Tag Archives: comics

Drome, by Jesse Lonergan

Posted on by

Second frameset of third chapter:

Lots of people loved this graphic novel published last year. It tells, with very few words, a story of ancient mythic creatures at the dawn of a Sumerian-style mythos, moving from creating to struggles over control of the human city. I was not as convinced; I think words are useful to give a sense of what makes the characters tick, and it’s much more difficult to convey that with pictures alone (or even mostly with pictures). Still, it’s an interesting experiment. You can get Drome here.

This was my top unread comic in English. Next on that pile is Tuki: Fight for Fire, by Jeff Smith.

Bruxelles 43, by Patrick Weber and Baudouin Deville

Posted on by

Second frame of third page:

The first of a recent series of six graphic novels by Weber and Deville, set in Belgium in the mid-twentieth century (later years are 1958, 1960, 1961, 1965 and 1968).

The framing narrative has the central character, Kathleen, cleaning up her mother’s house in 1960, and coming across souvenirs of the war years seventeen years earlier – the same distance that separates us from 2009. We are then plunged into an intense narrative of resistance to German occupation, mostly from a schoolgirl’s point of view, with a lot of real life events and people woven into the fiction. The climax is the publication of the “Faux Soir” on 7 November 1943.

Fiction based around historical personalities and events, whether on the screen or on the page, often falls into the trap of doing it by the numbers. I felt that Bruxelles 43 avoided that; we readers of course know that the occupation will not last for much longer, and that Belgium will pick itself up again, but the characters don’t. It’s also very neat that comics themselves as a medium are woven into the story – Hergé is one of the many historical characters to make an appearance, and there’s a sensitive exploration of the role of culture in general in an occupied society.

This is a good start to the series. Next in the sequence is Sourire 58, by the same creative team. You can get Bruxelles 43 here.

The Best American Comics 2011, ed. Alison Bechdel

Posted on by

Second frame of third section: (“New Year’s Eve, 2004”, from Monsters by Gabby Schulz [Ken Dahl]):

I picked this up when I was in Portland in 2016, and somehow forgot to log it in my system, but realised that it was still on my shelves, years after I had read all the other books I got in 2016. I should not have left it so long; it’s a great collection of work by a very diverse group of creators, and literally the only piece I had read before was an extract from Joe Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza, which was my book of the year last year.

There is a lot of very strong work here, starting with Bechdel’s editorial introduction, about her own relationship with comics over the years and her criteria for choosing. The very first piece, “Manifestation” by Gabrielle Bell (a new name for me) is a hilarious and pointed account of her research into the political thought of Valerie Solanas (best remembered, alas, for her attempt to murder Andy Warhol). Joe Sacco’s piece is also very strong. There’s an interesting format-breaking story, “Soixante-Neuf”, about Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin by David Lasky and Mairead Case. Lasky is back for the single-page “The Ultimate Graphic Novel (in Six Panels”, which closes the book. I must also mention Jeff Smith’s “The Mad Scientist”, about Nikola Tesla, and Paul Pope’s “1977” about encountering David Bowie in the early days. But really, it’s all pretty good stuff, and the above named are excellent. Glad I finally got around to it. You can get The Best American Comics 2011 here.

Spa 1906, by Patrick Weber and Olivier Wozniak

Posted on by

Second frame of third page:

This is the middle volume of a planned trilogy about early twentieth century Belgian detective Hendrikus Ansor, who Solves Crime. In this case he is brought in by Princess Clémentine (I wasn’t sure if she was a real historical person, but she was) to investigate mysterious deaths – apparently suicides – in the eastern resort town of Spa, which has given its name to an entire way of life.

Ansor obviously owes something to a later fictional Belgian detective, not least his magnificent moustache, but he’s a well-rounded if not always likeable character here, and the classical buildings of Spa and the royals and other celebrities are lovingly depicted by artist Olivier Wozniak. The mood of the book depicts a Belgium morally corroded by the reign of Leopold II rather well. I found the plot a bit convoluted, but I suppose that’s normal enough for a detective novel. It’s a nice one to have on the shelf. You can get Spa 1906 here.

Charlotte impératrice, Tome 1: La Princesse et l’Archiduc, by Fabien Nury and Matthieu Bonhomme

Posted on by

Second frame of third page:

King Leopold: You have to do it, all the same.

This is another bande dessinée that I acquired at the Brussels comics festival, the first of five volumes about the life of Princess Charlotte of Belgium, later Empress of Mexico. This volume takes us from the death of Charlotte’s mother in 1850 to her installation in Mexico in 1864, from the age of 10 to the age of 24, including the first years of her marriage at the age of 17 to the Archduke Maximilian, younger brother of the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph I.

Monarchy has many flaws, and not least is its impact on the actual royals, who are shown here as trapped in a gilded cage of privilege. Maximilian is a womaniser who is sterile because of venereal disease. Napoleon III is a sleazebag. Charlotte is rather obviously a Princess Di figure in this story, though history suggests that she was more assertive. The characterisation is a little stiff but you always know who is who.

Speaking of history, the story here has some serious omissions. It is implied that Maximilian’s term as viceroy of northern Italy was ended by the Battle of Solferino in 1859, which kicked the Hapsburgs out of Lombardy and Venice, but in fact he had been sacked by his brother two months earlier for being too liberal. Also historically Maximilian spent an awful lot of time pursuing his personal interests in Brazil, leaving Charlotte stranded on Madeira, and that simply isn’t mentioned here.

I don’t think I’ll bother with the rest; Charlotte is a tragic historical figure, but in the end her story is marginal to the real sweep of history, and while it’s OK not to let the facts get in the way of a good story, it’s important not to get too far away from them if you’re telling a historical tale. If you want, you can get Charlotte impératrice, Tome 1 here.

Scotland, Épisode 1, by Rodolphe, Leo and Marchal

Posted on by

Second and third frames of third page.

Kathy: Are you leaving?
Driver: I’m taking a client to Kilwood

I have hugely enjoyed the Aldebaran cycle of bandes dessinées by Leo (Luiz Eduardo de Oliveira) and thought this might be worth a try. The story is by Leo and Rodolphe (Rodolphe Daniel Jacquette) and art by Bertrand Marchal. I had not realised that it’s actually the start of a fourth series of albums about the adventures of Kathy Austin, a British secret agent at the end of the 1940s; previously she has visited Kenya, Namibia and the Amazon.

Here she goes to Scotland to visit the house that she has inherited from her aunt, only to discover that it has been badly damaged by a fire and that her aunt’s suspicious death has not been investigated properly; incidentally there are Soviet agents and alien artifacts hanging around too.

It would be very easy for a (mostly) French creative team to slip into stereotypes here, and I’m glad to say that they have avoided it at least with regard to the humans of Scotland, with a reasonably sensitive depiction of rural and small-town folks dealing with Kathy’s return from years away. The landscapes are beautifully done, with Kathy brooding in front of a loch on the cover. The first four of the five in this series are out, and I’ll work through them. You can get Scotland, Épisode 1 here.

The Ray Bradbury Chronicles, Volume 3, by Ray Bradbury et al

Posted on by

Second frame of third story (“Gotcha”, adapted by Ray Zone with art by Chuck Roblin):

This is one of a series of seven albums published in 1992-93 by Byron Preiss, where various artists were asked to do illustrated versions of various Bradbury stories. Here there are six adaptations of five stories: “The Aqueduct”, “The Veldt”, “Gotcha”, “Homecoming” and two different versions of “There Will Come Soft Rains”, each with a short introduction by Bradbury himself.

The standout adaptations for me are Timothy Truman‘s “The Veldt” and Wally Wood‘s “There Will Come Soft Rains” (originally published in Weird Fantasy in 1953; the others are all original commissions for this book); but actually Bradbury was such a good story-teller that it’s hard for a competent artist to go wrong with one of his stories, and Bruce Jensen‘s “The Aqueduct”, Chuck Roblin’s “Gotcha” and Steve Leialoha‘s “The Homecoming” are all good.

On the other hand, the other adaptation of “There Will Come Soft Rains is by Lebbeus Woods, best known as an architect, and is remarkable for having illustrations which bear almost no visible relevance to the story. An odd choice, but Byron Preiss, the overall editor, is clearly marching to his own drum. Truman, Woods and Wood are named on the front cover.

You can get The Ray Bradbury Chronicles, volume 3 here.

Histoire de Jérusalem, by Vincent Lemire and Christophe Gaultier

Posted on by

Second frame of third chapter:

The Emperor Constantine prepares for a decisive battle against his rival Maxentius.

A chunky 250-page history of one of the world’s most contested cities, taking us from Biblical times up to the present day (2022), and telling the story from the perspective of an 4000-year-old olive tree on the Mount of Olives outside the Old City. There are a lot of facts here, some of which I knew and some of which I didn’t. The two that particularly jumped out at me as new were the destruction of the Mughrabi Quarter in 1967 and the destruction of the al-Aqsa minbar in 1969. This is a location where political violence has never been monopolised by one side.

A review by Roy Schwartz of the American Jewish Historical Society accuses the book of blatant historical bias, though to be honest I expect that a review from the other side might make similar complaints in the other direction. Schwartz has very reasonable grounds, however, to complain that most of the modern-era Jewish characters are depicted with hooked noses. Vincent Lemire is a well-known French historian of Jerusalem, and he should have restrained his artist colleague Christophe Gaultier from stereotypes. The graphic novel format is not ideal for delivering facts, but it should not distract from them either.

You can get Histoire de Jérusalem in the original French here, and you can get the English translation, The History of Jerusalem: An Illustrated Story of 4,000 Years, here.

Final Cut, by Charles Burns

Posted on by

Second frame of third section:

Brian (narrating): I just want to go… get this thing started.

I’ve really enjoyed Burns’ weird stories in the past, and I’m sorry to say that I didn’t find this one as much to my taste, perhaps because it is not as weird. Brian, the protagonist, is a teenager who is obsessed with classic films such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Last Picture Show, and also with his friend Laurie. He stumbles around rocky outcrops, both physical and emotional, and doesn’t quite manage to get where he needs to go. It’s OK as a coming of age story, but I wanted a bit more. You can get Final Cut here.

Next on my pile of unread comics in English is Ness: A Story from the Ulster Cycle, by Patrick Brown.

Irish Conflict in Comics: Rebellion, Nazi Spies and the Troubles, by James Bacon

Posted on by

Second paragraph of third chapter, with illustration:

The Congregation of Christian Brothers, who published Éire – Sean is Nua [Ireland – Old and New], were a Catholic celibate community who founded several Catholic education schools and who, with this publication, portrayed themselves as supporters of Irish Republicanism. Our Boys, another Christian Brothers publication, was a reaction to The Boy’s Own Paper and other British boys’ papers, viewed as imperialist propaganda. Our Boys was first published in 1914 and sought to present a Catholic and nationalist alternative to Irish children.

This is a totally comprehensive listing of how Ireland is portrayed in comics. The start of the story is actually told in a very intertesting appendix, looking at revolutionary era cartoonists – Grace Gifford, Ernest Kavanagh, Joe Stanley (Padraig Pearse’s press office during the Easter Rising, who published Ireland’s first comic, Greann, in 1934) and Constance de Markievicz.

Most of the book looks at the mainstream comics industry as it has developed since 1940, usually featuring American writers trying to get to grips with local complexity. There are some cringeworthy moments, for instance the heroic Gay Ghost who comes from the castle of Connaught in County Ulster. There are a number of stories featuring Nazi meddling in Ireland, usually with the involvement of the IRA, though the latter are not consistently portrayed as being on either side.

In the post-war decades, Irish creators start to get in on the act, with the Christian Brothers publishing Eire – Sean is Nua [Ireland – Old and New]; and there’s also a flattering biography of Eamon de Valera from the early 1970s, at a time before the events of his life after 1921 were taught in school history classes.

The Troubles offered plenty of narrative opportunities for long-running comics series to visit Ireland’s shores, some of them more effectively than others. Sometimes the comics publishers found that they had bitten off more than they could chew; a 1986 story with Spiderman visiting Northern Ireland was aborted by Marvel after the publishers received a bomb threat. Was it credible? I guess it doesn’t matter.

The main narrative (before the appendix) look particularly at the work of Garth Ennis and Malachy Coney, mainstream comics writers who are from Northern Ireland. Ennis doesn’t always do it for me, but I remember his early Troubled Souls and Coney’s Holy Cross stories with great affection.

Those of you who know the author will not surprised to learn that it reads like he speaks; this isn’t polished academic writing, it’s a rush of enthusiastic information, crammed onto the 259 A4 pages with wafer-thin headers and footers. But the information is cool, and important. I’ll try and get hold of the French-language comics mentioned (including Partitions irlandaises) and will report back. Meanwhile you can get Irish Conflict in Comics here.

Somna: a bedtime story, by Becky Cloonan and Tula Lotay

Posted on by

Second frame of third chapter:

I really love Tula Lotay’s lush drawing style, here illustrating a tale of witchcraft in medieval England, where all the women and almost all the men are youthful and sexy, and occasionally take their clothes off. I think any actual medieval specialist would get a bit annoyed by the depiction of medieval life, but the point here is to have fun and revel in the sensuous story. You can get Somna here.

Who Killed Nessie?, by Paul Cornell and Rachael Smith

Posted on by

Second frame of third page:

I encountered Rachael Smith in 2016, when I bought her early House Party from her at a Brussels Comic Con, and I have known Paul Cornell for decades. Here the two combine their talents for a story of a murder at a convention for cryptos and mythical creatures, solved by plucky heroine Lyndsay Grockle who is getting over a breakup and has been left in charge of the convention hotel for the weekend. Paul Cornell’s humane text combines with Rachael Smith’s unambiguous ligne claire style to make a short sweet tale. I got an advance copy – it will be published next month, and then you will be able to get Who Killed Nessie? here.

Spent: A Comic Novel, by Alison Bechdel

Posted on by

Second frame of third chapter:

Caption: But Alison’s feeling of doom persists.
Alison (reading Capital, by Karl Marx): Wow. 1,042 pages to go.

This jumped off the shelf at me when I saw it in a London bookshop last month. Alison Bechdel, who we have met in three previous books, is now running a sanctuary for abandoned goats in rural Vermont, while her partner Holly is becoming an internet influencer thanks to her use of power tools for carpentry. Meanwhile Alison’s successful first memoir, Death and Taxidermy, has become a hit TV series starring Benedict Cumberbatch as her father, but veering further and further from Alison’s own lived experience. Her old friends live down the road and are going through their own emotional transformations – there’s a fair bit of over-sixties sex in this book – and incidentally the world is going to hell, with Trumpists threatening civil war, climate catastrophe looming, and incidentally Alison’s MAGA sister writing her own autobiography to set the story straight.

I loved this, and laughed out loud several times on the London Underground and the train while reading it, much to the dismay of fellow passengers. The funniest scene perhaps is when the goats… no, I won’t spoil it for you. There are some serious points as well, both about the state of the world and the limited effect that one individual can have (which doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try), and also about Life as Art and Art as Life. Recommended. You can get Spent here.

Panter, by Brecht Evens

Posted on by

Second frame of third chapter:

Kristientje lives with her father and her cat. But her cat gets sick and dies (on page 4, so this is not a spoiler) and Kristientje retreats to her room. The magical Panther appears and starts to cheer her up with tales of Pantherland, where he claims to be the crown prince, and where everything is fun and perfect. Panther alienates Kristientje from her other toys and her father; Kristientje’s stuffed dog Bonzo disappears (we assume, eaten by Panther) and then gets reincarnated in dubious form, along with a bunch of disreputable visitors from Pantherland, including the appalling Mr. Trashcan. It’s quite a dark journey, told as ever in Evens’ super expressive watercolours. I wasn’t quite sure about the last book of his that I read, but this one is impressive stuff. You can get the Dutch original here and the English translation here.

This was my top unread non-English-language comic. Next on that pile is Histoire de Jérusalem, by Vincent Lemire and Christophe Gaultier.

Footnotes in Gaza, by Joe Sacco

Posted on by

Second frame of third section:

This is a book that is both weirdly out of date and weirdly timely. It is about an obscure incident of Middle Eastern history: the massacres of civilians in the Gaza Strip by Israeli forces on the margins of the 1956 Suez war, 275 killed in Khan Yunus on 3 November and 111 in Rafah on 12 November. In these awful days, it’s probably healthy to cast our minds back almost seventy years to the brief months of the first Israeli occupation of Gaza, when most of its inhabitants had fresh memories of the Nakba and realistic expectations that they might be driven out of their homes again.

The other startling aspect of the book is that the research was carried out in 2002 and 2003, when the second Israeli occupation, started in 1967, was (as it turned out) on the last legs of its direct phase, and Fatah was still in political leadership among the Palestinians, though Hamas and other militants were clearly a rising faction through the Second Intifada, especially within Gaza. The death of Rachel Corrie happens just off screen.

Between the research on the book and its publication in 2009, the Israelis withdrew their military and settlers from Gaza (2004), Hamas won the Palestinian elections (2005) and seized control in Gaza (2006). I hardly need remind you of events since 2009, especially the last twenty months. But I’m writing here about Joe Sacco’s book, not about more recent history.

Sacco portrays the daily grind of life under the occupation vividly, and also the difficulty of getting eyewitness accounts of events from almost half a century before. Even for those who were there, 1956 was comparatively small beer compared with 1948 or 1967, unless you or your family happened to be directly involved with either of the massacres. Accounts differ on the details, but the broad account of brutality is the same, and the graphic medium brings home the human impact as words alone never can.

It’s an account from one side of two particular incidents, because the Israelis largely covered them up (apart from an interesting debate in the Knesset); Sacco interviews a senior Israeli securocrat to get their perspective, and he is also clear about the Fedayeen incursions into Israel in 1956, and indeed the suicide bombings and internal Palestinian violence five decades later.

It’s important that individual incidents in any conflict get the dignity of a permanent record, even if they cannot achieve closure for victims and perpetrators. (Needless to say, I think of an incident in 1972 which was more local to me.) At the time the book was published, these two massacres from fifty-three years before were the largest killings of Palestinians on Palestinian soil, a record that I suspect may no longer stand. I’m glad to say that Ha-Aretz posted a positive review of the book when it came out.

My one complaint, and it is a serious one, is that my copy of the book was wrongly bound, and instead of pages 245-276; there was an extra set of pages 117-148. Fortunately Martin Wisse was able to sort me out with the missing pieces, but it was almost a metaphor for the difficulty that Sacco faced in assembling the truth. If you are lucky, you can get a full copy here.

Truth is really important and also sometimes really difficult to get. As I was writing this, someone in my Facebook feed posted a summary of Palaestina ex monumentis veteribus illustrata (1714) by the Dutch scholar Adriaan Reland / Hadrianus Relandis, claiming that Reland’s research on the ground in the early eighteenth century “proved” that there were almost no Arabs living in Palestine at that time. This meme is completely false; Reland never visited the Middle East in his life, and there is no attempt to calculate the contemporary population in his book, which is about Biblical and classical references to the place names of the region. As usual, if a propaganda claim from either side looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Footnotes from Gaza was my top unread comic in English. Next on that pile is Final Cut, by Charles Burns.

Hugo Graphic Story or Comic 2025

Posted on by

2025 Hugos: Goodreads / Librarything stats | Novel | Novella | Novelette | Short Story | Graphic Story or Comic | Related Work | Dramatic Presentation, Long and Short | Fancast | Poem | Lodestar | Astounding

Very clear winner for me.

6) Monstress, Vol. 9: The Possessed

Second frame of Chapter 51 (the third in this compilation):

…Goddess.

I’ve totally lost track of what’s going on with the plot of this series.

You can get it here.

5) My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Book 2

Second frame of what looks like it might be the third section:

Superlative graphic novel, but I am not at all convinced that it is sff.

You can get it here.

4) We Called Them Giants

Only frame of third page:

And then I woke up and found everyone really had [left me].
HELLO?!

Mysterious dark story of the disappearance of most of humanity, and the giants that come instead.

You can get it here.

3) The Hunger and the Dusk: Vol. 1

Second frame of third part:

The poets say, “Call them not dead who lay down their lives for their people.”

Orcs and humans have made peace; but something worse is coming.

You can get it here.

2) The Deep Dark by Molly Knox Ostertag

Not sure if there are sections, but this is the second frame of the third page.

Lovely LGBTQ+ coming-of-age story, with a monster in the basement.

You can get it here.

1) Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way

Second frame of third page:

LIGHTS ARE NOW OFF
Mariner: Spock Clock, cancel all alarms for the day.
Clock: Acknowledged. Sleep long and prosper, Lieutenant Junior Grade Mariner.

Just a total joy. Beautifully consistent with the TV series, yet warping the format of a choose-your-own-adventure story to challenge the reader.

You can get it here.

This collage of covers was constructed by hand using PowerPoint and Paint, without use of AI.

De bondgenoten, deel 1, by Brecht Evens

Posted on by

First frame of first page (the third page, which I’d usually select, is a bit graphic):

I used to be weak.

I have been hugely impressed by the previous graphic novels of Brecht Evens, but I was not quite sure about this one, which is the first part of a promised two-part series. Our protagonist, 10 year old Arthur, lives on the Breton coast with his father. (Yep, Arthur of Brittany, though it’s not clear what to read into that.) His father brings him up in the knowledge that they are fighting a peculiar battle at the front line of the war between Good and Evil, and then he disappears, leaving Arthur to navigate a world where the neighbours are presumptively all spies for the dark side.

Arthur’s father is clearly clinically paranoid, and it’s not yet clear how Evens is going to resolve the plot; it could go well or badly, to be honest. But as usual, what makes the book is Evens’ fantastic art, drawing perhaps on James Ensor but with very much his own twist on it, often conveying a great deal with just a few lines, capturing character traits and settings with complete conviction. It’s a gorgeous run of 288 pages, and I hope it all makes sense when the next volume comes out.

The Dutch title means “The Allies”, but the French title, Le Roi Méduse, means “The Jellyfish King”. Heaven knows how they will translate it into English. Meanwhile you can get it in the original Dutch here and in French here.

This was my top unread comic which is not in English. Next on that pile is Panter, also by Brecht Evens.

Once and Future, vol 5: The Wasteland, by Kieron Gillen, Dan Mora and Tamra Bonvillain

Posted on by

Second frame of third chapter:

End of this very enjoyable series of graphic novels, which tells the story of the reawakening of King Arthur as an evil undead monster and the efforts of our plucky heroes (grandma, grandson, grandson’s girlfriend) to contain the situation. Loads more archetypes from English cultural history get thrown in here, notably King Lear and T.S. Eliot, and the ending is suitably dramatic and more or less final. It’s nice to see a project like this reach a satisfying ending. You can get it here.

Set in 2025 #14: The Nikopol Trilogy, by Enki Bilal

Posted on by

Second frame of third page of vol 1, A Bedlam of Immortals:

Second and third frames of third page of vol 2, The Woman Trap:

Second frame of third page of vol 3, Cold Equator:

I first read the first part of this in my survey of SF set in 2023. I wrote then:

Published as La Foire aux immortels in 1980, this is set in a near-future Paris which is basically independent, France having collapsed as a state, and run by the fascist mayor Choublanc (Bunglieri in my translation) who is now facing re-election. The suburbs are decaying and run by local gangs. Everyone reads their own preferred news bulletins and information is therefore politically fragmented – an accurate anticipation in some ways.

Less accurately (probably – but who knows?), a giant floating pyramid inhabited by the gods of ancient Egypt has materialised over central Paris, and won’t go away unless supplied with fuel. Meanwhile Alcide Nikopol, a former astronaut who has spent thirty years frozen in suspended animation in orbit, returns to the city. His leg breaks off but is repaired in a rush job by the Horus, who allies with him against his fellow deities to shake up the politics of Paris in 2023.

It’s political and passionate, and fits in with the other lefty French-language 1980s comics which I read a few years back, Les Chroniques du Fin du Siècle by Santi-Bucquoy (Autonomes, Mourir à Creys-Malville, Chooz). It’s less ideological, but similar in the sense of the corruption and decay of the ruling classes, and the need for revolutionary action to bring about a better state of affairs. And the art is riveting.

Though also worth noting that the ice hockey team from Bratislava all speak Russian and their uniforms carry the initials ЧССР – not only did Czechoslovakia stay together in this version of 2023, it was also apparently annexed by the Soviet Union, which is still going strong. Bilal’s mother was Czech, so he knows perfectly well that Russian is not spoken much in Bratislava, nor is the Cyrillic alphabet used much there. (There would have been more of it in 1980 than now, but that’s not saying a lot.)

The second part is set in 2025, but I found reading it that the third part is set in 2034. So it’s only The Woman Trap (La Femme Piège) that concerns my 2025 project. It introduces the iconic character of Jill Bioskop, who is much more interesting than either Nikopol or his son (who looks conveniently identical to him). The art is great but the plot kinda weird, as Jill encounters various men, including the god Horus and the two Nikopols, and finds a fax machine that sends her reports back in time to 1993. (It’s difficult to judge whether a time-bending fax machine is less or more realistic than a fax machine that actually still works in 2024.)

The third part, Cold Equator (Froid Équateur), rather lost me; it’s mostly set in an African city under the rules of the sinister KKDZO, Nikopol gets into a tremendously violent chess-boxing match, and a new woman character, Yéléna the geneticist, forms a rather unexplained connection with Jill. This seems to be all about Stuff Happening with not much clue as to why. Maybe I was just tired.

Anyway you can get the three in English translation in a single volume here.

Set in 2025:
Television: The Outer Limits: The Duplicate Man (1964)
Film: Endgame (Bronx lotta finale) (1983); Future Hunters (1986); Futuresport (1998); Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision (2003)
Novels: 334 (1972); Titan (1979); The Running Man (1982); The Lake at the End of the World (1988); Tom Clancy’s Net Force Explorers: Virtual Vandals (1998); A Friend of the Earth (2000); The Peshawar Lancers (2002)
Comics: The Nikopol Trilogy: The Woman Trap (1986); Superman & Batman: Generations III #2: Doomsday Minus One (2003)

Set in 2025 #12: Superman & Batman Generations 3: The 21st Century!: Century 21: Doomsday Minus One, by John Byrne

Posted on by

Second frame of third page:

Set in 2025, this comic from 2003 brings Knight-Wing aka Clark Wayne, the grandson of Superman and Batman, and his daughters Lois and Lara, aka Supergirl Red and Supergirl Blue, into conflict with Lex Luthor, who is now a disembodied brain who escapes from their mother on the third page of the story. There’s a rather confusing conflict with aliens and deity-like creatures and at the end of it Lex Luthor sets off a bomb that destroys all technology. (Though this is not really made clear until the next installment.)

Luthor’s bomb tips this one into the apocalyptic category of stories set in 2025, but until then the world seems rather pleasantly technologically advanced, with skyscrapers and flying cars etc.

I also found the advertisements for games in the comic really fascinating – EverQuest (which is still going), War of the Monsters and Black & Bruised (this last including vouchers for in-game purchases). There are also advertisements in favour of drinking milk and against using marijuana.

You can get it in the Superman and Batman: Generations omnibus, here, though I bought the single issue from a dealer.

Set in 2025:
Television: The Outer Limits: The Duplicate Man (1964)
Film: Endgame (Bronx lotta finale) (1983); Future Hunters (1986); Futuresport (1998); Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision (2003)
Novels: 334 (1972); Titan (1979); The Running Man (1982); The Lake at the End of the World (1988); Tom Clancy’s Net Force Explorers: Virtual Vandals (1998); A Friend of the Earth (2000); The Peshawar Lancers (2002)
Comics: The Nikopol Trilogy: The Woman Trap (1986); Superman & Batman: Generations III #2: Doomsday Minus One (2003)

Monica, by Daniel Clowes

Posted on by

Second frame of third story:

As usual, a disturbing comic book from Clowes, this time looking at the life of a woman called Monica, trying to discover the truth about her origins after her mother abandoned her as a child. The images are vivid and the stories deliberately a bit obscure, so that you have to concentrate on getting the links. I thought it was great, if anything a bit more accessible than some of Clowes’ other work. Recommended. You can get it here.

This was my top unread comic in English. Next on that pile is volume 5 of Once and Future.

Barnstormers: A Ballad of Love and Murder, by Tula Lotay and Scott Snyder

Posted on by

Second frame of Part 3:

Gorgeous story, set in 1923, where a stunt pilot and a runaway bride fly across the south-eastern United States, bringing havoc and romance in their wake. Tula Lotay’s art is particularly gorgeous and sensuous, and suits the sultry climate of the setting perfectly. There’s a Bonnie and Clyde vibe, and evil detectives, and everything. Great fun. You can get it here.

Sunstone, vol. 1, by Stjepan Sejić

Posted on by

Second frame of third page:

Lisa:
“It’s just my life… a story of how I changed.
And… the hardest thing is to start. Where do I even begin?”

First in a series of volumes about the loving and kinky relationship between Alison and Lisa, and Alison’s friend Alan who builds her equipment. Not especially explicit, but very sexy. You can get it here.

Strawberry and the Soul Reapers, by Tite Kubo

Posted on by

Second page of third chapter (which is in English in the original – I checked):

Someone commented on social media that this isn’t my usual reading fare, and it’s true. Back in November I was at Brussels Comic Con, and also needed a new phone case; and I spotted a stall selling manga-style artwork including this rather striking young warrior woman. So I bought it.

I thought it must be just something that the stall-holder had invented, but young F was certain that it was a canonical manga, and after a bit of crowdsourcing with his friends, confirmed that it is Rukia Kuchiki from the BLEACH by Tite Kubo. So I invested in the first volume, Strawberry and the Soul Reaper, to become better informed.

It’s a fairly basic story of Ichigo Kurosaki, a kid with red hair (unusual in Japan, to say the least), who finds himself drawn into the grand supernatural battle between the good guy Soul Reapers and the evil spirits called Hollows. Rukia Kuchiki, the character on my phone case, is one of the immortal Soul Reapers (based on the traditional Japanese shinigami, only cuter), but ends up giving her powers to Ichigo and having to become a normal(ish) schoolgirl.

I wasn’t blown away by it, though I can see why the core audience (which I’m not in) would like it. I would have liked to see more sensitive exploration of Ichigo’s abusive family situation, and I was sorry that the promising character of Orihime was introduced and then apparently got dropped. (Though I believe she comes back in later volumes.) Those who like this sort of thing will find it the sort of thing that they like. You can get it here.

Even though it’s about a teenage boy with magical powers, I did find a scene where Rukika and Orihime are talking to each other about Orihime’s injured leg. Ichigo is in the vicinity but not in the conversation. (Read right to left.)

The end of story about the phone case is that less than three months after buying it, I found that I needed to upgrade to a new iPhone in order to be able to run my Apple Watch. So if you’d like the Rukika phone case, it’s surplus to my needs right now.

This was my top unread book by a non-white writer, and also my top unread comic in English; next on those piles are Babel, by R.F. Kuang, and Land of the Blind, by Scott Gray.

Jaren van de olifant, by Willy Linthout

Posted on by

Second frame of third chapter:

An apartment block. A man is looking down from the roof at the outline of a human figure drawn outside the front door.

First published in 2009, this picked up the hat-trick of the three major prizes for comics in the Dutch-speaking world, the Bronze Adhemar, the Stripschapprijs and the Pix St-Michel (Dutch category). It’s an intense and moving portrait of a man coming to terms with his son’s suicide; his struggles with his marriage, his work, therapy, drugs, and his fantasies about his son’s survival.

Linthout has now expanded the original edition with two extra chapters (for a total of ten), and my hardcover copy also includes, as an appendix, an interview with the author and his therapist. One of the new chapters very consciously erodes the barriers between protagonist and author (they were slim anyway). It’s a gruelling read in places, but also has shafts of grim humour (there’s a particularly poignant scene around a book launch). Really recommended. You can get it here.

Sins of the Father, by Nick Abadzis, Giorgia Sposito, Eleonora Carlini and Arianna Florean

Posted on by

Second frame of third story (“The Long Con”):

More adventures of the Tenth Doctor with comics-only companions Gabby Gonzalez and Cindy Wu. The first of the three stories here features another sound monster taking advantage of the Jazz era in New Orleans; the second is the opening part of the conclusive adventure in this sequence of comics, bringing back the Osirans and Sutekh; and the third is a neat little multi-Doctor adventure with Ten, Eleven and Twelve. I am consistently impressed by the quality of this series, though it has now reached the stage where you’d need to have been reading it from the beginning. You can get this volume here.

Partitions irlandaises, by Vincent Bailly and Kris

Posted on by

Second frame of third page:

  • Dave Baker. A wee French guy. A bit crazy, But I like him.
  • You don’t know me at all, never mind my filthy alpha male side.

I picked this up on spec in Filigranes one day, a French bande dessinée about two kids in Belfast twenty years after the Good Friday Agreement. Of course they are from opposite sides of the peace wall, of course it turns out that their fathers were both senior paramilitaries back in the day who took an active role in each others’ destinies. There is attention to local circumstantial detail (eg a scene in Roselawn cemetery) while also missing the bigger picture of how people talk to each other. But it’s well meant, and does its best to show people getting on with new lives despite their history; humanely depicted sex scenes; also lots of French slang which I really had not picked up from colleagues. I’ll get the second part as well. You can get it here.

This was my top unread comic in a language other than English. Next on that pile is Jaren van de oliphant, by Willy Linthout.

Two graphic novels: Saga, Vol 10, by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan; Once & Future Vol 4: Monarchies in the UK, by Kieron Gillen, Dan Mora and Tamara Bonvillain

Posted on by

Two Hugo finalists in the Best Graphic Story or Comic category.

Second frame of third part of Saga, Vol 10:

After the brutal end to volume 9, and the subsequent three-year pause in publication, I wondered how the authors would manage to pick it up. I need not have worried; time has passed for the main characters as well, and we see a lot of the story from the viewpoint of Hazel, the little girl whose parents have been at the centre of Saga up to now. Lots here about smuggling, blended families, evil galactic plots and so on. Ends yet again on a cliff-hanger. I’ll give this a high vote, but not sure how it would appeal to those who have not read the previous nine volumes. (Six of which were Hugo finalists, the first winning in 2013.) You can get it here.

Second frame of third chapter of Once & Future Vol 4: Monarchies in the UK:

I had actually read this last year, because I have been enjoying this series so much: King Arthur comes back as an undead demon revenant, and our hero, his grandmother and his girlfriend are desperately mobilising a small group of allies across the real and unreal realms. Cracking humour, great characterisation; maybe a bit less tied into the underlying mythos than previous volumes, maybe that’s not a bad thing. Will also get a high vote from me. You can get it here.