Shortcomings - Adrien Tomine

Shortcomings - Adrien Tomine

A black and white slice of life graphic novel set in the Bay Area.  It follows Ben Tanaka, a movie-theater manager, drifting apart form his girlfriend, Miko, who is involved in Asian-American organizations and art.  She suspects him of fetishizing blonde white girls.  He is indifferent to her flirtatious come-ons and spends his days looking at DVDs and venting to his only friend, Alice Kim, a sharp, socially confident lesbian who plays the field and occasionally punctures his self-image.  When Miko takes an internship in New York City for four months, Ben has no intention of accompanying her, and their already strained relationship threatens to break.  TTomine tells this story with his trademark minimalist precision: spare lines, controlled pacing, and a cool observational tone that lends the book a strong sense of realism.  But since Tanaka is such an unpleasant character — he is in fact all that his girlfriend accuses him of, and more, yet reacts to her suspicions, and Kim's mild criticisms with outright hostility — I finished the story with antipathy and a shrug, not admiration.

Hakim's Odyssey - Fabien Toulmé

Hakim's Odyssey - Fabien Toulmé

1. Book One: From Syria to Turkey - With simple, two-toned line drawings, Toulmé tells the story of Hakim, a young Syrian who owns a gardening store in Damascus.  After Assad comes to power, there are protests that are put down with brutal violence.  Hakim is picked up by the state police for helping some protesters. After being interrogated and tortured, he is released, but decides he must flee his business, family, and country.  Moving from Jordan to Antalya, Turkey, he discovers that life as a refugee consist of low wages, suspicion, and anger from the locals.  In Antalya, he marries a fellow refugee, then leaves with her family for Istanbul, where the book ends.  Especially gives the strongman tactics of the American wanna-be king, this is an important, chillingly relevant, and upsetting story.

 

Morning Glories - Nick Spencer

Morning Glories - Nick Spencer

Volume One -  The Breakfast Club, or maybe "Gossip Girl," meets Cthulhu.  The story opens in a prestigious boarding school, Morning Glory Academy, where six academically gifted but troubled teens arrive, and very quickly things seem eerie and off  The six characters find they all share the same birthday, and the teachers are adept at evading questions. Spencer leans into secrets, hidden agendas, and "something is very wrong here" energy.  The kids' cell phones lose signal, their parents claim not to remember their very existence, and the sinister teachers seem to have planned a series of deathtraps for the teens unless they toe the line.  However, I thought it was ultimately unsatisfying.  Spencer stirs a lot into the pot early on, including a set of murdered parents, with mysteries and questions building without immediate payoff.  I also found the characters thin and overly stereotyped, while the writing was of the self-conscious, quippy kind (think "Gilmore Girls" meets "West Wing") in a rapid-fire babble that doesn't match how anyone, let alone teens, talk.  "Our little suicide girl is your carrot on a stick, and they know it."  "This is Guantanamo Bay for the statutory set."  "Or we wave the white blouse and beg for clemency before these psychos get all Clockwork Orange-y with us."  Lines like that might dazzle in a writer's room, but no panicked teenager would ever say them. Joe Eisma's art is crisp and detailed, but I found it also glossy and flat, with little dynamism or depth, in that way matching the writing.  By the "shocking twist" on the final splash page, I found myself less intrigued than indifferent. The mystery may run deep, but the characters and dialogue never made me care enough to follow it further.  [3] 

The Bat-Man: First Knight - Dan Jurgens

The Bat-Man: First Knight - Dan Jurgens

Set in 1939, this story drops us back into Batman's formative nights, when he still had a hyphen, wore purple gloves, and relied on a handful of crude gadgets, a big red roadster, and raw nerve. There’s no Alfred, no Robin, just a grim vigilante stalking Gotham's alleys as the effects of the Great Depression lingers and the shadow of global war creeps closer.  A mysterious zealot called the Voice seeks to turn Gotham into an isolationist fortress, commanding an army of brutish, inarticulate "monster men"—reanimated corpses of recently killed men. With moral counsel from a sympathetic rabbi and some unexpected tenderness from a Hollywood starlet, the Bat-Man, still dismissed by most as a myth or a lunatic, fights to stop the Voice before the city is consumed by his madness.  It's a stylish throwback with pulp grit and surprising heart. [4.5]

 

Dark Night: A True Batman Story - Paul Dini

Dark Night: A True Batman Story - Paul Dini

Dini, a writer for Batman and Animaniacs, is brutally beaten and mugged, and uses his imagination to get through a difficult psychological healing process.  The determination and heroism of Batman in particular convinces him not to sink permanently into despair.  This is an honest, courageous tale, brought to life brilliantly by Eduardo Risso's art.  It's moving and troubling but at times funny and ultimately optimistic.  A real masterpiece.  [4.5]

Boy Wonder - Juni Ba

Boy Wonder - Juni Ba

Writer and artist Ba tells the story of Damian Wayne, the outsider whose brutal outlook seems to prevent him from fully joining the royal Bat-family: the king and his three adopted sons, brave and rageful and clever in turns.   Infusing the story of the Robins with Asian legend vibes, focusing on the confusion and need for acceptance of the skilled but antisocial Damian, and having one oddly unafraid hostage tell it like a fable to a confused robber, Ba has created an intriguing, quirky, and visually dynamic tale that stands out from the glut of Bat-books.  [4]

Spider-Woman - Steve Foxe

Spider-Woman (2024) - Steve Foxe

Gang War - Jessica Drew, just returned from being erased from the web of existence, searches for her lost baby with the help of the new Madame Web, Julia Carpenter.  But Diamondback and Hydra keep taunting her; they know something she doesn't, and it's not good news.  Hoping to clear her head, she goes to San Francisco, where she goes up against Hydra again, although a new group of young super-heroes seem to be defending the legal face of Hydra.  But there's more to these new heroes than meets the eye, and their suspicious past might have something to do with Drew's son.  This is very smart, fast-faced, fun super-hero action.  Foxe hits all the right notes, with humor, action, and even a little romance.  He uses a lot of history in his story, but makes it clear enough for a first-timer.  Brilliant stuff.  [4.5]

Walking Dead - Robert Kirkman

Good solid horror storytelling with lots of raw human emotion, but unrelentingly bleak.  Like getting repeatedly hit in the gut.  Makes you feel masochistic for reading.  Begs to be devoured, but the unceasing roller coaster of depression-rage-epiphany-hope-depression gets old after a while.

• Compendium Two - collects issues #49-96.  This tome begins with Rick and Carl alone again, everyone having scattered.  Gradually, they find Michonne, Maggie, Glenn, and Dale.  They meet up with the military man Abraham and the scientist Eugene.  They try to make a life on a farm until it gets overrun.  Carl gets shot, Morgan comes back, and they are recruited into a small town run by a pleasant but ineffective ex-politician leader called Douglas.  Rick becomes constable there, but his paranoia and rage cause a lot of waves.  Then they are approached by a man who leads them to a group of two hundred peaceable citizens, but they're under the thumb of a killer named Negan...
• Compendium Three - collects issues #97-144.   Most of this tome covers the bloody war with Negan and his Saviors.  Rick connects with two other large groups, the Kingdom and the Hilltop, and forms a still-uneasy alliance against Negan.  And although many in his camp are ready to turn on him for his penchant for exercising droit du seigneur and branding people, Negan still has some surprises in store.  I like the way Kirkman makes Negan a fully-fleshed character who has his own moral standards and isn't just a mindless brutal thug.  Once the war is over, the narrative jumps forward in time, and the three communities have built a civilization with boats, barter, stores, and even a fair.  But just when things are going great, they meet the Whisperers...
• Compendium Four - collects issues # #145 through #193.  There's a war with the Whsiperers, with many losses.  But Rick is determined not to lose his precious civilization.  Just when they start rebuilding, they encounter a new, advanced, and suspiciously vibrant community called the Commonwealth.  It seems like paradise, but Rick and Michonne soon see the flaws in the place and wonder if they should take over.  Then, when you least expect it, there's a time jump, and the series ends.

Power Pack: Outlawed - Ryan North

Power Pack: Outlawed (2020) - Ryan North

Five issues.  The Power siblings are told by the police that they, as crime-fighting minors, must have an adult mentor in order to operate (a silly, ineffective, and unenforceable law, but hey, comics), so they sign on with the implausibly good Agent Aether, who urges the kids to use tier powers to provide free electricity to under-served communities... but of course he turns out to have ulterior motives, and isn't who he claims to be.  With a little help from a special guest star (the mandatory one, bub), they try to get some of their own back from this mendacious mentee.  It's a little heavy on the North-brand silliness, but it's got heart and I enjoy when writers wink and hand-wave away some of comics' more over-the-top tropes anyway.  [4]

Monica - Daniel Clowes

A genre-blurring graphic novel that follows Monica, a woman trying to piece together her fragmented past and the mysterious disappearance of her mother, Penny, a counterculture figure who abandoned her during childhood.  The story unfolds across a series of interconnected chapters, each adopting a different genre—from war comics and horror to science fiction and supernatural noir—mirroring Monica's quest for identity and truth.  Along the way, she confronts conspiracy theories, strange cults, and elusive truths, from bizarre to banal, about family, love, and mortality.  I love the meticulously crafted art, each chapter rendered in a style that both honors and critiques the comic traditions it draws from.