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Tag: graphic novels

Review: The Unwritten, Vol. 1, Mike Carey and Peter Goss

For the Graphic Novel Challenge! The Unwritten is about a guy called Tom whose father – long since disappeared without a trace – wrote an incredibly popular series of books about a character with Tom’s same name: Tommy Taylor.  However, it turns out that all the paperwork proving Tom is his father’s son has been forged.  At first it is theorized that he is a fraud, the son of Romanian peasants; then people begin to believe that he is, in fact, Tommy Taylor, brought into existence by the stories themselves.  The word made flesh. The Unwritten is set in London,…

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Review: Peter and Max, Bill Willingham

I won Peter and Max from Cecelia of adventures of cecelia bedelia – thank you!  I was having a terrible day, and when I got home I had not one, BUT TWO packages on my doorstep.  One was Peter and Max, and the other was a package of two books and a bookmark from Jeane.  It was amazing.  It caused my day to stop being terrible, and be awesome instead.  (True story.) If you haven’t read Fables, you should really do that.  In fact, go do that now, and when you have finished, you may come back and we can…

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Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde, adapted & illustrated by P. Craig Russell

Oscar Wilde told André Gide that he had put his genius into his life, and only his talent into his writing.  It’s a typical Oscar Wilde thing to say, especially since he’d all but stopped writing at that point, and if you’ve read about Oscar Wilde, you’ll know it’s best to take anything he says with a grain of salt.  Because, you know, hello to the self-dramatizing!  But I have to say, in reference to this remark: although I read about Oscar Wilde all the time, I almost never read anything he’s written.  Sometimes I’ll get in a mood and…

30 Comments

Review: The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch and Ordinary Victories Part Deux

See me starting challenges all over the place?  It’s a new year and I am on the ball. The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch, Neil Gaiman and Michael Zulli I didn’t start out my Graphic Novels Challenge reading with quite the satisfactory bang that I was hoping for (probably because I didn’t start by doing the January mini-challenge but OH that is all about to change).  The Facts, etc., etc., disappointed me.  Illustrated by Michael Zulli, this graphic novel tells the tale of a strange night out, with a strange woman whose real name wasn’t…

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A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, Josh Neufeld

A.D. is a graphic novel about seven people from New Orleans.  The author interviewed these people extensively, visited New Orleans, took pictures, and then created this book.  It tells the stories of people who left and people who stayed, wealthyish people and poorish people, black people and white people. I liked reading this book, because it aligns very nicely with my memories of the hurricane.  The high school kids talked about how they were going to miss a couple of days of school, and everyone expected it to turn east the way they always do, and the doctor has a…

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Bayou, Vol. 1, Jeremy Love & Patrick Morgan

Jeremy Love‘s Bayou, evidently the first physical book to be created from DC Comics’ webcomic imprint Zuda, is about a little girl named Lee who lives in 1930s Mississippi with her father.  When he is accused of raping and murdering Lee’s young white friend Lily (who actually got eaten by an enormous monster in the bayou), and carted off to jail, Lee sets out fearlessly to find Lily and thus save her father from death. Before I head off to bed*, I just wanted to say, Holy God, this book was scary.  I read about it (where else, for my…

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Chicken with Plums, Marjane Satrapi

In Chicken with Plums, Marjane Satrapi writes about tar musician Nasser Ali, a great-uncle of hers who decides to die after his wife destroys his tar in a heated argument.  He tries and tries to find another tar that will be the equal of the one that was destroyed, but even the best of tars will not make the music he imagines.  He lies down on his bed and stays there for eight days, upon which he dies.  Chicken with Plums follows him through those eight days, through visits and memories and dreams and hallucinations. The good: Marjane Satrapi charms…

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Fun Home, Alison Bechdel

I love a memoir, y’all, and you know what I love more than a memoir?  A graphic novel memoir.  Delicious.  My library has a new section on their ever-growing graphic novels shelf, which is Biography.  When I went in yesterday (collecting films for my poor sick little sister and lots of excellent books for me), I took three of the five books from the new wee little section.  Including Fun Home – which I remember the library not having last time I checked, and I was well cross about it. Fun Home is Alison Bechdel‘s memoir about her father, a…

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Buffy’s eighth series

So I was mysteriously untempted by the Buffy Season Eight comics for a really long time, and then Fyrefly (inventor of the book blog search, hooray!) started getting all reviewy of them, and that reminded me that I love Buffy like a fat kid loves cake (or a skinny kid – any kid really), and today I went to Bongs & Noodles and (don’t tell) read all four volumes that they had, which was The Long Way Home and No Future for You and Wolves at the Gate and Time of Your Life, but there’s apparently another one after that. …

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Making Comics, Scott McCloud

Again with the piles of information!  I had to read this one chapter at a time and then take a long break to think about all the things contained in each chapter.  In Making Comics, Scott McCloud gets down to discussing the specifics about creating a comic book – everything from the placement and spacing in word bubbles, to the construction of panels in a way that’s intuitive to the reader, to the interaction of words and pictures.  There can never be too much discussion about the interaction of words and pictures.  Seriously. This book made me sad I can’t…

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