Graphic novel reviews C

Captain America - Ta-Nehisi Coates

1. Winter In America - In the wake of the whole Hydra thing, Cap's back and trying to make amends for his face being the face of the Supreme Hydra Commander. Unfortunately for Steve, no one's happy to see him back. The rest of America just kind of wants to forget Captain America exists. Some even believe he's still part of Hydra.  A plot slowly unfolds, Cap fights Taskmaster, Cap faces Selen who could beat him without any effort but decides to leave instead (?), the Russians are planning something.  This isn't wonderful, but it's intriguing.  [3.5] 
   

Captain Marvel [2016] - Ruth Fletcher Gage, Christos Gage

Captain Marvel [2019] - Kelly Thompson

Cardboard - Doug TenNabel  [Graphix]
An out-of-work dad gets his son a cardboard box for a present, only to realize that the creatures they make from it come to life.  When the nasty bully next door sees that, he takes the magic cardboard, but it's too much for him to handle.  This is a pretty good book about friendship, offering a helping hand, and being content with what you have.  The plot goes a little off the rails near the end, but the kids will love it.  [4]

Cardboard Kingdom - Chad Sell

The Carter Family: Don't Forget This Song - Frank M. Young

A biography of A.P. Carter, his wife, and her cousin, and how they went from dirt poverty to radio superstars in the 1930s.  It's very deeply researched, but also a broad overview.  The art is a little clumsy but it's a detailed and affectionate portrait.  [3.5]

 

Castle Waiting - Linda Medley

1. Vol. 1 - A fantasy that centers mainly on the lives of independent, strong women.  In the first story, pregnant Lady Jain escapes her husband and goes through some adventures before finding refuge in Castle Waiting, where bizarre but friendly characters such as the horse-man knight Sir Chess and the bird-headed steward Rackham welcome her.  In the second part, one of the ladies there tells a long series of stories about the origin of a cloistered order of bearded women.  More escaping nasty husbands and finding good men ensues.  Bold black and white art evokes Bone.  Excellent, startlingly original stories, although personally I prefer the first part which involves more talking animal folk.  [5]
   

Catwoman - Ed Brubaker
Vols. 1-4 - Perfect superhero noir, blending all the tropes and history of the comics with a neo-noir sensibility.  Not gritty, but dark and suspenseful, with real wit and humor.  It's like a comic written by an adult, for adults.  [5]

Caveboy Dave - Aaron Reynolds

Champions - Mark Waid

Champions - Eve Ewing

Cheer Up: Love and Pompoms - Crystal Frasier

Annie is a smart, antisocial lesbian starting her senior year of high school who’s under pressure to join the cheerleader squad to make friends and round out her college applications. Her former friend Bebe is a people-pleaser—a trans girl who must keep her parents happy with her grades and social life to keep their support of her transition. Through the rigors of squad training and amped up social pressures (not to mention micro aggressions and other queer youth problems), the two girls rekindle a friendship they thought they’d lost.  Very well done queer drama.  [4]

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina - Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa

1.  The Crucible - A gory updating of the cheesy original, but set in the '60s.  The backstory involves a bit more lost love and killing and stolen babies, but keeps the doting (albeit cannibal) aunts and the snarky cat.  Sabrina comes to a school full of humans and falls for the local football hero, but a resurrected spirit of vengeance called Madam Satan has other plans for her.  It's well done, but a bit too visceral for me.  Horror fans would like it.  I mean, I would read the next one, but I won't be too upset if I don't get around to it.  [3.5]
   

Class Act - Jerry Craft

The sequel to New Kid.  Highly motivated Drew, straight-A student and star athlete who lives with his grandmother, enters eighth grade less sure of his place than ever.  His two closest friends are Jordan and Liam, but once he sees just how wealthy and rarefied Liam's life is, he starts to drift away, knowing how hard it is to bridge such a gap.  Pressures mount, among them a girl who keeps pressuring him with too much attention, and a well-intentioned but clueless white faculty.  This is a hilarious and important book, done with humor but not shying away from how tough racial issues can be.  I really enjoyed all the references and homages in the art.  [4.5]

Click - Kayla Miller

Clubbing - Andi Watson  [Minx]
A snarky teenage girl is sent to her grandparents' place in the countryside after being caught with a fake ID.  She chafes against the boredom but is soon caught up in a murder which may involve an occult coven.  Watson (who is a man, despite the spelling of his name) makes his heroine rather unlikely - model thin, in micro-skirts and halter tops, obsessed with clubs and shopping, but also casually name dropping Thomas Hardy, P.G. Wodehouse, Emmeline Pankhurst, and Evelyn Waugh, and using words like "emetic."  The plot starts well but ends a bit over the top.  Read twice, accidentally.  [2.5]

Concrete: The Human Dilemma - Paul Chadwick  [Dark Horse]
Eisner-winning story arc about world overpopulation and the ethics of addressing it.  Chadwick is a great artist but his writing is a bit histrionic and self-important for me.  Bought used and sold.  [3]

Criminal (6 volumes) - Ed Brubaker
Perfect gritty flawless noir.  Endlessly re-readable. [5]

Cub - Cynthia L. Copeland

Graphic novel reviews D

DMZ (6 volumes) - Brian Wood
Depressingly realistic look at a new civil war in America, through the eyes of earnest reporter Matty Roth.  Gritty stuff, well told, unafraid to tackle controversial topics.  Re-readable.  [4]

Daredevil (7 volumes) - Ed Brubaker
Brutal street noir mixed with superhero drama.  Nearly flawless.  [5]

Daredevil - Charles Soule

Daredevil (vols 2-3) - Mark Waid
Waid cuts down on the unrelenting tragedy and lets DD relax just a bit, throwing in some curveballs like an ethical dispute with Mole Man and Latverian agents stealing his radar sense.  Very enjoyable.  [4]

Dark Reign: The Hood - Jeff Parker
Crime boss the Hood struggles to balance his secret domestic life with leading an army of super-villains, as well as trying to rein in the ever-growing influence Dormammu has over his occult powers.  A decent Marvel U story, overly cartoonish art.  Sold.  [3] 

Daybreak - Brian Ralph
A zombie story.  Starting mis-en-scene and entirely from the POV of a nameless, silent protagonist, who meets up with a one-armed man; the two get lost and then fall victim to a crazy man who takes them prisoner.  Detailed brown-and-white pictures of rubble and broken cars, resembling woodcuts.  It's rather unrelentingly bleak.  Well-done but not for me.  Library.  [3]

Disquiet - Noah Van Sciver

District 14 - Pierre Gabus

1. Season 1 - In a bizarre world of humans, aliens, and anthropomorphic animals, a blend of '50s gangster noir and dystopian ruins, modernism and Old World mysticism, an elephant with a shady past comes to District 14.  He becomes friends with a beaver reporter and a sexy poodle lady.  Before long, they're crossing paths with several warring criminal types, as well as a couple of apparent superheroes.  Its intricate, dream-like, and violent plot relies heavily on ideas of class conflict, the ultra-wealthy and the oppressed, the free press, the mob, and the overlords.  Sometimes hard to follow but very addictive.  The obsessively detailed, crosshatched black and white drawings are impressive.  [4.5]
2. Season 2 - The elephant, now horribly disfigured due to a slow poison, becomes a sort of folk hero as he fights the criminal classes from hiding.  His erstwhile friend in journalism finally drops his prejudices against the extra-terrestrials and fights for their rights to become citizens.  Tiger-Man forces his old scientist friend, whom he keeps prisoner, to use alien organs to expand his powers.  There are just so many balls in the air in this wonderfully demented, yet somehow all too human, tale of corruption, love, sex, and power.  I have rarely been as surprised to see the words "The End," but I guess a story has to stop somewhere.  [4.5]
   

 

Deadpool - Daniel Way

1. Secret Invasion - Deadpool is hired by Nick Fury to infiltrate the Skrulls and take them down from the inside.  Also, he is hired by some guy to find his wife, who's apprently run off with a mad scientist who makes zombies.  I like madcap craziness and silly bloodshed, if it's done well, but this isn't my cup of tea.  [3]
2. Dark Reign - Following the Skrull invasion of Earth, Norman Osborn steals information that Deadpool stole from the skulls for Nick Fury.  To clean up his mess, he sends first Tiger Shark and then Bullseye after Deadpool.  Ha ha, they can't because he's invincible and crazy.  I found myself not really caring because, of course, Bullseye is a major character and can't be killed, although obviously given the fictional parameters he would be offed rather easily.  Marginally better than the first book but still not my thing.  [3.5]
   

Defenders Masterworks - Roy Thomas, Steve Englehart

• Volume 1 - Collects the appearances of the Defenders in Sub-Mariner and Marvel Masterworks, as well as the first six issues of their own title.  Taking as given the '60s references, the square attempt at "hip" talk in the the sole minor black character, and the overblown Stan Lee-style speech, this is a pretty good superhero book.  Plot points are dropped, teased, and brought up again, making the story into a coherent, continuous epic.  The speech styles and personalities of Hulk and Namor add spice to the "non-team," making dissent and grudging acquiescence part of it from the beginning.  The addition of Valkyrie leavens the alpha male posturing a bit.  [3.5]
  

Doctor Thirteen: Architecture and Morality - Brian Azzarello

Dr. Thirteen and his daughter meet up with a bunch of old DC properties languishing in Limbo, including  I... Vampire, Infectious Lass, Anthro, and one I never heard of, Genius Jones.  Skeptical of it all, he nevertheless plows through Grant Morrison-esque insanity to meet the Architects (DC writers), who want to have him and the other losers gone from continuity.  Azzarello is at his funniest here, although there's not much of an ending.  Utterly gorgeous Cliff Chiang art.  [4]

Donut the Destroyer - Sarah Graley  [Scholastic Graphix]

Doodleville - Chad Sell

Doomsday Clock - Geoff Johns

Ozymandias, whose plan to bring peace to earth has failed spectacularly, teams up with a new Rorschach to search for Dr. Manhattan, who has seemingly gone to the DC universe.  His interfering there is causing strain in the time-stream and realities start disappearing.  Ozymandias wants Jon to save their world, but will he, or will he destroy the DC universe as well?  Drawn and written in an extremely on-the-nose homage style to Moore's work, this pays tribute to the original while also moving beyond, and building upon, it.  To me this is an absolute masterwork.  [5]

Drama - Raina Telgemeier
A love triangle at school, with a twist.  Sweet, but not up to par with Smile.  [3.5]

Graphic novel reviews E

Edison Beaker, Creature Seeker - Frank Cammuso

 

Eight Million Ways To Die - John K. Snyder

A pitch-perfect adaptation of the beloved Matt Scudder novel, in which the monstrous cruelty of New York, particularly a case involving a dead hooker who wanted out of the life, keeps the grim detective edging ever closer to sobriety.  Scudder's eternal struggle between his fatalism and his dogged interest in rough justice is brought vividly to life.  The art, also by Snyder, is on point, all rough sketches colored with washes of red and grey.  Even Block's sometimes cartoony characters (a classy pimp who becomes an art mogul!) are made more believable on the graphic page.  [5]

El Deafo - CeCe Bell [Harry Abrams]
An autobiographical tale (in anthropomorphic rabbit form) of growing up with hearing aids and the search for a friend who can accept you for who you are, not avoid you as a weirdo or lay on the "you are a special wonder" nonsense.  Funny and heartfelt, with cute drawings.  [4.5]

Elmer - Gerry Alanguilan  [SLG]
Some sort of singularity brings sentience and speech to chickens, who then must fight against an incredulous, violent human race for the respect and rights that they deserve.  It's a human-rights allegory dressed in a rather outlandish premise.  Despite the originality of the setup, the allegory is not startling; it's surprisingly by-the-numbers. Library. [3]

Emmie and Friends - Terri Libenson

Essex County - Jeff Lemire

Set in the Canadian farming community of Essex County, this somewhat gloomy book tells the interconnected stories of three unfortunate residents.  The first part, Tales from the Farm, centers on young Lester, sent to live with his Uncle Ken after his mother’s death from cancer.  He draws crude comics, unable to express his pain and awkward with Ken.  He befriends former hockey player Jimmy, working at a gas station after his head injury.  The second part, Ghost Stories, shows a man named Lou alone only with his memories of the rift that tore him and his brother apart, then as deafness and dementia set in and he is moved from his farm house to a nursing home, estranged from his brother and growing deaf and succumbing to dementia.  It's terribly bleak.  The third part, The Country Nurse, follows Anne as she flits about the county visiting and caring for others, all the time struggling with her own family situation, while her centenarian mother is in a nursing home, recalling her life.  The art is ink-heavy and blocky, and while it fits the dreary tone of the stories, it didn't exactly draw me in.  [4]

The Eternal Smile - Gene Luen Yang and Derek Kirk Kim  [First Second]
Three short stories, each dealing with fantasy life vs. reality, and how while the former is fragile and an escape, it also serves as a source of strength in dealing with the latter.  Well done but not exceptional, except the final story which goes in a slightly unexpected direction.  [3.5]

Eternals by Jack Kirby: The Complete Collection - Jack Kirby

The nineteen issues and annual of Kirby's Eternals.  Beautiful, gorgeous colors on Kirby's madman-visionary art.  The faces of panicked people, detailed machinery, bizarre robots, arcane symbols, and flamboyant costumes all burst to life.  The story itself is not particularly great, although the drug-trip concepts (Deviants! Uni-Mind! Celestials!) are fantastic.  There's no attempt to set the story in the existing Marvel universe, although it clearly is set there.  The idea that they are the source for Earth legends such as Greek and Roman gods is particularly dissonant, since said gods, you know, exist in the Marvel Universe.  The Kirby dialogue, with its high-flown quasi-Shakespearean histrionics mixed with New Yawk street talk, is endearing of itself but sort of undercuts my engagement in the story.  [3.5]

Ex Machina - Brian K. Vaughn

• 1. The First Hundred Days - Mitchell Hundred is elected Mayor of New York City.  He can talk to and control machines as a result of an encounter with an alien device.  He used to be a superhero who called himself "The Great Machine" but was largely regarded as a nuisance.  Taking on all the liberal issues of the day like school vouchers and gay marriage, he also has to deal with conspiracies against him, his past a costumed vigilante, and the bizarre alien tech that made him the way he is.  A little dated and almost quaint nearly ten years later, but extremely well done.  [5]
• 2. Tag - Mayor Hundred deals with post-9/11 guilt, a serial killer, and Roma fortune teller who seems to be the real thing.  [4.5]
• 3. Fact v. Fiction - The zigzagging chronology of the narrative continues to be extremely well done in this story.  [4.5]
• 4. March to War - Finally (in flashback, of course) we meet Hundred's "arch-nemesis," Pherson, who can talk to animals after a botched experiment to replicate Hundred's powers.  I'm not sure that playing his words backward would make the animals turn on him.  Even in this fictional setting that's just... not how anything works.  Vaughn continues to offer theoretical fixes to the problems of the day, such as capital punishment.  [4]
• 5. Smoke Smoke - A thief disguised a fire fighter!  People self-immolating on City hall steps!  A mole on Hundred's staff!  [4.5]
• 6. Power Down - The power goes out, Hundred loses his powers, and a man comes from another brane to warn Hundred about something.  [4.5]
• 7. Ex Cathedra - While Hundred meets with the Pope, some Russians try to hack his mind.  More of his past is revealed, and he sees a slave ghost.  This story continues to be a page-turner, a suspenseful puzzle begging to be solved.  [4.5]
• 8. Dirty Tricks - Kremlin continues working with the mole in Gracie Mansion to bring Hundred back to the flying suit.  Still a terrific mix of action, suspense, and humor.  A brief but funny vignette about a graphic novel autobiography guest starring Vaughn and his illustrator is a great capper.  [4.5]  
• 9. Ring Out the Old - New year, new elements of the past and what exactly gave Hundred his powers come to light.  [4.5]
• 10. Term Limits - Maybe it's just me, but this seemed to end quite abruptly.  I feel like many threads were dropped unceremoniously (like the dimension traveler from Power Down), or given strange endings.  The sudden drunken gayness of his longtime bodyguard comes out of nowhere, and Hundred's rather nefarious self-serving side is a jolt.  [3.5]

Exiles - Judd Winick

1. Down the Rabbit Hole - A team of alternate universe mutants are brought together by a mysterious power (a convenient plot device) in order to "rectify" supposed problems in the multiverse.  Blink, Morph, Mimic, Nocturne (Nightcrawler's daughter) and others bond as they go from reality to reality, making sure things happen the right way.  Winick's dialogue is fast-paced and cute, and this is a fun way to cherry-pick interesting bits of the ridiculously complicated X-universe lore.  [4]
2. A World Apart - The merry brand of alternate reality misfits team up with a version of Alpha Flight to fight Hulk, and find themselves on a Skull-occupied world fighting in gladiator games.  Still fun, although it occurs to me that this is very much MTV's "The Real World" is superhero form -- a group of attractive strangers, brought together by an outside force, romances form, one of them is obnoxious, see if they can get along, lots of cheesecake, etc.  Interesting.  And while he's a great character, Morph's non-stop "horny dude" persona gets old after a while.  [3.5]
   

Graphic novel reviews F

The Fade-Out - Ed Brubaker - three volumes, complete
In '50s Hollywood, a screenwriter with a secret (he's been relying on a blacklisted friend to ghostwrite for him) wakes up to find the ingenue star of his movie dead.  When someone makes it look like suicide, he's determined to get to the bottom of it.   Pitch-perfect Brubaker noir.  [5]

A Family Secret - Eric Heuvel
A young boy in Holland looks in his grandmother's attic for things to sell and stumbles on the history of a family split apart by the war, with one brother a collaborator and the other a Nazi, the young girl a friend of Jews and her father a policeman charged with rounding them up.  Realistic, grim, and educational. Art that owes pretty much every line to Tintin.  A character guide on the title page ruined the twist at the end.  [3.5] 

Fantastic Four: Foes - Robert Kirkman
A 6-issue miniseries.  A couple of villains come up with a plot that fools even Reed Richards.  Starts out in high gear with lots of cheery Kirkman notes, but lacking in tense drama (fights are crucial to the plot but glossed over; even when vastly outnumbered, the FF never appear to be in any danger) and ending somewhat abruptly.  Perhaps it could have stretched out to ten issues.  I sold it.  [3] 

FANTASTIC FOUR/FF - Matt Fraction
-NEW DEPARTURE, NEW ARRIVALS (#1-3/#1-3)
-FANTASTIC FAUX (FF #4-8)
Fun superhero silliness.  Fraction has a great understanding of character and he uses every bit of obscure weirdness in the MU.  His plots are over the top and sometimes goofy.  [4]

Fantastic Four - Dan Slott

FABLES - Bill Willingham
The first 10-12 volumes are superb.  [5]  After the Great Fables Crossover and the introduction of some eternal comic types, the title loses steam.  [3.5]

Fatale - Ed Brubaker
Not up to the quality of his Daredevil run or Criminal.  Whether it's the disjointed chronology or the occult-horror-noir hybrid, this isn't really my thing. [3.5]

Fibbed - Elizabeth Agyemang

The Fifth Quarter - Mike Dawson

5,000 Km Per Second - Manuele Fior

FIVE WEAPONS - Jimmie Robinson - two volumes, complete
At a school for assassins' children, the son of a living legend assassin shows up.  He chooses no school of weaponry but challenges them all with just his wits.  However, not all is what it seems. In the second volume, his best friend is also enrolled, but now apparently set against him, knowing all his secrets.  It's not as gritty as it sounds --- it's both drawn and written in a slightly jokey, childish style.  The dialogue runs from clever to stilted to just awful, and the plot has more than a few holes in it.  Pretty fun, but not for adults, I think.  Given away.  [2]

Foiled - Jane Yolen [First Second]

• 1. Foiled - A teenage girl in New York who doesn't fit in anywhere but the fencing studio discovers that her practice foil is actually a faerie weapon that enables her to see the magic creatures all around, and the boy she was chasing is a troll in disguise, sworn to aid her.  A bit thin, from the overdone "teenage misfit becomes magic realm's protector" to the lack of any meaty conflict.  [3]
• 2. CURSES! FOILED AGAIN - The second volume, wherein the heroine deals with whom to trust as she faces a shadowy enemy, is much better.  [3.5]  Library.

The Fox - Mark Waid

Freddy Lombard - Yves Chaland

1. The Will of Godfrey of Bouillon - One rainy Belgian night, Freddy (who looks just like Tintin!) and his two friends come upon a wine-loving duke at an inn.  He hires the three to help him dig for treasure buried by his ancestor before the Crusades, unaware that someone is listening in on the story.  In a long dream sequence, Freddy imagines he and his friends meeting the dukes' ancestor a thousand years ago, and we see the treacherous counselor trying to get his hands on the estate back then.  Then back to the present for a bit of adventure and a rather anticlimactic, enigmatic ending.  Marvelously inventive, and just utterly gorgeous art.  [4]
2. The Elephant Graveyard -  Containing two stories: An African Adventure, about travels to the jungles of Africa in search of a unique photographic plate for a collector. The second story, The Elephants Graveyard, involves Freddy's investigations into the murders of several ex-army gentlemen who served in Africa. Told at a frenetic pace, with some rather whiplash-inducing swerves from absurdist humor to high body count.  The three friends live like squatters, shivering in a run-down apartment and selling furniture for food, but nothing much is made of this.  [4]
3. The Comet of Carthage - Freddy rescues a woman fleeing from her abusive sculptor lover, and also imagines her to be a queen of Carthage, and himself a Carthaginian warrior.  The woman says that her lover has killed previous models.  Dina pines for Freddy and soliloquizes about their lives in Carthage. Storms wash out the only road out of Cassis.  A comet is coming and may hit the town.  The three friends stay in a cave by the shore and search for things to eat.  Freddy befriends the sculptor.  Beautiful, just gorgeous detailed art (Chaland can draw a ruin or wind-swept cliff just as well as anyone), but the story is simply insane.  [3.5]
4. Holiday In Budapest - In Venice, 1956, Dina is working as a Latin tutor; the boys are camping by the lake. Her pupil, an impulsive Hungarian twelve year old, runs off to join the rebellion against the Soviets.  While the boys catch up and drive him there, Dina flies to his family.  They get mixed up in the war, in firefights, scuffles, and accusations.  It's a very odd transition from the first, more goofy, style of the series.  [4]
   
5. F-52 - The three friends are hired as air attendants on the new super-fast atomic plane to Australia.  In a much less convoluted adventure than the previous ones, they are embroiled in staff squabbling, some sexual harassment from Dina's supervisor, a search for a Soviet spy, and grimmest of all, an insane rich couple who scheme to kidnap a little girl from another pssenger to replace their child, who has Down Syndrome.  [4.5]
   

Freshman - Corinne Mucha  [Zest]
A slight book about a teen girl's first high school year.  The usual worries about changing friendships, boy troubles, popularity.  Clunky doodle-style monochromatic art.  Aimed directly at teen girls; I found it simplistic and cliched on the first reading.  But on the second reading a year later I approached it with a more open mind, and conceded the touching side; the themes of uncertainty and desire to be something more are, in fact, universal.  Read twice.  Library.  [2.5] 

Graphic novel reviews G

A Game for Swallows - Zeina Abirached  [Graphic Universe]
In war-torn Beirut, two kids and their neighbors wait patiently amid the shelling for the children's parents to return from visiting their mother.  A poignant portrait of the kids' games, the food, and the people who try to keep life going amid death and chaos.  Ink-heavy black and white illustrations reminiscent of Persepolis.  [4]

Garlic And the Vampire - Bree Paulsen

Gear School - Adam Gallardo  [Dark Horse]
Teen girl in military flight training must step up when the aliens attack the base.  Far too short to have any weight; there is no character growth or sense of drama.  Detailed colorful art is marred at times by unnecessary anime shorthand.  [2]

Gender Queer: A Memoir - Maia Kobabe

Glitch - Sarah Graley

Giant Days - John Allison

Giants Beware! - Jorge Aguirre [First Second]
In a medieval village, a blacksmith's daughter runs away to fight giants, bringing her friend the wannabe princess and her baby brother, the aspiring chef.  Funny and silly.  The art is at times like Eric Powell, at times a cartoony Darwin Cooke.  For kids; got it from the library,  [3.5]  

Gods of Asgard - Erik Evensen  [Studio E3]

Gold Key Alliance - Phil Hester

The Golden Hour - Niki Smith

 

Green Hornet Year One - Matt Wagner

1. Vol. 1 - This volume tells how Britt Reid comes to be the Green Hornet and how his faithful partner Kato comes to meet him, while in the present (Chicago, 1938) they take on a nasty gangster with a scraped-up face, "Skid" Caruso.  Wagner adds a dash of humor and a heap of grit to his origin story.  He uses real historical fact (like the Rape of Nanking) to add color to the characters' backstories, and shows how Reid turns to vigilantism because he's stymied by the limits of the press.  It's all very well done, except for some egregious grammar and spelling erorrs ("emporer" twice, "you're English is coming along" — yikes).  [4]
   

Grendel, KY - Jeff McComsey

A grindhouse, southern-friend interpretation of Beowulf, with a pot farm standing in for the beleaguered castle and a tough as nails female biker standing in for the hero.  A Kentucky town is prosperous, for its land bears fertile weed crops, but at what cost?  When her biker gang is massacred and the town's secrets are laid bare, Marnie goes out for revenge.  This is a gritty but fun updating of the ancient tale, with terrific inky art.  [4]

Guts - Rana Telgemeier

Rana wakes up one day with a stomach ache and it doesn't go away.  Her fears and anxieties about puberty and other middle school joys compound the fact that she has developed irritable bowel syndrome and is prone to vomiting when stressed.  This is the story of how she tries to overcome her fears as well as her own body.  [4.5]