Top 5 Book Covers in 2021

My top 5 favorite book covers this year are the following:

Wrap-Up of the 12th Annual Manga/Graphic Novel Reading Challenge

I signed up to read 12 comics this year but more than met the challenge with 39 books. At one point I thought that I would go for 52 books but gave up on that. 22 of the comics were written by new (to me) authors. Here is what I read:

Parenthesis by Elodie Durand

Irmina by Barbara Yelin

Run by John Lewis

Trauma is Really Strange by Steve Haines

The Grand Odalisque by Ruppert and Mulot

Women Discoverers by Marie Monard

Primer by Jennifer Muro

Freiheit by Andrea Grosso Ciponte

Shadow Life by Hiromi Goto

Reckless by Ed Brubaker

Redfork by Alex Paknadel

The Banks by Roxane Gay

Idle Days by Thomas Delsaulniers

Hawking by Ottaviani and Myrick

Credo by Peter Bagge

Superman Smashes the Klan by Gene Luen Yang

Hand Me Down by Alex Paknadel

The Pull by Steve Orlando

Sentient by Jeff Lemire

Sara by Garth Ennis

Double Walker by Michael Conrad

Where We Live by Will Dennis

Red Team by Garth Ennis

Tunnels by Rutu Modan

Sweet Tooth Compendium by Jeff Lemire

Snow Angels by Jeff Lemire

The Waiting by Keum Suk Gentry-Kim

COVID Chronicles by Ethan Sacks

Home by Julio Anta

Fire by Peter Bagge

The Father of All Things by Sebastian Girner

Pound for Pound by Natalie Chaidez

Let's Not Talk Anymore by Weng Pixin

Night Train by Steve Foxe

Rebecca and Lucie by Pascal Girard

Factory Summers by Guy Delisle

Hailstone by Rafael Scavone

The All Nighter by Chip Ddarsky and Jason Loo

Favorite Book:  Tunnels

2nd Favorite Book:  The Waiting 

3rd Favorite Book:  The Grand Odalisque

Least Favorite Book:  Snow Angels

Hailstone

The Hailstone edition I purchased contains issues 1 through 5 of a comic book series. I loved it.  The story follows Sheriff Denton Ross who is investigating the disappearance of a girl in an isolated town in Montana called Hailstone. With few police officers on his staff to help, Denton enlists the assistance of soldiers in the nearby military factory. The factory supplies the Union Army with weapons but after Denton sneaks in to the camp, he thinks something else might be going on there. He is pressured by the townspeople to look into the camp because they don't have much food to eat but the military officers have plenty. Denton's deputy Tobias sneek back in to determine what the factory is actually producing all while searching for the missing girl, Mary, who is the 4th young girl to disappear. I have never liked westerns, but Hailstone is a great read. 

The All Nighter

The All Nighter is a comic book series by Chip Zdarsky and Jason Loo. It is the story of four vampires who operate an all night diner. The vampires look like humans but they never age. The third installment of this 5 ebook series will be published next week on November 30, 2021. In February 2022 a print edition of the series will be published that contains numbers 1 through 5 of the series. It is a fabulous story and the author is talking with Amazon Studios to develop The All Nighter into a movie. Per the Head of Content for Comixology, Chip Mosher, the story is about the importance of found family and the dangers of pretending to be someone other than who you are.

Alex, Joy, Cynthia and Ian have agreed to blend into human society by operating the diner. It is only open from sunset to sunrise. The group is not allowed to go out in public because they do not want humans to know that they exist. Alex, however, is bored flipping burgers and is dying to get outside and be himself.  He dreams of being a superhero. Joy is a woman trapped in a child's body who wants to be seen for what she is. Cynthia is a former high powered business executive who wants the respect that the used to command. Ian is the leader of the group and he just wants a simpler life. Their identity remains secret within the restaurant and all of them try to not give in to their thirst for blood. 

The comic is a fun workplace comedy as well as a superhero epic. Two police officers are regular customers and they offer some smiles with their own comedy act. Alex, who loves superhero movies, decides to go outside during his shift, don a cape and start fighting bad guys. Unfortunately, his trip gets noticed by The Takers, an organization that will kill any vampire who becomes noticed by humans. Ian and Cynthia do their best to hide Alex's activities when they are visited by Frankenstein from The Takes. 

A great read!  5 out of 5 stars.

Tunnels

Rutu Modan is one of my favorite comic writers. Tunnels is her 4th graphic novel to be published. She also teaches at Bezalel Academy of Art & Design in Jerusalem.  In Tunnels we read about a race to find the Ark of the Covenant in underground tunnels on the Palestinian side of Israel. When a big antiquities collector is forced to donate his entire collection to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Nili Broshi sees her last chance to finish an archeological expedition begun by her father decades earlier. She believes that the dig will locate the Jewish Ark of the Covenant, the most important artifact in the Middle East. Motivated by a desire to reinstate her father's legacy as a great archeologist after a rival accepted the tenure her father earned, Nili gathers a ragtag crew to help her: a religious nationalist, her traitor brother and her childhood Palestinian friend. As Nili's father slips further and further into dementia, warring factions close in on and fight over the Ark. The author believes that the biblical Israel lies in one of the most disputed regions in the world, occupied by Israel and contested by Palestine.  Often in direct competition, Israelis and Palestinians dig alongside one another, hoping to find the sacred artifact which is believed to be a conduit to God.  

Tunnels is a great adventure story.  It delves into the world of Israeli archeology, the rivalry in academia and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  As the author stated in her Afterword, Tunnels is the most complex story she has ever written. The story grabbed me from the beginning. I knew that it was fiction but everything seemed so real. Perhaps this is because the characters have both good and bad attributes, just like the rest of us. There are plenty of twists and turns in the story for mystery readers as well. In addition, there are a few subplots that add to the story.  For instance, Nili believes that a tablet uncovered by an antiquities dealer, who buys from ISIS, will uncover the place where the Ark is located. Someone has to be able to decipher what the tablet says, though. 

The pacing of the comic is perfect. It is a brilliant story with awesome illustrations by the author.  I am so glad that Ishai Mishory translated this book into English so that I could enjoy it.  Tunnels is a fabulous read.  5 out of 5 stars.

Home

I have just read Home #1 through #5 and it is fantastic. It is the story of a mother and son who leave Guatemala on foot and enter the U. S. illegally. Mercedes Gomez and eight year old Juan do not speak English and are surprised to find out the there is a new American president who has closed the border. When they left Guatemala two weeks prior, Obama was still the president. President Trump immediately changed the rules concerning immigration when he took office but Mercedes did not know about the rule changes. Throughout their first 2 weeks in America they were held in "the cage" as it was called. Later Juan was taken away and held with other kids. Shortly thereafter he was bussed to another location. Mercedes did not know where her son was taken and offered to return to Guatemala if she could get Juan back. However, she was told that it was too late. 

While this story was sad, it has its positive moments. Soon after arriving in the US, Juan discovers that he has supernatural powers. While living with an aunt he begins to learn how to control his power. When Juan finds out that his mother will be deported, his powers get out of control again and bring devastation to . . . I'm not going to tell you. If you haven't read this comic series yet, you need to get it ASAP. It is a great story.

The Waiting

The Waiting is a fictional account of the life of the author's mother. The story is set in Korea before, during and after the Korean War in both North and South Korea. When Gwija was 17 her family rushed to marry her off because they had heard that the Japanese occupiers were seizing unmarried girls. However, Japan soon fell and Korea gained its independence. Gwija began having children and while she was on the run out of North Korea she became separated from her husband and young son. While she searched for them for days, Gwija soon realized that if she didn't leave them behind that she would be stuck in the North. Seventy years later, daughter Jina decides to help her mother locate her lost son as well as a lost sister. She is hopeful that a program that unites families from both countries for a day will select Gwija into the program. Most of the narrative of this graphic novel focuses on Gwija's march south. American jets overhead shot at the refugees, increasing the desperation of the migrants. 

The author's first graphic novel, Grass, dealt with the women who were taken by the Japanese soldiers during WWII. The history of Korea continues with The Waiting. Both stories are heartbreaking. Here we read about the pain people felt over the separation of their country and, fortunately, before this older generation passes into history. Most Koreans are much younger and do not understand what it feels like to be separated from your family. The story is quite sad but is informative for those of us lucky to not have experienced what the author calls the "wounds of war."  

5 out of 5 stars.

COVID Chronicles

Covid Chronicles is an anthology of short comic strips by 65 cartoonists about the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is serious material and sometimes seemed to be too dark for my taste. However, it is important to have this snapshot of life in this pandemic for future generations. We read about working from home frivolity, teaching kids at home, relatives dying, empty grocery shelves and lots of drawings of people dead in their beds. The only other comic anthology that I can remember being similar to Covid Chronicles is A Fire Story edited by Brian Fies. It was also hard to read. A Fire Story was an anthology of comic strips about the Northern California wildfires in 2017. Both books are filled with overwhelming negative emotions that the reader needs to take a breather while reading them.

Parenthesis

Parenthesis is Elodie Durand's debut graphic novel. It is a memoir of five years of her life suffering from tumor induced epilepsy. The author changes her name, calling herself Judith, but it is her story and she wrote it ten years after it occurred. After finishing all her classes for a master's degree, Elodie only had her thesis to write. She began having momentary spells that continued to be spells of several minutes. Soon she was having multiple seizures daily that increased in length as well as period of recovery. She moved back in with her parents who eventually even had to dress her. Elodie had severe memory loss that lasted weeks. Her neurologist recommended her for gamma knife brain surgery which she underwent a few months later. However, she continued to get worse. There is a recovery but in my mind getting there was worse than the descent into darkness. Elodie had to deal with cerebral edema that comes with this type of surgery. 

The author does a great job of describing what life was like when she was barely conscious. I felt as though as I was there with her, something that I have not felt when reading stories of those who are dealing with cancer or paralysis. Her drawings also show the darkness of her memories from when she was barely awake. It is interesting that there was an awareness of something going on but she couldn't put her finger on what is was.  Elodie's story is moving, scary and gripping all at the same time. The choice of a title for the book is perfect: her normal life was interrupted by the opening of a parenthesis that she was not sure would ever close.

5 out of 5 stars. 

Run

The beginning of John Lewis's political career is the subject of Run, Book One. However, he passed away before the book was finished. 90% of the book was completed and approved by him before his death. I am presuming that there will not be a Book Two since he has died.  

To John Lewis, the civil rights movement came to an end with the signing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. By that time he had served for more than 5 years as a leader of the movement.  He led sit-ins, marches and was an original Freedom Rider.  Lewis also served as the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee for several years, spoke at MLK's March on Washington and co-lead a march from Selma to Montgomery on Bloody Sunday.  Run begins where March 3 ends. Lewis recounts the highs and lows of fighting to harness the legal protections that are now law. However, the Vietnam War presents a challenge for an electorate that becomes consumed by the images on their TV screens and soon forgets about the civil rights movement.

The artwork is amazing.  Nate Powell had to draw his scenes from the reference of thousands of newspaper and magazine photographs. However, he had to make them historically accurate while also needing to change the angle of the drawings to fit the comic format. In addition, he had to comb through online listings of objects that he was not familiar with, such as period appropriate typewriters, so he would know what the looked like. Powell also researched how people dressed in the 1960s so that the characters' age, occupation and socioeconomic status was accurate for the time period. This sounds like a monumental task for someone who did not live through this era.  

The boldness of John Lewis' story captured this reader's attention. Everything written into the comic was so serious that sometimes it felt like information overload, even though the information was necessary to tell this true story. His vision regarding what was important enough to be included in the book is probably what makes all of his comics such good reading.  Lewis was so good at this that I believe he missed a calling as an author too late in his life. 

Run is another fantastic comic detailing events in the civil rights movement.  I wish that these comics would not end with Run because they tell this story in vivid detail.  5 out of 5 stars.

Let's Not Talk Anymore

Let's Not Talk Anymore portrays 5 generations of women from the author's family in a graphic memoir. Their stories are told from when they were all fifteen years old. In 1902 the author's great-grandmother Kuan's life is told. In 1947 her grandmother Mei's story is told and in 1972 her mother Bing is portrayed. In 1998 author Pixin’s own life is shown and in 2032 the author's imaginary daughter Rita's life is given. These stories alternate back and forth in time and span a century. 

Weng Pixin's lineage is full of sorrow. Great-grandmother Kuan is sent away from her family in China to Singapore, grandmother Mei's mother allowed her to be adopted by a neighbor to help with the housework, Bing's father left the family home, while Pixin feels isolated from her mother. Through these generational traumas, fractured relationships are passed down from mother to daughter every generation. It all seemed sad to me. These ladies were miserable but tried to hide their feelings. I am not sure why but I wonder if this is a way for the Chinese to save face? 

The artwork was drawn in colorful comic book panels. It was a little hard to tell the difference between the women given that they look alike. Weng Pixin changed the facial coloring and hair styles to distinguish them from one another. She used an interesting mixed media approach to the drawings by using poster paint, oil pastels and watercolors. The style of the drawings is simple, almost childlike. 

My main takeaway from the book is that the way in which each of us handle adversity comes from imitating the way our elders handled it. This is a depressing thought because it seems that we are all doomed to repeat mistakes from the past. I liked that the last nine pages were of butterflies ready for flight. Perhaps there is a silver lining in every family's story.

3 out of 5 stars.

Rebecca & Lucie

Rebecca & Lucie in the Case of the Missing Neighbor is a charming murder mystery in comic book format. Amateur sleuth Rebecca Girard is on maternity leave and breastfeeding her baby when she sees two men carrying something heavy into a white minivan. When she finds out that a man from her neighborhood, Eduardo Morales, has gone missing, Rebecca decides to look into the matter.  Eduardo had been working as a caregiver to an elderly man in Rebecca's neighborhood and many of her neighbors knew him. Rebecca's investigation is unique. She performs it while juggling to carry her 8 month old baby Lucie everywhere she goes.

As a murder mystery, this story has all of the features of a literary novel. We have a unique amateur sleuth, a crime, and several suspects. We also have several twists in the plot to confuse the reader. The suspension of belief surrounding Rebecca as a detective is not hard to fall into, mainly because this is a comic. However, I believe that the author came up with a creative idea for a sleuth. From the title "in the case of the missing neighbor" it appears that this story may end up being a series. I hope so as this was a fun read.

The book is advertised as a "maternity leave mystery complete with postpartum physiotherapy." How awesome is that! I loved reading this book and am rating it 5 out of 5 stars.

Factory Summers

Factory Summers is another great autobiography from cartoonist Guy Delisle. He has written several travelogues from following his wife to Jerusalem, Pyongyang, Shenzen and Burma while she worked with Medecins Sans Frontieres. Here, we have the story of Delisle's four summers as a teenager working for a pulp and paper factory in Quebec City where he grew up.

Factory Summers has alot of dry humor within its pages. Delisle describes his co-workers as sexist, telling dirty jokes on a daily basis. As a union employee myself, I can say they are typical union workers. LOL. If they can find a way to relax on the job, they do it. It's not that they are forgoing the hard work their jobs demand. These fellows work with huge machines that require constant cleaning up and fixing and the areas they are located in have no air conditioning. There is danger of getting hurt every day. The factory was built in 1927 and there had not been any changes to the building or the machinery over the years. This was an antiquated system that Delisle was dealing with. With 12 hours shifts required 6 days a week, I doubt that he would be allowed to work here as a youth if the factory was in the U.S. I thought it was a cruel job for a sixteen-year-old kid and cannot believe he did the work without questioning the rules. If it was me working there, I would have filed a complaint with OSHA for unsafe working conditions.

The story itself was well told. The monotony of the work days are shown by both dialogue and drawings. The only reprieve the author had was by drawing comics and making plans to attend animation school in Toronto. His relationship with his father, who got him the job, is also a part of the story. The book opens with Delisle having his annual visit with his father, divorced from his mother, and ends with his death. The relationship frames these summers working at the same plant his father worked at. 

I highly recommend this one. 5 out of 5 stars.

Sweet Tooth Compendium

I was excited to get the Sweet Tooth compendium edition for my birthday last month. I had heard that this edition sold out on its publication date three months ago so imagine my surprise to receive it in the mail. Being late to comics, I hadn't previously read this story. The Compendium contains all 40 issues of the comic. The covers for each issue are also included in the book. 

Sweet Tooth takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where some of the characters are human/animal hybrids. The main  character is a young boy named Gus, a half human, half deer hybrid. He has antlers growing out of his forehead and is a chocoholic. Gus has been raised by his Bible thumping father in isolation after a manmade pandemic that began ten years earlier. When his father dies Gus is on his own. He soon meets Jepperd, a drifter who promises to help him. The two of them begin a journey into a devastated American landscape in order to locate The Preserve, a refuge for kids who are hybrids.  

The Compendium Edition, published by DC Comics, has been printed on semi-glossy paper. The pages are glued to the cover. I wish that it had been smyth-sewn because it's 915 pages will probably come loose. However, it was certainly put together better than my Saga Compendium, published by Image, and the GSM of the paper is higher.

This comic is going to look good on my bookshelf. I love to see these chunky books lined up in a row. I am rating Sweet Tooth 5 out of 5 stars.

The Father of All Things

The Father of All Things is another TKO Shorts horror comic. This one was written by Sebastian Girner, editor-in-chief of TKO Studios. Here we have a war story taking place in 1914. WWI is raging when Georg, an idealistic fourteen year old German boy, is caught up with patriotic fervor and lies about his age to get in the army. Georg wants to defend his country but is unprepared for the horrors of war.  He quickly becomes sorry that he enlisted when he sees fellow soldiers shot and killed. While sitting in the trenches Georg finds an unexplored tunnel and crawls his way through it. When he gets to the end of the tunnel he crawls out and meets a monster. Who is the monster? God? The devil? Someone else? Read the comic to find out. It's a thought provoking story.

   

Night Train

Night Train is a TKO Short comic by Steve Foxe. It is the story of a ten year old youngster named Neal whose family moves to a new home to add space for a new baby to be born into the family. The home is noisy because it is located under a train track. Neal's baby brother drives him insane by screaming all night and cannot sleep. His parents are not handling the new addition well either. Neal begins to see a spectral train with a ghost for a conductor. When the ghost offers to take Neal's baby brother away, Neal cannot resist the offer. However, when Neal wakes up he is not sure if he really gave his brother away, if he dreamed it all up or whether he is just daydreaming.

Night Train is part of a three short comic release by TKO Presents that they published in November 2020. The illustrations by Lisandro Estherren and coloring by Patricio Delpeche add to the supernatural feeling of the story. They visually appear dreamlike.  The comic is only 10 pages long but contains a well plotted horror story that I thoroughly enjoyed.

5 out of 5 stars.

Hand Me Down

Hand Me Down is a TKO Short comic by Alex Paknadel. It follows the lives of Reuben and Lyra who are on the brink of divorce when Reuben gets promoted at work. In keeping with Reuben's desire for a different lifestyle they move to a glitzy new neighborhood in order to keep up with the Joneses. The couple are invited to a risqué soiree hosted by Reuben's boss Magnus who wants his guests to enjoy the darker side of life. When Lyra realizes that the attendees are part of a secretive society that swaps partners she quickly leaves the party and goes home. When Reuben comes home Lyra sees that he is a changed person and not for the good.

Hand Me Down is part of TKO Presents second wave of shorts published earlier this year. While only 19 pages, it is still a compelling horror story with an unexpected twist at the end. Check it out. After all, it's only $2.99.

5 out of 5 stars.

Fire

Fire is a graphic biography of Zora Neale Hurston, an African American writer in the early twentieth century best known for her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston challenged the norms of what was expected of an African American woman. She was the fifth of eight children from a Baptist family in Alabama. Her writing ability blossomed while she was a student at Howard University in Washington DC and then at Barnard College where she was the only black student. When she arrived in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance she found herself surrounded by peers such as poet Langston Hughes. Hurston later became a noted folklorist and critically acclaimed novelist. Despite her achievements, in order to make money she frequently had to resort to becoming a maid. Hurston was largely forgotten by the end of her life in 1960.

Let me say right off the bat that many people will not like, or even approve of this comic because the author has used dialogue that was the black slang common in the American South at the time of Hurston's life. Peter Bagge may have decided to use this type of language because Hurston was a folklorist whose books used this type of slang in her writing. I don't know specifically why he chose this route. Hurston made several anthropological trips throughout the South gathering information for her book and used this language in her book on folklore. I found it difficult to accept the dialogue and some of the illustrations, given the political correctness of our day.

That said, the book gave an in depth perspective of Hurston's life. She had plenty of ups and downs, many of which were due to Jim Crow laws. However, she had an indelible spirit. Nothing kept her down for long. She had a stick-to-it-iveness that helped her persevere over several years to get an education. I think many people would have given up but Zora relentlessly pursued her goals regardless of societal rules. 

Peter Bagge included forty pages of notes concerning his sources at the end of the book detailing every fact he presented in the comic. It is interesting reading and helps the reader to obtain context of the era in which Hurston lived. 

Stacking the Shelves

Stacking the Shelves meme is hosted by the Reading Reality blog. It was originally hosted by the Team Tynga's Reviews blog and now is solely hosted by Reading Reality.  

What books am I stacking my Kindle with this week?  Fire!!: the Zora Neale Hurston Story has been on my wishlist since it was published in 2017. Zora was an African American woman who challenged the norms of the early twentieth century society. While born in poverty to a Baptist family in Alabama in the 1890s, she was able to apply herself at school and attended Howard University as well as Barnard College, where she was the only black student. When she arrived in New York City during the height of the Harlem Renaissance she found herself among peers such as poet Langston Hughes. Zora became a noted folklorist and novelist. Her most well known book was Their Eyes Were Watching God. Despite her successes, Zora was continually having to accept maid jobs in order to support herself.

I think Fire is going to be a terrific read!

Can't Wait Wednesday

Can't Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we are excited about that we have yet to read.  Generally, they are books that have yet to be released. It's based on Waiting on Wednesday hosted by the Breaking the Spine blog. 

Having perused the Drawn and Quarterly publisher site yesterday, I am anxiously awaiting my next payday so that I can purchase the newest book by cartoonist Guy DeLisle Factory Summers. The graphic novel was published in June 2021. The story is autobiographical and chronicles DeLisle's job at a pulp and paper factory in Montreal when he was sixteen years old. He worked 12 hour shifts in a hot, noisy building. DeLisle was one of the few young people working at the all male factory and only got the job because his father worked a white collar job on the upper floors of the building. His father worked 9 to 5 while his son had to work 12 hours at a time. On his day off DeLisle found refuge in his art and comics. 

I own every book Guy DeLisle has written.  He is primarily known for his travelogues to North Korea, China, Burma and Jerusalem where he followed his wife on her medical missions to these countries. They are pretty amusing as he is a househusband, taking care of the kids and home.  DeLisle won several awards for his book Jerusalem.

Pound for Pound

Underground MMA fighter Dani Libra fears nothing except her recurring blackouts that obscure her bloody past. She is an immigrant from Mexico but when her sister is kidnapped, Dani must return there in order to find her. In the process she must shine a light on the darkness in her mind from the blackouts and keep her demons at bay long enough to save her sister.

Pound for Pound is a fantastic crime thriller with plenty of twists and turns. Dani is a badass woman with a zest for winning. She gets herself involved in many violent fights in order to get what she wants.  Dani is a great character. Her blackouts are primarily obscuring a violent crossing into the U. S. from Mexico that was undertaken when she was young. Her parents passed away in the crossing and Dani and her sister were luckily adopted by a stranger. 

This emotion filled story is complimented by the artwork. The reader can see Dani's emotions when she tenses her face, arms and legs and also when she has tears and blood flowing out of her mouth after being struck. The punches during the fights are also accentuated by the drawings as well as with the words "crack," "ugh" and "whack." 

There is some politicking here on the issue of immigration from Mexico into the U. S. that I don't think added much to the story. The main point of the comic is to tell a crime story. With several villains in Mexico featuring in the plot, the reader picks up enough about the current thoughts on Mexican immigration that we do not need narrative or dialogue on the subject.

Pound for Pound is a great read!  5 out of 5 stars. 

Snow Angels

Snow Angels is a 10 part digital ebook by Jeff Lemire which is still continuing to be published. I have read Season One and Season Two of this post-apocalyptic story of survival in a harsh winter wilderness area. The area is called The Trench. It is an endless canyon carved into the ice where a few people have survived. However, the residents all know that something awful will happen if one of them leaves the trench. The inhabitants of the Trench do not know how they were settled there and they have survived by never leaving it. The plot follows the activities of two girls, Milliken, 12 and her younger sister Mae Mae. When their father took them on an overnight skate down the trench for a coming of age ritual to teach them how to fish in the frozen river and how to show respect to their gods, The Colden Ones, he woke up The Trench's deadly defender, the Snowman. During a fight with the Snowman, their father was killed and the girls found themselves on their own.

I found the plot to be mediocre. It was hard to maintain interest in the comic but because I paid for it, I was determined to finish it. While the setting was magnificent, I did not connect with any of the characters. Neither of the girls interested me.  The father was the most compelling character because he carried the secrets of The Trench.  I wanted to know what those secrets were but he did not tell most of the secrets himself. After his death, the girls wandered and eventually discovered what all of the secrets were but this came at the end of the story just about on the last page. There was no lead up to the discovery which could have created some suspense. It fell flat. The illustrations were good and reflected the icy conditions of this wilderness area.  Illustrator Jock added iciness to the pages of the comic by the use of dark, dreary blues that really looked like ice and complimented the setting.

These stories are either hit or miss.  This one was a miss for me. 2 out of 5 stars.

Sara

In the cold winter of 1942, the second winter in the siege of Leningrad, Soviet sniper Sara and her seven female comrades are fighting against the Nazi invaders. At this point in the war the Russians are losing the battle. As the fighting intensifies, Sara's squad wonders if they can survive the turbulence of war. As women they know what will happened to them if they are taken prisoner and all of them vow not to be taken alive. The women try to make headway in the war by effecting one kill at a time. Sara is the undisputed best sniper. She has become a legend in the minds of the Nazis, which the sniper team learned about from a German prisoner of war. The Germans say she has killed over 300 soldiers but Sara disputes the number. 

This is a classic war story. The book combines six issues of a comic by the same name and it is based on a true story. We see the horrors of war here with our heroine booby trapping dead Nazi soldiers with grenades. When the Nazis find these bodies they will turn them over, activating the grenade and killing themselves. It's an easy way for Sara's kill numbers to rise.  We also see the Sara character changing as the war continues during the year.  When the village that her family resides in is destroyed by the Nazis, she becomes totally focused on killing as many of them as she can. She becomes a ruthless and efficient killer. We also see Sara talking to herself as she focuses her gun on the Nazi soldiers that she plans on killing. She takes her time before firing to ensure that her position is not spotted by Nazi snipers and becoming a target herself. 

Sara is an impressive narrative of soldier's lives fighting for survival on the Eastern Front in WWII.  5 out of 5 stars.

Idle Days

Idle Days is the story of Jerome Beauvais, a deserter from the Canadian Forces during WWII. After his defection his mother sends him to live with his grandfather in a remote house in the woods. Jerome is helping his grandfather renovate the house. After learning that the prior owner killed herself and set fire to the place, Jerome sets out to learn all that he can about the history of the home.  While Jerome works on the house, he feels more and more isolated. He has to remain hidden from the neighbors lest he be discovered. There are posters around town offering a cash reward for turning in deserters. Listening to the radio daily with his grandfather, Jerome's ghosts from combat appear and haunt his thoughts. 

Idle Days is an engaging story.  The reader can feel Jerome's pain but I could not help but dislike him. Because he was serving in WWII, a war much more important than Vietnam, Korea and some others, I did not like that he deserted his post. WWII was a war over the continuation of life as we knew it. No one should have declined to serve. Including women. That said, this is a well told story. Many of the comic book panels did not have dialogue and it was easy to "read" what was the meaning contained in them. The dialogue itself presented Jerome's inner thoughts ably. Although Jerome's conversation with his grandfather was stilted, I thought that the combination of their dialogue with the illustrations was executed skillfully.

The artwork was drawn in comic book panels and colored in deep dark oranges, reds and browns. I presume that  illustrator Simon Leclerc used this pallette to enhance the sense of isolation that Jerome was feeling. Even when Jerome was walking in the open forest, he felt the confinement of the darkness in the forest during the rare evenings when he left the cabin.  

  

Idle Days is a fantastic graphic novel.  I highly recommend it to comic book fans. 5 out of 5 stars.

Double Walker

I found Double Walker confusing while I read it. The author states at the end of the book that is a story based on his fears and anxieties. The story opens with Cully and Gemma, a couple who are watching their carefree, childless days coming to an end. Gemma is pregnant with their first child. They decide to take one final trip before the birth and travel to the Scottish Highlands where a bizarre string of murders is occurring. What was confusing for me was the plethora of Scottish fairy tales discussed among the characters. It was hard to tell what was myth and what was really happening. The residents of the island spoke alot about the fairies as real people and the fairies taking babies away so that they can replace them. After I read a few reviews of the comic I understood the plot premise better and reread the book. It then made sense.  

My feelings for the book are mixed. Once I understood what was happening I liked it but the fact that I had to go online to figure this one out is a big negative for me. It's horror, fantasy and myth combination is not what I typically read, hence my confusion. However, I know that many comic fans are going to love it so I am not going to rate this book. You either like this genre or you don't. I will let you, the reader, decide.

Red Team Volume 1

Volume One, Season One contains parts 1 through 7 of Garth Ennis' Red Team comic. It is an engaging murder mystery that also portrays police corruption. Red Team is the story of four members of a Major Crimes Unit in the New York Police Department. Eddie Mellinger, Trudy Giroux, Duke Wylie and George Winburn have been very successful catching drug lords and other crooks with their meticulous surveillance.  However, they have been unsuccessful for two years in their pursuit of drug dealer Clinton Days. In the process they eliminated most of Days' competition. When the team finds out that Days has arranged the murder of a fellow NYPD cop, they decide to kill him. After the murder, the group meets and decides to continue killing suspects but only the worst ones in the city. These are the criminals who would probably kill many other people.

Red Team is a good book for sitting back and unwinding after a busy day. The story pulled me in from the start and kept me reading until I was finished. With the suspense level ratcheted up in each section, the pace was exceptionally fast. The reader does not get to know the characters much as the plot action takes precedence over character development. It is, simply, a great crime fiction story.

Cop story lovers will want to read this. 5 out of 5 stars.  

The Pull

The Pull is a sci-fi comic book series written by Steve Orlando. It contains comics 1 through 6 in this one graphic novel format. The Pull is part of TKO Studios' third wave of complete comic book miniseries that they published in November, 2020. Artist Ricardo Lopez and colorist Triona Farrell also contributed to this comic. 

When the unstoppable cosmic force of the Undoer threatens the existence of Earth, Brenton Demm, a disgraced government agent, must shake off a lifetime's worth of regret if he is going to save everyone. Demm is one of Earth's thirteen super-science police, and with his ex-wife Gayano Tith, they are Earth's only hope for survival. With days left until the Undoer swallows the Earth, Tith can stop the Undoer as long as Demm can keep her alive. However, there is a catch. Ever since Demm's glory hounding caused a disaster that killed hundreds and put Earth on the Undoer's radar, he's been clinically incapable of giving a damn. Disaffected, corrupt, but still looking for a glint of hope in his last days, Demm finds it when Tith tells him the world doesn't have to end. Demm just has to get back to work. 

There is a political message here. The story concerns what happens when people refuse to deal with the effects of fossil fuels on our planet, referred to as "hard heat" in the story. Demm, as one of the thirteen police officers, is empowered by a newly discovered energy source called marbleite. Tith finds out that the energy marbleite releases will undoubtedly attract the attention of the Undoer, who wants to end all life on earth. Tith's father cannot handle the dread of annihilation so he forms a doomsday cult and makes plans for the cult to commit mass suicide.  Demm tries to stop the plan but is unable and he is traumatized by the experience. The story then picks up one year later when the earth has six days left before the Undoer ends life as we know it. The characters in the story discuss whether they can continue forging a future given the current dark times and with street drug usage at an all time high. Of course the street drug in this story is a little funky and is called the "big finish."  The drug brings about a "sexual euthanasia that brings user's lives to a climactic end." The characters are, essentially, f'ing themselves to death.

I enjoyed the story but did not like being preached to. Even though I agree with the political message, The Pull went too far with its spreading of the gospel.  3 out of 5 stars.

The Banks

Roxane Gay's The Banks is a heist thriller in comic book form. The Banks are a family of thieves from the South Side of Chicago and include married couple Melvin and Clara, their daughter Cora and their granddaughter Celia, an investment banker.  Their philosophy is to get in, get out, get paid and don't get greedy.  They are the most successful thieves in the city.  When Celia, who has long turned her back on her family, comes across a great idea for the heist of all heists it brings together three generations to determine whether it is feasible.

The Banks is a fun read. I especially loved the illustrations and coloring. The story begins in 1972 and I remember the fashions and hair styles well. It's what made me read the comic twice before writing a review. Ming Doyle drew the illustrations and Jordie Bellaire did the coloring. The colors that Bellaire used are all cool jewel tones which I found attractive. 

The Banks family accurately reflects the the time and place of the story. All three of the Banks women are products of the era in which they were born. Clara and Celia have a particularly rough relationship as Celia wants to be an honest worker in a high paying career while Clara didn't feel she had many options for a career. Celia is an investment banker and her grandmother tells her that being a thief is not as bad as being an investment banker.  Cora tells Celia that Celia steals from more people than Clara and steals much more money. Thus, Clara is more honest than her granddaughter. While the heist itself is prominent, these three characters are a major part of the story. 

Highly recommended!  5 out of 5 stars. 

Reckless

Reckless is part one of a new comic book series by Ed Brubaker. Part 2, Friend of the Devil, was published last month and the third and final part will be published later this year. Reckless follows a man named Ethan Reckless. He has a home business where he fixes your problems, for a price. If someone owes you money, he will get you the money. If someone stole your artwork, he will get it back. It is something that he fell in to after helping out a few friends. His jobs increased due to the spread of word of mouth and after 2 years Ethan decided that it would be his career. The setting is 1980s Los Angeles where sex and drugs were rampant. However, Ethan's past as a radical in the 1960s comes back to haunt him when a former girlfriend, Rainy, asks for his help. She has been running from the law ever since she took part in a bombing for the Weathermen group. It's funny that Ethan Reckless is considered the good guy in this comic.  When compared to some of the people he does business with Ethan seems likable but he is clearly breaking the law just as his clients are.  

The artwork was drawn by Sean Phillips and colored by Jacob Phillips. The dark color palettes used are monotone. For me, it was a little depressing. There are a few pages colored in oranges which I liked better. I prefer that the artwork be lighter but I must admit that the Phillips duo matched the feel of the story.  

Having come of age in the 1960s, Reckless was a trip down memory lane. I enjoyed reading about the chaos of the times and even was proud of the "work" the Weatherman group was doing. Today, I view their activities as domestic terrorism but back in the day, they were cool. Also, I hate to admit that I used to dress the way Rainy dressed.  

All comic fans are going to love this graphic novel. I highly recommend it.  5 out of 5 stars.

Redfork

The advertisement that I read for Redfork went as follows:  "Ex-con Noah McGlade returns to find his coal mining hometown of Redfork to be blighted by opioid use and economic decline. But there is something even darker draining the life from this town. As Noah digs deeper he unearths a dormant horror that threatens to consume what little he has left to live for." I was not expecting to read a dark supernatural horror comic but that's what I got. Obviously I missed the clues in the description.

Tragedy follows Noah upon his return to his hometown. His younger brother gets trapped in a mine and his daughter, who suffers from asthma, cannot get medical attention becauseshe is not insured. When a scab miner, Gallowglass, rescues Noah's brother during a strike, he sets up the townspeople against Amcore. Amcore is an energy giant in the country and owns the mine. 

This comic has alot of foul language, even too much for me. The artwork  reflects the horror story that is Redfork. The pages are colored in dark blues, greens and purple and supernatural creatures abound. This type of comic is not my cup of tea but other readers may enjoy it. It had a detailed plot and character development so I hate to give the book a poor rating just because Redfork is not the type of book I enjoy.  I will leave that up to other reviewers.

Superman Smashes the Klan

I don't read superhero comics very often. When one of my favorite comic writers publishes one, I read it. I have loved all of Gene Luen Yang's books. Previously he published the Boxers and Saints volumes, American Born Chinese and last year's Dragon Hoops. With this Superman volume Yang takes on the Klan of the Fiery Kross, a pseudonym for the Ku Klux Klan.  

The story takes place in 1946 when teenagers Roberta and Tommy Lee move with their parents from Chinatown to Metropolis, the home of Superman. Tommy makes friends easily but Roberta wants to go back to Chinatown where she was comfortable. One night the Lee family awakens to find that their house is surrounded by the Klan of the Fiery Kross and see a burning cross in their yard. Superman leaps into action but his exposure to a mysterious green rock leaves him feeling nauseous and weak. He is only able to defeat the Klan later with the help of Roberta and Tommy. During this conquest, Superman sees visions of his deceased parents asking why he is only using half of the powers he was born with. Superman works through his memory to figure out what is holding him back.

While this was an enjoyable story of good versus evil, the poisonous remarks of the Klan members against this Chinese family gave it a bad tone. I found it difficult to overcome the hate that sprung from its pages. I presume that this was the effect that Yang was going for and that he presented an Asian family as the victims due to the AAPI discrimination that has been ongoing since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The comic is advertised for young adult reading and I would agree with that. It would be helpful to present the realities of hate to youths, but not those too young for the message.

5 out of 5 stars.

Sentient

Sentient is a science fiction story set in a comic book format. It is the story of the U. S. S. Montgomery, a space ship with both adults and children on board. The ship is traveling from an earth that is almost uninhabitable due to climate change to a colony located somewhere in deep space. One of the adults is secretly a separatist and she kills all the adults on board in a surprise attack. The separatists are a group that want the new colony to be completely disassociated from the earth's government. When the children find out that they have been left to finish the mission, they rely on their AI Valarie to learn new skills so that they can fly the ship to its expected destination. The kids have just barely learned their new skills when they are confronted with a dangerous force that threatens to doom them. They need to rely on Valarie in order to fight these forces but Valarie has only been programmed to complete minor tasks.

This is an awesome story. It has all the tension and character development that you would see in a novel length book within its 163 pages. The pace was fast and the plot premise was fascinating. The main characters are Val and the two oldest kids, Lill and Isaac. All three have tremendous growth in the story. Val becomes more of a parent than a machine but her machine capabilities allow her to learn the particular language that the kids speak. Lill is the most stubborn character and she gets the group into some trouble when she wants to leave the ship to explore a docking station where the Montgomery stops to refuel. Isaac is a tech prodigy who learns more and more about how the ship operates as the needs of the space ship develop as each day goes by. 

Great comic!  5 out of 5 stars.

Credo

Credo is a graphic biography of Rose Wilder Lane. I thought it would be about a suffragette but Rose Wilder Lane is the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Wilder wrote the Little House on the Prairie books. I was not aware that she wrote these books with her daughter making huge edits. The books were written mainly by Lane but the ideas for the stories came from Wilder. 

Lane was an accomplished 20th century writer, feminist, war correspondent, and one of the  founders of the Libertarian Party in the U. S. She was anti-government and anti-marriage and did not believe that gender should hold anyone back from experiencing all that the world has to offer. Lane was one of the highest paid female writers in America, traveling all over the world in search of a story. She even traveled to Korea and Vietnam to cover those wars for the newspapers that she wrote for. However, she is mainly known as being the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder. There are several different opinions on how much Lane contributed to the Little House books but the original manuscripts have survived and there is no doubt that Wilder did not know how to write. Lane rewrote the stories so that they were readable. What most people do not know is that she wrote biographies and fiction on her own. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the book and read it twice in succession. It is amazing to me that she was friends with President Herbert Hoover, writer Dorothy Johnson and Johnson's husband Sinclair Lewis. With these people as friends, I would expect that Lane's name would be easily recognizable. Unfortunately, it isn't. She was lucky in her career, raising the glass ceiling for women in succeeding generations.  Her credo was an article she wrote concerning her political opinions. It was marketed as her credo, hence the name of the book.

Credo was a great history lesson for me and I highly recommend the book. 5 out of 5 stars.