Comics & Graphic Novels

Three Graphic Novels

Through the Woods was excellent. Creepy but not overly scary and not silly, as kids’ scary stories sometimes are.

I loved, loved, loved, The Shadow Hero and I didn’t expect to. The afterword, with info about the 1940s Green Turtle just made it even better.

To This Day: For the Bullied and the Beautiful was very well done. Great illustrations, great stories.

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Three Graphic Novels

There’s not much on the library cart that I really want to read right now, thankfully there were some graphic novels from the Cybils shortlist to tide me over until I can pick up something interesting at the library. All of them were pretty good so that made me happy.

Strange Fruit: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History was super interesting and drawn beautifully. I was surprised to have never heard of any of the people featured in this volume. My only issue with this book is that the text was difficult to read in places. I’m old, probably could use some bifocals, and the white text on black at times was difficult. In some areas, there was brown text. And, it was tiny, too. This is a book for kids so I’m guessing this is my issue and not an issue the intended audience will have. lol

Harlem Hellfighters was excellent. The pages felt chaotic, which seemed right for the story but made it hard for me to read late at night. Again, this might be an old woman problem. Hah.

In Real Life was pretty darn good. Girl gamers FTW!

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3 Graphic Novels

Look at me finishing up a category from the Cybils shortlist. (Unfortunately it’s an easy category. Hah.)

The Dumbest Idea Ever was ok. A little long and I didn’t much like the kid. Or his friends. The illustrations were good, though.

Hidden: A Child’s Story of the Holocaust was very good. I liked it a lot. I can see a grandmother telling that story to her grandchild but not to her son.

Ballad was beautiful. Really beautiful. But, I did not love the story that went along with it. It was too choppy and I don’t think it needed to be. Definitely worth reading just for the illustrations.

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Four Graphic Novels

I’m only about a month late but I’ve started the whole Cybils shortlist thing and am slowly making a dent in the list. Graphic novels were a good way to dive in.

El Deafo was excellent. Really. I wasn’t sure I was going to like it — so much hype around it! But, it was well deserved hype.

Bad Machinery: The Case of the Good Boy, sigh. I just don’t like Bad Machinery. I don’t get why everyone else does. This one was better than the last one I read (or tried to read) but I had to force myself to get through this one, too. If it makes the Cybils next year, I’m just not going to read it. Blah.

Gaijin: American Prisoner of War — I liked it. The art was excellent.

Bird & Squirrel on Ice was super cute. I particularly like Sakari and her role in the story.

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Graphic Novel Read During #Readathon

I should have known better than to add Mind MGMT (vol 3) to my list for #readathon… TW picked it out. TW does not like graphic novels. TW thought it was about homemaking (eyeroll). It was the third in a series I’ve never read. I’ve heard of it and I’ve thought about trying it so I thought it was kismet or something when TW picked it out.

Alas. I did not enjoy it. Not because I was lost due to it being the third but because it was boring. The art was boring. The people were annoying and I hated them all. Bah. I won’t be going back to read the first two.

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The Night Bookmobile

Nuthinfancy asked a bunch of us if we’d read The Night Bookmobile — we hadn’t so some of us reserved it at the library and read it.

I have such a love/hate thing with Niffenegger I was almost afraid to read it but I did because Nuthinfancy liked it so much and my mother also seemed to like it.

I liked it, too. Mostly. She does that thing that she does, (no I’m not gonna get specific — if you read her books, but particularly her graphic novels), at the end of this one, and … love/hate y’all, love/hate.

I really think I should just stop reading her graphic novels, even though I liked this one more than any of her others. The more of them I read, the more I want to not read her work and I’m hoping that some day she goes back to publishing something besides graphic novels…

PS. This is not a children’s book. It’s not even shelved YA. There are some folks who are angry about it because they think it is YA or a children’s book. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. If you want to hate the ending do so because you hate the ending not because you’re worried about the childrennnnnnnn. (eyerolling here, lots of eyerolling.)

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Three Graphic Novels

All Cybils and all better than I expected.

I absolutely loved Templar and didn’t expect to.

Uzumaki was freaky. It’s hard to read a book while you’re covering your eyes. Also, I will never look at spirals in the same way. Shudder. Also, it’s been awhile since I read real manga (front to back) much less horror manga.

War Brothers is heartbreaking. I think I’d have liked the real book better than the graphic novel.

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Boxers & Saints

I really liked Boxers & Saints — I particularly appreciated the way the second book (Saints) tied into the first book (Boxers)… with the opera mask girl. I liked that very much.

What I didn’t like was good grief, how depressing. All the dying peoples. All the blood and gore. All the unhappy unhappy. I mean obviously there would be a lot of that, it was a difficult time period in China but sheesh. ALL the unhappy and ALL the blood & gore. Shudder.

Well drawn. Well written. (Some typos in my version, I hope there aren’t any in yours.)

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