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.