A.J. Dungo obscures the central theme of his first graphic novel for a long time. The cover copy only hints at it. I have to assume that’s all on purpose. And, to be a fair reviewer, I feel like I should do the same. But know that In Waves is a true story, that it’s…
Identity is important in American life – the “what are you” question that probably can be asked politely, but rarely is. We’re a nation that needs to put people into specific boxes, to celebrate or denigrate based on what your parents and ancestors were and did – or, more reductively, what you look like. I’m…
I used to personalize far too much when I read, to reflexively attribute ideas or thoughts in a book to the author. To blame the author, some times, for how I reacted to the book, or just hold them responsible for how I, or anyone, responded to a book. [1] I got better; I got…
I went through a Bendis kick, around the time a lot of the hip comics kids did, back in the mid-Aughts. I at first liked Powers, and then thought it ran at high speed away from everything that was originally good about it. I was mostly impressed by Alias. And I think I wandered away…
It’s reductive and not quite true to say that this book is what Julia Wertz wanted Drinking at the Movies to be – but it’s a good enough place to start. Drinking was her first full-length graphic novel after two collections of Fart Party stories; at the time, I thought it was more of a…
I don’t know if I’m missing cultural context or just goodwill for a well-known creator, but I was missing something when I read this book. It’s gotten a lot of praise, around the world, since it was originally published in Italy in 2007, so this could easily be a problem on my end. But this…
This is all true, as far as I know. Zoe Thorogood says this book is the story of six months in her life, as filtered through her own head. But everything everyone ever sees or knows is filtered through their heads, so that’s reality as best we know it, always. It’s Lonely at the Centre…
The first time this book was translated into English, a decade and a half ago, the title came out as “What Is Precious.” This time, in a translation by Mercedes Claire Gilliom that I think I found more colloquial than Joe Johnson’s back in 2008, the title is Precious Things . What difference does that…
I say this a lot, but audiences are important. If you’re putting something out into the world, and don’t have a sense of who would care about it, it might be because no one will. But “people like me” is a valid answer. “People like me at age 10” is an even better one. People…
I have children, but I didn’t carry them: I’m the other parent. I have children, but their birth was a long time ago: my younger son was born in 2000. Which is to say I inevitably read a book like Kid Gloves , Lucy Knisley’s comics-format memoir of her pregnancy and the things that came…
[youtube Jumping in at volume four, you might want a <a href=” for Latecomers. Or, perhaps, you might want to know what happened in earlier Back to Basics books. This is a humorous, more-or-less autobiographical comics series originally published in France in the early Aughts, soon after the events depicted. Cartoonist Manu Larcenet moved from…
I may have this wrong, but here goes: Ordinary Victories is a series of four somewhat autobiographical bande dessinees by French cartoonist Manu Larcenet, originally published in French from 2003-2008 and published in two omnibuses in English soon afterward. The current English-language editions are back to being published individually, and seem to only be available…
