Love is Love

Writer: Various
Art: Various
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Curated by Marc Andreyko

What's it about
This is an anthology published to raise money for the survivors of the Orlando Pulse shooting.  On June 12 2016 a gunman opened fire in the gay club Pulse and killed 49 people.  Information about the attack on can be found on the BBC website here.

This anthology celebrates love and is full of one page stories on this theme.  There are stories about the survivors and the victims, about reactions to the attack, coming out stories and takes on it from fictional superheroes.

Saga volume 1

Today's review comes to you courtesy of Phil May - AHA @ReadItDaddy.  Phil is a technical wizard mashing coder by day, drawing fantastic characters and creatures by night and also reviewing children's books with his daughter over at http://readitdaddy.blogspot.com and grown up stuff at http://daddyafterdark.blogspot.com. 

Writer: Brian K Vaughan
Art: Fiona Staples
Publisher: Image Comics

What's it about?

Space operas don’t come any weirder than Saga, and just when you feel that you’re comfortable that science fiction comics are mined out and the mighty reign of the superhero comic is unshakeable, Saga spins your head around and embroils you in a graphic universe that is sprawling, chaotic and (sometimes) darkly funny.

Saga kicks off slap bang in the middle of its narrator’s birth, setting the tone for the series stock-in-trade method of shock followed by quick explanation. This is set against a background of a huge intergalactic plot involving space war, marginalization, bounty hunting and sheer unadulterated bizarreness.

I Die at Midnight

Written and drawn by: Kyle Baker
Published by: Vertigo/DC Comics

What’s it about?
(from the back of the book:)"The Good News is Muriel has decided to take Larry back."
"The Bad News is Larry's just swallowed a bottle of pills."

Written and drawn by Kyler Baker for Vertigo Comics' pre-millennial "V2K series", I Die at Midnight is an original graphic novel mixing a bit of comedy, a dash of comedy and some romance in the background in a fast-paced well-animated story against the clock.

I Die at Midnight follows a man named Larry. The girl of his dreams just walked out on him. Left without any more purpose, Larry decides to kill himself. He empties an entire bottle of pills...

...But that is precisely when Muriel changes her mind and decides to come back!

And if that wasn't enough... did I mention this was all taking place on New Year's Eve?!

I Die at Midnight is a fun fast paced story set against the whole Year 2000 phobia (it does play a part in the story, at the end!) about fighting for a reason to live.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Writer: William Shakespeare

Adapted by Richard Appignanesi

Art: Kate Brown

Publisher: Self Made Hero

What’s it about? 

This is an adaptation of a William Shakespeare play.  To my mind, it’s the most magical and comedic one.

Theseus and Hippolyta are due to be married in Athens, Greece.  Theseus' servant Egeus has a daughter named Hermia.  Hermia and Lysander are in love and wish to marry, however Egeus has decided that Demetrius is an appropriate husband.  Helena loves Demetrius but, as he wants Hermia, he is not interested in Helena.

In honour of Theseus and Hippolyta’s wedding a group of inept craftsmen decide to put on a play about star-crossed lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe.  It’s a tragedy where the lovers kill themselves, so not entirely fit for a wedding – I did say they were inept!

In the forests of Athens the fairy court is in session.  Oberon, King of the fairies, and Titania, fairy Queen, are embroiled in an argument.  Oberon wants a human boy that Titania has adopted, but Titania won’t give him up.  Oberon plots revenge, and here is where the plots converge...

Oberon gets his servant Puck to enchant Titania so she falls in love with the first hideous thing she sees.  Hermia and Lysander have run away to get married and are pursued by Demetrius, who is in turn pursued by Helena.  Oberon witnesses this and instructs Puck to enchant Demetrius to fall in love with Helena, except Puck gets it wrong and enchants Lysander instead.  The enchantment of Titania is successful, as Puck gives one of the craftsmen, Bottom, a donkey’s head, and Titania falls for him.

This takes up the first half of the play.  The second half concerns the humans and fairies trying to sort out the mess Puck has caused. 

Strangers in Paradise: Volumes 1 and 2

  

Without love, we're never more than strangers in Paradise

Writer: Terry Moore
Art: Terry Moore
Publisher: Abstract Studio

What's it about?
Volume One: Freddie and Francine are a couple.  Francine lives with her best friend Katchoo.  Francine has trust issues and won't have sex with Freddie, though they've been together for a year.  So Freddie and Francine split up.  Katchoo comes onto Francine, who declines.  David notices Katchoo in an art gallery, comes on to her, and is rudely (very rudely) rebuffed.  Francine has a breakdown and Katchoo vows revenge on Freddie.  The relationships get messier and more ridiculous as each character tries to negotiate their way through the romantic minefield.

Volume Two - I Dream of You: A similar situation as before, but now Katchoo's mysterious past is catching up with her.  She disappears for two months, worrying Francine sick.  A shadowy, violent figure hires a corrupt copper to track and report on Katchoo's movements.  People are found severely beaten; Katchoo confides in David; Freddie is lurking in the background; Francine has still not moved on from him.  The finale of the volume solidifies it as a crime, rather than romance, story.

I am reviewing these two volumes together as they are best read in tandem.  Strangers in Paradise is described as a romance comic, and while Volume One is all about boy/girl, girl/girl, girl/boy relationships it is certainly not a traditional romance story.  Volume Two fleshes the characters out and gives a better feeling as to where the series is going.

The Lengths

Writer and Art: Howard Hardiman
Publisher: Self published

What's it about?

What lengths do we go to in our lives? To make money? To meet boyfriends? To keep boyfriends? To survive?

From the website:
"It’s hard being someone’s Mister Right when for a hundred pounds an hour, you’re anyone’s Mister Right Now.  Young ex-art student Eddie has abandoned his course, his family, his lover and his friends to follow a male escort into a world of sex, drugs and unrequited love. Now, he is beginning a tentative romance with an old friend and having to face up to the challenge of being honest in a relationship about what he’s doing in the weird hours he works and the lengths he’s willing to go to to try to please everyone around him."

There's no rainbows in this, no whimsical camp paraphernalia.  It's a seedy, gritty story about a male prostitute coming to a crossroads in his life.  It's sometimes sordid, sometimes touching.  The juxtaposition between the lead's life as Ford, sex worker, and his life as Eddie, drop out art student, is the main message of the story.  Exploring this, we see Eddie with past boyfriends, how he got into sex work, and his blossoming relationship with Dan, who has no idea about Eddie's job.

Love is in the air....for everyone!

As has probably been noted by most people in the UK, it's Valentine's day today!  If all the commercial schmaltz hasn't annoyed you too much, you may want to pick up some romantic comics.  If you do, well then, we have quite a few for you!

Gingerbread Girl

Writer: Paul Tobin
Artist: Colleen Coover
Publisher: Top Cow Comic Top Shelf Comix (not Top Cow, that's a different publisher, they publish Witchblade, not the most feminist of comics series, it's a bit porny, approach at own risk. Google them if you want)

What's it about?
It's about a girl who has a sister grown from her homunculus, by her mad scientist father.  Or it's about a girl who's a major tease and can't decide what she wants.  Or it's about a girl in the early stages of a new relationship.  Or it's about how other people see this girl.  Or it's about the effect of parental divorce.  Or it's just a fun little story full of fantasy and giggles.

Well, that last bit may not be true.  There's funny, unusual episodes, but it's not really a comedy.  Annah is the lead character, and she may or may not be crazy.  She thinks she has a sister, but it may be fantasy.  It may be real.  Who knows?  Either way, she thinks she's lost her sister and it's having a profound impact on her life. 

Blankets

Writer/Illustrator: Craig Thompson
Publisher: Top Shelf

What's it about?
In an autobiographical tale, Craig Thompson tells the story of his childhood and adolescence, focused through the lens of first teenage love. In many ways, it is a very typical and relatable story of growing up.

Growing up in a fundamentalist Christian family in Wisconsin, Craig struggles with his relationship with his brother, with God, and the other people in his life. Plagued by feelings of inadequacy heaped on him by his parents and other adults, and rejected by his peers at school, Craig is a loner who isn't quite sure where he fits in this unpleasant, trying world.

You Are Here

Writer and Artist: Kyle Baker
Publisher: Vertigo/DC Comics

What’s it about?

This book is the story of Noel Coleman. A successful painter who lives in the country just outside New York with his lovely girlfriend and endures her harsh mother everyday. But Noel isn't just a painter. He's also an ex-con artist and jewelry thief. Now he's back in NY City to sell his apartment and get rid of his past, all these secrets start catching up.

Once his fiancee arrives his problems are only starting...a serial killer starts chasing him, his friends get mixed up between a fiancee and a killer on his steps...

Will Noel be able to live to see a new day and future with his girlfriend?  Will he be able to tell her the truth?

Will they both survive?

Another theme month ends

And so we come to the end of February.  We have covered quite a few different comics this month, some with a Valentines theme and some that tie in to LGBT History Month.

For all you old romantics we've featured a nostalgic look at the romantic past of Marvel hero Daredevil, an American High School comedy (without the rose tinted glasses) in the guise of Blue Monday, more superheroics from DC's premier supercouple in Superman: Unconventional Warfare, and lastly, Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, reinterpreted into a manga comic.

For those of you interested in books with LGBT characters, we've covered a cooking manga in Antique Bakery, a webcomic called Fans where a university sci-fi club has the know how to survive in a new sci-fi world, a chapter of Neil Gaiman's long running Sandman series, and finally, our first non-webcomic book with a trans character - Halo Jones.

Remember if you want to see what other themed books we've covered, please look at the labels below this post, or click here for romance books and here for LGBT books.

Thank you all for reading, and please leave comments if you've got any feedback!

Valentines reviews - Superman: Unconventional Warfare

Writer: Greg Rucka

Penciller: Matthew Clark, Renato Guedes, Paul Pelletier
Inker: Nelson, Edde Wagner, Andy Lanning, Rick Magyar
Colours: The Hories
Letters: Comicraft, Rob Leigh, Jared K Fletcher, Nick J. Napolitano

Publisher: DC 

What’s it about?

This book really focuses on Lois and Clark/Superman’s careers and the way in which their careers impact on their relationship.  It’s a love story between people who have the deepest respect for and devotion to each other, but who also have lives outside of each other.

LGBT History Month presents Antique Bakery

Writer and artists: Fumi Yoshinaga
Publisher: Digitla Manga

What's it about?
An old antique shop reopens as a bakery.  A surprising selection of characters staff the shop, some unlikely coincidences take place and some delicious cakes and pastries get baked.

Valentine's review - Blue Monday: The Kids Are Alright

written and drawn by
Chynna Clugston-Major
gray tone colouring by
Guy Major and Staissi Brandt
Publisher: Oni Press

What's It About?
Blue Monday is an American high school comedy without the rose-tinted glasses. Its the early 1990s and Blue L. Finnegan lives in a world of teacher crushes, pig-headed boys, annoying girlfriends and nothing to do of an evening, the typical teenage experience. Suddenly, excitement enters her life when her idol Adam Ant announces a gig in her area. The gig sells out instantly but with single-minded determination Blue decides she is attending and that she'll get tickets somehow. Antics ensue.

The Kids Are Alright collects the first Blue Monday series as well as an extensive collection of additional short comics.

Valentine Reviews - Daredevil: Yellow

written by Jeph Loeb
pencils and inks by Tim Sale
colours by Matt Hollingsworth
Publisher: Marvel

What's It About?
Daredevil: Yellow is a bitter-sweet romantic comedy. Matt Murdoch, the hero known as Daredevil, is in mourning. Karen Page, the love of his life, is dead. He needs to express his feelings and so his best friend comes up with a solution: he should write her a letter about how he feels. So Matt writes about their past, about two young lawyers who set up their own practice in New York and about the secretary they both loved, about the hero Murdoch was only just becoming and the battles that defined all their relationships.

Returning to a month of (some) themes!

February is nearly upon us so we thought we'd pick up where we left off last year, and continue with the Valentine's and LGBT history month reviews.  Not every book will fit into these categories, but some will.

We hope you enjoy it!

Iono-Sama Fanatics

Writer and Artist: Miyabi Fujieda

Publisher: Independent

What's it about?

This is a Yuri title.  Yuri means girls love and is the name given to manga about female couples.  Yuri can be explicitly about sex, or can be more about the relationship side of things.  Some of it can be a coming out narrative, some of it can just be two women getting it on.  The male equivalent is called Yaoi.

Iono is the princess of an unspecified small nation.  She travels to Japan to find black haired women willing to become her sobames – companions (she’s very specific about the black hair).  ‘Sama’ is an honorific given to someone of a higher status than you and ‘fanatics’ refers to the sobames Iono has engaged in her service, all of whom, naturally, call their boss Iono-Sama.

The book opens with Iono on the streets of Japan hitting on random women requesting that they be her sobame.  Her method of picking up women is to stand in the middle of the street and yell ‘who wants to apply to be my sobame?’.  She's not wonderfully successful at this.  Eventually she finds a woman named Eto Hachibe.  Iono falls for Eto and when she invites her into her household she won't take no for an answer.  The rest of the book follows Eto's new life in the royal household as she tries to find a job for herself whilst managing Iono's insatiable desire for more sobames.

It's a comedy, it's a romance and it's all about women!

Maggie the Mechanic. A Love and Rockets book

written and drawn by Jaime Hernandez

What’s It About?
The thing about siblings is you love them but at the same time you need space from them. When Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez decided to start a comicbook together they neatly solved this problem by taking half the book each. In his half Gilbert created the village of Palomar (reviewed here) and in his half Jaime created Las Locas.

The Locas are a largely female, largely Mexican-American cast living around the early-80s LA punk scene. Jaime Hernandez tried to inject some reality into communities and peoples he had too often seen portrayed in the media only through stereotype and cliché: the punk scene, homosexual relationships, bisexuality and his own Mexican-American background. Added to this realism was a touch of science-fiction and so Maggie the Mechanic, Mexican-American bisexual punkette, also ends up travelling the world fixing up spaceships and armies of robots, riding a hover-scooter and teaming up with professional wrestler/revolutionary agitator Rena Titanon between adventures at home with a large, varied and endearing cast of friends.


Now Fantagraphics are publishing a series of collections bringing together the complete canon of Las Locas stories in strict chronological order of publication, starting with Maggie The Mechanic.

Boneyard

written and drawn by Richard Moore
Publisher: NBM

What’s It About?
Michael Paris has inherited a nightmare from his grandfather. Inheriting a graveyard would be bad enough but he’s inherited a graveyard that is home to a small community of monsters. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that one of those monsters is a cute vampire called Abbey, an old friend of Paris’ grandfather and the unofficial leader of the Boneyard residents. Abbey wants Michael to listen to their side of the story before he signs the papers Mayor Wormwood needs before he can demolish the Boneyard. Their side of the story involves a fish woman, a walking skeleton, an auto-mechanic who is werewolf, an incompetent demon with a Napolean complex and a very short witch but she’s confident she can turn him around.

The creatures who have made the Boneyard their home want to live in peace; Paris wants to forget his ex-girlfriend and live a quiet life; the people of the town want to burn them all out; and something dark and ancient wants the Boneyard for itself…

Venus Envy

Venus Envy by Erin Lindsey

A webcomic

What's it about?

Venus Envy is about young Zoe Carter, a male to female transsexual living in Salem, Pennsylvania.  It's a high school comedy focused on Zoe's life as she negotiates the perils of high school - dating, keeping secrets, making friends, overprotective parents and irritating younger brothers.  The normal sort of stuff with the normal high school cliches, but set against Zoe's life experience as a trans woman.

The creator, Erin Lindsey, is trans but this is not an autobiographical comic.