. In the first part, for once the most violent parts were just a bit off-panel, more subtle than I'm used to for secret-agent stories. The color schemes were also well-done. Ellis did better characterization in some of his other books like Aetheric Mechanics and Ocean, though. Just making a hitman/assassin/etc. the main character doesn't seem fresh or edgy to me anymore. Good thing that was yet another change of pace instead of being Ellis's usual for these short works. Recommended by L and charles littlesky.

Ruins had great art - yeah, I like comics that look painted. I think I got some of the references, but if you've actually read the stories the characters are from then I bet it'll be even better. Recommended by mikie.

Scandalous, written by J. Torres and drawn by Scott Chantler, is pretty cool. The story's a gritty take on 1950s Hollywood, and pretty much rips the sugar-coating off both. The drawing style reminds me of newspaper family-friendly comics. Combining these two really works for some reason.

Seaguy is pretty gonzo and hardly predictable. Some details in the third part were very anachronistic, but who cares in something like this? The way the plot didn't wrap up neatly was cool too. Recommended by Mr. How.

Sentences - The Life of M.F. Grimm written by Percy Carey and drawn by Ronald Wimberly is interesting too (no matter whether one likes or has even heard his music). The epilogue has a great twist too.

Seven Miles A Second was gut-wrenching. The art style drove the horror home well, and I'm njot sure what else to say. Meanwhile, it's one of the very few non-SF/fantasy comics I've read that was in color - anyone know why color comics don't seem to have as much genre diversity as B&W ones do? Recommended by Red Lantern.

Sleeper season 1 seemed to mix noir and supervillains at first. The "post-human" references left me wondering if any of Wildstorm's other series like Post-Human Division are part of the story too. The later conspiracy-theory parts reminded me of 100 Bullets too. Anyone looking for more to read after 100 Bullets #100 (that'll be the last issue, right?) should check this out. Then just when it left me wondering if the supervillain plots had been abandoned for the inner-circle-running-the-world stuff, Brubaker brought it back in balance... Recommended by L.

Sleepwalk and Other Stories reminded me of Ghost World, so the more you like that the more I'd recommend this. Recommended by Brian K. Vaughan.

I read Sloth by Gilbert Hernandez and it's pretty good too. Like Chicken with Plums it's B&W and has a string musician escaping a life he finds bleak through, um, sleeping - only this time he's a guitarist in a present-day American suburb instead of a tar-e-Shiraz player in 1958 Tehran.

Streak of Chalk has nicely painted graphics. Meanwhile, the story's surreal and horror in parts. The weirdness on the trip reminded me of Lost Girl, so I'd recommend it to anyone who liked that.

Street Angel volume 1 is pretty interesting. The way it was mostly fast-paced action but then suddenly chapter 4 was sad and bleak (more homelessness, less skateboarding martial arts) and that worked well. The whole in media res thing was great too. Does anyone know when volume 2 will be out? Recommended by skussozomrov and Brian K. Vaughan.

Switchblade Honey by Ellis and Brandon McKinney is pretty much based on the idea that "[Star Trek] should get Ray Winstone as captain." Ellis and McKinney did file the serial numbers off, so I doubt you'd miss anything if you haven't watched that whole series. I liked the characterization more in this one and the graphics more in Red (the graphics here are still good, but in B&W).

Endo Hiroki's Tanpenshu vols. 1 and 2 were interesting and creepy collections. Vol. 1's the better of them, but the ending of "High School Girl" (in vol. 2) was great. Was there a 3rd volume? Recommended by Red Lantern.

Too Long by Park Hee Jung is even better than I thought it would be from the reviews, and now another one of my faves. It's a short story collection with a lot of moody stream-of-consciousness pieces, some science fiction, etc.

Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms by Kouno Fumiyo is very impressive. It has an angle on Hiroshima I hadn't read before: the A-bomb's not the direct focus. Instead it lurks behind everyday stuff like crushes in the 1950s and gym classes in the 1980s (Minami's flashbacks of getting bombed, radiation illnesses, Asahi and Kyoka facing the "hibakusha" stigma, etc.).

Ultra is good too (better than Girls, which I also like). I wish I'd read it before that chick lit thread, since it's definitely chick lit and definitely not formula junk. The magaziney covers were also cool. Recommended by Elijya.

Uncle Sam started off great (I like in media res openings). The surreal plot's format was pretty straightforward at first and worked well, then the twists it took with Ray's awareness and Bea's identity were cool new angles (BTW, if Uncle Sam is America and Marianne is France then who's East Timor?). The painting style reminded me of The Mystery Play, only sharper and more vivid. Recommended by Elijya.

I liked V for Vendetta a lot more than Watchmen. It didn't make me happy, but I found it well-done. Did anyone here read it when it first came out? Since I read it so recently (I mean, I read V shortly after reading Deogratias) the contrast between the horrors predicted for the 1990s and the horrors that did happen in the 1990s was jarring. Recommended by Bigtony.

Vimanarama is lots of semi-superheroic fun but seems rushed compared to The Mystery Play. If it was twice as long (and covered more of what it hinted at) it could have been even better. That handsfree mobile phone detail is a nice touch, but why'd Fatima wait so long to go handsfree? Recommended by Mr. How.

Water Baby is a title that's definitely more self-contained. A shark bites off the main character's left leg while she surfs, and Ross Campbell remembers that life goes on for disabled people too. Brody doesn't just try to get a metal limb working on her stump but also tries to get her ex-boyfriend moving off her sofa, and decides a road trip is just the ticket... While I don't like seeing every little detail wrapped up in an ending, for once this ending didn't wrap up enough - I would have liked more dénouement, but it's still worth reading.

We Are on Our Own (the Miriam Katin recommendation) is really good. That blurry pencil style works well. Sometimes it was hard to see what was going on, but if it was clearer for the reader then I bet it wouldn't convey as effectively how confusingly scary it was to a little kid. Recommended by Nilson.

We3 reminded me of the Rat Things in Snow Crash, and especially of Y.T. and Ng's conversation about them. I liked the way the scenes were sometimes wordless and sometimes broken up into many little panels - was this supposed to mimic cat, dog, and/or rabbit perception or at least look more alien to us? Recommended by Mr. How and Johnny Utah.

Wild Com. by Tamura Yumi is a set of 3 short stories. The title story has a twist on tension between superpowered and regular people that I haven't seen anywhere else before. "The Beasts of June" actually reminded me of Red except the antiheroes are more thoughtful. "The Eye of the Needle" is a suspense about what people will and won't do for fame. Also, one of these left me thinking "hey, you need to match tissue types first for an organ transplant!", but it would be a spoiler to say which one.

Then there are these (from the "historical" graphic novels thread):

• Crécy written by Warren Ellis and drawn by Raulo Ceceres Recommendd by Daniel Morales.
• Blood Ties by Hermann and Yves H.
• Fax from Sarajevo : A Story of Survival by Joe Kubert
• Blood River written by Michael Avon Oeming and Daniel Berman and drawn by Brian Quinn
• The Fixer : A Story from Sarajevo by Joe Sacco

and these (from the thread 'This Week's BOOTY! 07-10-2008')

• Kimmie66 by Aaron Alexovich
• Re-Gifters written by Mike Carey and drawn by Sonny Liew and Marc Hempel
• The Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg

edits: fixed some formatting

If anyone's just hearing about this Jeff Lemire guy now, you should pick up his Essex County books, since they're collected in one volume now. It takes a look at the lives and relationships of various characters in a small Ontario farming town. I highly recommend it.

Thanks for the recommendation!

"Tales from the Farm" is good, showing a lot of depth with relatively few lines of dialogue or pen. I liked how well the tensions among Jimmy, Kenny, and Lester were shown, and the flashbacks. Also, Lemire using a comic he actually wrote and drew at 9 for Lester's comic was a cool touch. Then the ending...wow, OMGWTF and very subtle at the same time. "Ghost Stories" starting off in media res was good. I didn't get why the nurse didn't bring a pencil and paper, but seeing Mr. Lebeuf be prepared was fun. The mix of visuals (like the maps and the scrapbook, the Vinnie's-eye view of the team, etc.) is cool too. Anyway, it's far more poignant than vol. 1. "The Country Nurse" ties everything together more closely than vol. 2 did, and also reminded me a little of Looking Up. The family tree arrived just in time (and I bet those crows were related too).

Meanwhile...

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang alternates the stories of two Chinese-American teenagers and the Monkey King legend, as all 3 face down stereotypes. At first this reminded me of Maxine Hong Kingston's novel Tripmaster Monkey : His Fake Book (except Wittman Ah Sing is a beatnik in his 20s instead of a teenager in the 2000s). Anyway, while Jin Wang's plot is realistic at first (although his mom being downright anti-social seemed more stereotypical) and the Monkey King's is pure fantasy, Danny's is very surreal and his 1st turn left me confused and wanting to read more just to figure out WTF the idea was there... and then Danny turning out to be a shape-shifted Jin Wang was a neat twist but also diappointing, since initially this character gave the impression of the book including Chinese-Americans who have non-Chinese ancestry too....

All My Darling Daughters by Yoshinaga Fumi is about mother and daughter salarywomen, widowed Mari in her 50s and single Yukiko in her 30s, who still share a house. Then Mari recovers from cancer,host-turned-actor Ken in his 20s marries her, Yukiko freaks out before moving out, and their friends have big things going on too... Yoshinaga starts with nearly a sitcom setup and makes the story episodic but keeps the drama deeper. If yiou like Vanyda's The Building Opposite, you might like this too.

The Chill, written by Jason Starr and drawn by Mick Bertilorenzi, is a present-day noir from Vertigo Crime. We see not only the police trying to find out whodunit but also a serial killing family with a supernatural side, so for the reader the drama's more in the chase than in the discovery. Then one of their victims turns out to have barely escaped with his life, and to now be a retired police officer himself...and the ending is horrifying, a smartly ironic twist, and very oh-no-he-didn't disappointing all at once.

Dogs & Water by Anders Nilsen is a B & W & blue & purple sparse and moody post-apocalyptic travel story. There's a man, a backpack, and a teddy bear going forth against the elements and surreal dream sequences. It's short and very moving...

The Manga Guide to Databases by Takahashi Mana and Azuma Shoko is a big change of pace. This tutorial for database concepts and SQL is framed in a fantasy tale about a princess of a kingdom that's Euro-medievaloid (with magic textbook fairies, fruit industry files, and computers). There's text and diagrams to be read left-to-right too, so the flipped panels are easier on the eyes than unflipped panels would be. 8) If you like Larry Gonick's science books you might like this too even though there's more story along with the lessons.


De:TALES, Remember, Second Thoughts, and Toxic Planet are 4 more good one-volume-shots, and check them out in the BD, manhwa, etc. thread.

A Home for Mr. Easter by Brooke A. Allen is a very original B&W indie comic about an lonely* high schooler who finds an egg-laying hare while trying to make friends via joining an extracurricular activity. Tesana soon quests on the run from con men, activists, R&D folks, cops, and a confused mother on the way to return the bunny to his natural habitat, with sadness and sweetness along the way. It's one of my new favorites, thanks to the surprising plot twists and gritty edges and more in this blend of fantasy and realism.

Big Clay Pot by Scott Mills is another very original B&W indie change of pace, less frantic and more poignant this time - and set in 200 b.C. Kyuushuu. Klutzy 20something Sun Kim is an immigrant seeking a new start after leaving the village of her birth. Approaching a new village and accidentally breaking a pot of stew as she admires its style soon gets her caught up in local tensions and making friends with elderly widower Kokoro... Meanwhile, there's Japanese in the margins that I guess is translations of all the dialogue, and a nonfic section at the end about pottery and the Yayoi era.

Red : A Haida Manga by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas is a sprawling tragedy based on a Haida Gwaii legend and post-9/11 international relations with everything from Red's sister's kidnapping and Jaada's brother's disregard of her love to submarines, accountants, and rideable box kites. It's in full color paintings too, inspired by both older and 1980s Haida visual arts and by anime. Even the panel borders are artsy, swooping around the action (let your eyes go with the flow ) and connecting the pages into one big formline image.

Nylon Road is another very good 1-volume-shot, and I covered it in the BD, manhwa, etc. thread.


* as in bullied, friendless, and dateless; not as in the clichés of "being unpopular" while being in a clique of 10-20 regular folks instead of 3-4 richer and prettier folks or "finishing last" while being nice to the girls who want jerks and a jerk to the girls who want nice guys, neither

charles littlesky, thanks for recommending A History of Violence written by John Wagner and drawn by Vince Locke! I'd recommend this one for anyone who likes slice-of-life stuff and Vertigo Noir stories - it's another B&W about people preyed on and fighting back, but starts off with folks inexperienced with that instead of private eyes or superheroes but then the backstory gets all Mafia. The intro, with its imagine-this-happening-to-you, ends up not applying to the main character after all, and applying instead to the wife and kids he dragged down with him. It's still a very worthwhile read.

Meanwhile...

"Adventures into Mindless Self Indulgence" written by Jimmy Urine, Kitty, Lyn-z, Steve Righ? of MSI and Jess Fink; and drawn by Jess Fink; is one of those rare one-shot issue-sized comic titles. If you like indie B&W memoirs and don't like everything decompressed, I'd recommend these short stories that live up to (or down to?) the anthology's title.

Area 10, written by Christos N. Gage and drawn by Chris Samnee, is a lot of story packed into a short Vertigo Crime sunnier-than-noir mystery. There's a detective who survives a hit by a serial killer, a skeptical doctor who really listens instead of fitting the scientist stereotype, the history of trepanning, some time travel of info, the aftermath of family heartbreak, bold B&W imagery, and more...

Fogtown; written by Andersen Gabrych, drawn by Brad Rader, and released by Vertigo Crime; is more noir than Area 10. It's set in 1953 San Francisco this time with no sugarcoating over the racism, sexism, and homophobia. Frank Grissel is a P.I. both investigating how he was used by organized crime after a seemingly successful case and facing down his own life as a deadbeat dad and a bisexual in the closet. The ending works hopefully too, with sunrise, Grissel holding hands with another man in daylight, and his daughter going from hanging her shingle with a fake "M.D." to med school for real.

The Ice Wanderer and Other Stories by Taniguchi Jiro is a great 6-story collection, better than his good Walking Man, and probably even better if you're a Jack London fan (the title story is fiction about him and "White Wilderness" is based on part of White Fang). The other stories range from bittersweet tales of the cold north off the coast of present-day Alaska and in the mountains of early Showa Akita prefecture to a lighter-hearted story of a child's summer in a fishing village to a fusion of the "young adult doing comics" and "spooky haunted house" microgenres in a SRO apartment building that's as much about the neighbors as about the ambience.

Midnight Sun by Ben Towle is B&W historical fiction set around the 1928 crash-landing of the airship Italia on a breaking iceberg on the way home from the North Pole. The streamlined cast of characters includes the anti-Fascist airship captain camping at the crash site and arguing with expeditioners, a Russian reporter whose fiancé was on the airship crew, and an American sent on the same ship by his paper to get him out of the local bar posing as a flower shop. After the ending, Towle includes notes on how much he changed, and references for learning the real story.

"Officer Downe," written by Joe Casey and drawn by Chris Burnham, is another one of those one-shots, and a surprisingly gory and poignant one. This cop's LAPD precinct gets him back up when he's down, even when it takes bringing him back from the dead...

Found another couple of titles to add for now...

The Arrival by Shaun Tan is a wordless sepia tale of a guy going as an advance scout for his family from somewhere very much like 1800s Eastern Europe, via train and steerage class ship and Ellis-Island style immigration offices, to a foreign city. The city's got an unfamiliar alphabet and customs and wildlife, and diverse people from all over - some local, some fellow migrants from all over, and some of both lending a hand. This time, the alphabet's artificial, as though Tan wants it to be as unfamiliar to his likely readers as the Roman alphabet was to people in Cyrillic-reading cultures before TV and the Internet. As for the local fauna, some of them look like they people company in a way that reminded me a bit of Pantalaimon keeping Lyra company in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series (though not always from birth - there's one waiting for the arrival when he checks into a boarding house). I especially recommend it for people who like magic realism.

A God Somewhere, written by John Arcudi and drawn by Peter Snejbjerg, is a horror story about four friends when one gets superpowers. The story focuses so well on the other three when the superpowered one becomes a hero for a bit, and then forgets that saving some people's lives doesn't make up for paralyzing, raping, and murdering some other people or that someone else having fewer abilities than you doesn't make them deserve to get hurt any more than you deserve that, that it's hard to tell which one (if any) is supposed to be the main character...

Thanks again for all the recommendations! Since last time, I've found these:

Britten and Brülightly by Hannah Berry is a subtle detective tale about a P.I. and a murder; with nearly-watercolor, nearly-B&W visuals. It starts off realistic and noir, and then the surrealism gradually sneaks up on you too...

Cuba : My Revolution, written by Inverna Lockpezer and drawn by Dean Haspiel, is a harrowing grayscale & redscale roman à clef about Sonya, a young woman made a believer then disillusioned then betrayed by the Cuban revolution. Lockpezer focuses both on the effects the politics had on everyday life (fuel rationing, circus-style trials on TV, economic crackdowns on Sonya's stepfather's job, memories of another revolution for her father from Russia, etc.) and on other factors shaping how life goes on (Sonya's older cousin trying to date her and calling her same-age high school sweetheart too young for her, her mother getting pregnant again, the visual transition from the 1950s to 1960s, etc.). If you find the art & dreams vs. work & duty dichotomy in many other books cliché, definitely read this. Sonya wants to be a visual artist, her mother wants her to be a doctor like her father, she decides to be a surgeon to help the country, her father asks her if she's sure, and so she goes to both medical school full-time and art school evening classes in the same school years. Caveat: there's gore enhanced by the shades of red among the grays, especially when Sonya helps her mother give birth, when Sonya's at the Bay of Pigs, when....

Dark Rain : A New Orleans Story written by Mat Johnson and drawn by Simon Gane is another harrowing grayscale & some color tale, this time with shades of blue enhancing tears and the floodwaters of Katrina. Two ex-cons and halfway houseroommates try to boost their second chances by robbing a bank in the 9th Ward, only to meet everyone from murdering mercenaries to civilians who need help to more...

Rica 'tte Kanji!? by Rica Takashima is a manga about a young lesbian woman new to college, Tokyo, living on her own, and being out. It's B&W, an indie comic instead of using the usual manga styles, and has lots of subtlety instead of melodrama.

Safe Area Goražde : The War in Eastern Bosnia, 1992-1995 by Joe Sacco is another of his B&W recent-history nonfiction books. The narrative alternates between Sacco's trips to Goražde 1995-1996 on the Blue Road and the lives of his new friends (like Edin, who does with the Drina river what William Kamkwamba does with the wind) and other interviewees in Goražde in 1992-1995, and there's more context too (everything from what the Balkans suffered in WWII to scenes at the UN and White House). Since I had already finished A Problem from Hell : America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power, I got more out of Safe Area Goražde (especially the parts on Srebrenica) than I would have otherwise so I'll recommend that reading order.

Special Exits : A Graphic Memoir by Joyce Farmer is another roman à clef, this time about caring for one's parents shortly before and at the ends of their lives. It's as much about living in old age, being active in the present and remembering the past and working with caretakers, as it is about dying. The B&W drawings are clear and detailed too. There's also some comparison and contrast since her mother chose a hospital and her father chose hospice care.