With the release of Sony's animated "Into the Spider-Verse" movie, I thought I should familiarize myself with the source material. I'm glad I did, but only because I had a better idea of some of the gags in the movie. Loads of Spider characters in this are ludicrous and fun, but I had no real reason to care about the antagonists and their motivations. Though they're barely related, the movie is better.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Thoughtfully crafted and illustrated feminist dystopian "Orange is the New Black." The art and ideas satire the camp of 70s grindhouse and blaxplotation flicks, but never to the detriment of the strong underlying messages. The end began to lose me a bit when the murder sport storyline began, and not enough weight was given to character deaths for me to care much about them. It looks as though the series has since been abandoned, which is a shame.

This series is the result of Stephen King's son rummaging through his father's garbage for scraps of discarded ideas. Total, utter nonsensical trash. The ideas presented in just a handful of issues are: serial killer, ghost kid, trapped in painting lady, Samara from The Ring, haunted house with magical keys. The lack of focus on any one of these ideas shows Hill's utter lack of understanding of horror, and more offensively, story-telling.

If this book had been assigned to me in a high school journalism class, I probably would have appreciated the break from slogging through a textbook. However, as an independent read, the subject material is presented too much like a textbook to really work as a graphic novel. There were some interesting facts sprinkled throughout, but Gladstone's main points never seem to commit and only manage to circle the drain like the turd this book is.

Fantastic art and a weird lil trip! The limited color palette easily conveys the (un)natural setting.

"Bartkira" is a collaborative art project to rewrite Karsuhiro Otomo's "Akira" with characters from Matt Groening's "Simpsons." This edition is excerpts from the larger project. The juxtaposition of the horror of the story with the silliness of the Simpsons art style is very funny and the selection of artists is diverse. However, the whole project feels very meme-y and I could not imagine reading the entire project start to finish.

From the very first page (see above) you know this volume of the ongoing series is headed for some uncharted territory. The bulk of this arc takes place on a Wild West themed planet. While it was nice to see such a distinct change of setting, it never grabbed me the way some of the other planets did. There are a few nice additions to the cast, and some unexpected romances but not all felt fully fleshed out. All in all, this left me wanting Vol. 9.

I delved into this book completely blind. I'd never read any Brecht Evens before, and only picked it up as a recommendation from my librarian. It defied all my expectations! Without giving too much away, the story slowly evolves in disturbing ways and you learn that the characters are not all what they seem to be. The limited color pallette is brilliant and Evens easily manages to evoke both whimsy and disgust.

My all time favorite graphic novel series! Crass, violent, feminist, and rarely predictable. This book compiles the first three volumes (18 issues) of the ongoing series. 10/10! The best! Read it!

#saga #briankvaughan #fionastaples #image #graphicnovel

Beautifully illustrated, mostly wordless story about a man who finds a hole in his apartment. Not much of an ending, but a neat concept and interesting layout.