Graphic novel reviews P

Peanut - Ayun Halliday [Schwartz & Wade]
A teenage girl in a new school decides to reinvent and distinguish herself by claiming a severe allergy to peanuts.  With mostly black and white, sketchy art (Sadie's shirt is colored throughout).  Has a good grasp on teen speech and social interaction; utterly clueless about how teachers think and talk.  Thoughtful and surprisingly potent emotionally.  [4]

Pedro And Me - Judd Winick  [Henry Holt]
The MTV reality television star turned cartoonist tells of how he met his future wife and best friend Pedro on the show.  Pedro became an AIDS activist and later died of the disease.  An honest, warm, harrowing, humorous, bittersweet tale.  Read several times, and it makes me cry like a baby every time.  [5]

Pests and Pets - Andy Warner

The Plain Janes - Cecil Castellucci  [Oni]
New girl at a suburban school mists some similarly-named misfits and they start a guerrilla art club.  More than the typical nerd-girl-wants-cute-boy tale there seem to be so many of these days; this story has several layers and contains a few unexpected turns. Clean black and white art.  Read twice. [4]

Planetary Brigade - Giffen & DeMatteis [Boom]

Poe Dameron - Charles Soule

• 1. Black Squadron
• 2. THE GATHERING STORM
• 3. Legend Lost - A Star Wars story.  The Alliance pilot and his squad try to find an old Jedi master.  Along the way they are constantly thwarted by Terex, an ex-Stormtrooper and now leader of the First Order.  Soule does a great job explaining the villain's backstory and motivation, and in fact it's nearly as much Terex's story as it is Poe's.  A bit rushed and out-there cosmic at first, but fun and well written when it hits its stride.  [3.5]

Pride of Baghdad - 

A lion escapes his zoo during a bombing of Baghdad.  Beautiful pictures.  [4]

Primates - Jim Ottaviani
A look at the adventures in science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birute Galdikas (who studied orangutangs).  Well researched and entertaining, with engaging cartoony color art.  [4] 

The Professor's Daughter - Joann Sfar  [First Second]
Translated from the French.  Surreal tale, at turns whimsical and nightmarish, about a walking mummy in Victorian England who falls in love with the titular professor's daughter.  When the pharaoh's father (also bandaged like a mummy) shows up, he brings trouble with him.  Dream-like and bizarre, but charming as well.  Detailed art in sketchbook style.  Read twice.  [4]

Project Superpowers Omnibus - Jim Kreuger &Alex Ross

A paean to the public domain heroes of the 1940s; collects two TPBs, issues #0-7 of chapter one, issue 1/2, and issues #0-7 of chapter two.

>After WWII, the Fighting Yank, acting on some apparent misinformation by his ancestor's ghost, traps all the heroes in a magical urn.  A new entity called the American Spirit tells the Yank, now old, to free the heroes.  But standing against him is the android Dynamic Man and his similarly inhuman family, and the shadowy organization above that.   In all, this story is an exercise in nostalgia, which is very cool, but it's not first-class writing, plot-wise.  [3.5]

>The second chapter takes place after the events shown in character-specific limited series, once the heroes have taken over the White House and started their quest to make America free.  The Supremacy will stop at nothing to damage the heroes' reputation and wipe them out, and their former sidekicsk, now freed, are against them as well.  In this section, Kreuger and Ross go beyond taking liberties with the characters and transform them, as well as giving a new and satisfying explanation for all that has come before.  This volume has more character development and a more exciting villain.  [3.5]

 

Project Superpowers: Blackcross - Warren Ellis

In a small Oregon town, a handful of disparate people find themselves haunted by voices telling them to do strange things.  These voices turn out to be the spirits of the old heroes — the Lady in Red, Black Terror, Pyroman, and some others — trying to escape from their captivity by merging with the bodies of those in the other universe.  Meanwhile, a very violent spirit, seen by the police as a serial killer, is set on imprisoning them.  It's a different take, all eerie and horror-noir; interesting, but with a rather abrupt ending.  [3.5]

Punisher - Matthew Rosenberg

1. War Machine Vol. 1 - Nick Fury tasks Frank with clearing out a dictator in a Slavic country, and helps him boost an old War Machine armor.  Frank does some ethnic cleansing.  Pretty brutal, with some wit.  [3.5] 
2. World War Frank - Out of the War Machine armor and back in New York, Frank is hunted by a few Defenders as well as Baron Zemo's men, not to mention the new Mandarin.  While I love to see Frank in this world, I'm not sure his holding his own against such enemies is easy to swallow.  Frank lands a blow on Iron Fist?  Seems iffy.  [3.5]
3. Street By Street, Block By Block - Frank teams up, reluctantly, with Sgt. Alves, Night Thrasher, Black Widow, Moon Knight, and Ghost Rider to take on Baron Zemo's collection of bad guys.  It sounds like it should be utterly wonderful madness, but somehow it's really just a confused mess.  There's very little in the way of explaining how Frank fits in among such powerhouses.  And frankly, writing Kingpin and Zemo as a pair of foul-mouthed squabblers is as silly as having Zemo's men wear Hydra suits under their UN disguises.  [3]
   

Punisher - Nathan Edmondson and Kevin Maurer

1. Black and White - Frank goes after a cartel boss that wants to destroy Los Angeles with a chemical weapon, but Electro stands in his way.  And if that wasn't enough, the modern day Howlin' Commandos have orders to take him down.  This is a terrific Punisher, sticking him smack dab in the Marvel universe and showing just how out of his element he can be.  He's tough against all human opponents, but the presence of the supers throws him a lot of curve balls.  Page-turning suspense.  [4.5] 
2. Border Crossing - Frank gets some information from a Central American prison, rescues an American special ops POW, and tangles with Crossbones.  Meanwhile the Howlin' Commandos are still on his tail, and they decide to go after his extended family!  This title continues to have the best Punisher in the Marvel Universe — as realistic as can be expected, gritty urban noir going on under the capes' radar.  [4.5]

PUNISHER MAX (10 volumes) - Garth Ennis
PUNISHER MAX: BORN
PUNISHER MAX: FROM FIRST TO LAST
PUNISHER MAX PRESENTS: BARRACUDA
The perfect Punisher, free of gadgetry and silliness; a grim unstoppable killing machine going up against real-world evils like women trafficking and the drug trade.  Entire run read twice. [5]  Keep.

Punisher War Journal
VOL 2: GOIN' OUT WEST - Matt Fraction
Handles Marvel Universe history capably, offers lots of tough guy ass-kicking action, makes time for occasional Big Talk about right and wrong and obsession and courage.  The second-best Punisher there is.  [4]

Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea - Guy Delisle
Translated from the French.  A Canadian animator's account of his supervision of Korean animators in Pyongyang.  Not exactly a startling expose, since Delisle was always with a minder or in the foreign-only compound, but a depressingly thorough look at what is visible: silent drone-like workers, translators who drank the Dear Leader punch, rusting monuments, empty theaters, propaganda, martial training on dummies made to look like American soldiers.  [3.5]