The mastery in Michel Rabagliati’s storytelling sneaks up on you. I remember my first encounter with his work, in one of those big Drawn and Quarterly anthologies circa 2000, thinking that I had found a cartoonist with a knack for well-observed comedy.
Continue reading “The Life of Paul Contains Multitudes: An Appreciation of Michel Rabagliati’s Paul Moves Out”Octopus Pie Vol. 1
Comprised of Meredith Gran’s popular webcomic’s first two years of strips, Octopus Pie Vol. 1 tells the story of two twenty-somethings living together in New York. Ning is the uptight one who works at Ollie’s Organix, and Hannah is her friend from kindergarten turned stoner and pastry baker.
Continue reading “Octopus Pie Vol. 1”Hark A Vagrant
As she mentions in her introduction, Kate Beaton would often put off writing essays to do comics for the student paper. She would eventually start putting them online as she continued working on her degree in history. It would turn out that she was able to meld both of these worlds into something truly fantastic.
Continue reading “Hark A Vagrant”The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack
Published by Dark Horse Comics in 2020, I read the tenth-anniversary edition. This book is a well-deserved winner of both a Harvey Award and an Eisner Award.
Continue reading “The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack”The Big Red Machine, Grandma, and Me
In 1972, Terry Eisele’s parents divorced. While that is tragic in itself, it was a benefit to readers as, without it, we would never have got this heartwarming book. The book reads like a thank you letter to his grandmother, Mary Newman, and is a nostalgic look at the weekends that Terry spent at her house.
Continue reading “The Big Red Machine, Grandma, and Me”The Secret to Superhuman Strength
Alison’s Bechdel’s new graphic novel is billed as a book about exercise, but reaches far beyond that theme into the deep question of why we bother to exercise at all.
Continue reading “The Secret to Superhuman Strength”The Comic Book Story of Basketball
Sports and comics have not always gone hand in hand. They seemingly sit at different lunch tables, one celebrating the victories of the Cleveland Cavaliers, while the other laments the death of Wolverine. This book unabashedly declares its love of both subjects.
Continue reading “The Comic Book Story of Basketball”Gender Queer
Maia Kobabe provides insight into eir path to identifying as non-binary and asexual.
Continue reading “Gender Queer”Fun Home
From the creator who brought you Dykes to Watch Out For, comes the critically acclaimed Fun Home. This autobiography centers around Alison’s relationship with her closeted father, Bruce, and the ramification of his death.
Continue reading “Fun Home”American Born Chinese
American Born Chinese is a collection of three storylines intertwined together with the theme of trying to accept yourself when you are the outsider; when you don’t look, act, or speak like everyone else.
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