Detective Comics: The Complete Covers Volume 2

 

Bought at Foreign Languages Bookstore, Shanghai, China, in December of 2021.

Title: Detective Comics: The Complete Covers
Issue: Volume 2
Publisher: Insight Editions
Date: 2019

Pocket-sized artbook, featuring a selection of Detective Comics covers from issues 301 to 600. This starts things off firmly in the Silver Age and it's over-the-top brightly colored goofiness, and brings up up to the Batman of the modern era. Along the way, we see the introduction of Barbara Gordon as Batgirl, some redesigns of the Batman's costumes and milestone events like Batman: Year Two, and Blind Justice.

Unlike volume 3 (reviewed here), a lot of this material was unfamiliar to me. There were some really fun covers here, a few surprises in terms of crossovers (the Batman crosses paths with several of the Flash's adversaries). There is also a fair amount of silly Silver Age absurdities (Batman and Robin held captive in an alien zoo!) including a "Holy tombstone!" from Robin (who previous to the Batman TV show was more likely to go with "Great Scott!" as his exclamation of choice.

Like the rest of this series, the quality of the illustrations suffer a bit from the limitations of the book's size, but this is still a fun collection that delivers a lot of nostalgia in a small package.

Rating: 7/10

White Bird

Bought at the Foreign Languages bookstore in Shanghai, China. Christmas gift for my son.

Title: White Bird
Date: 2019
Publisher: Alfred A Knopf
Writer: R.J. Palacio
Artist: R.J. Palacio
Inker: Kevin Czap

This graphic novel companion-piece to Palacio's prose novel, Wonder, takes place in the same continuity, telling the story of Julian's Grandmere and her story of survival in Nazi-occupied France during World War II.

Sarah tries to live a normal life, doing her best to put the horrors of the war far from her mind. It's not too difficult at first, as life in the "free" region of France has not changed much. But the horrors are coming faster than Sarah imagines, and in a single terrible day she is separated from friends and family and forced into hiding, depending on the support of a fellow student and his family to care for her and hide her.

White Bird mixes historically-accurate reality that holds back none of the terrible details of Holocaust, and punctuates it with fairytale moments of magic realism that are highlighted by the beauty of the artwork.

The story takes a big step toward redeeming Julian, the "villain" of Wonder, without ever making his present-day situation the focus. The story is full of moments of tragedy and acts of selfless courage, and it does a great job of incorporating small details through both words and art.

Rating: 9/10

Star Wars: Jedi Academy: The Force Oversleeps

Bought at Foreign Languages Bookstore, Shanghai, China.

Title: Star Wars: Jedi Academy: The Force Oversleeps
Publisher: Scholastic
Date: 2017
Writer: Jarrett J. Krosoczka
Artist: Jarrett J. Krosoczka

This is the second book in the second series of Jedi Academy (the first three books in the series are reviewed here, here, and here). This series features Jarrett J. Krosoczka taking over for Jeffrey Brown, and doing a good job of maintaining the style and feel of the first three books. I skipped the first book in this second trilogy, but it was easy to jump in here.

Victor Starspeeder is the transferred into Jedi Academy halfway through the previous year, and now he's a second-year student starting his first full year of studies. He's got a new rival, a new admirer, and a bunch of rumors that Sith forces have been lurking around the school.

But when those rumors begin to focus in on his sister during her graduation year, Victor begins to worry that she may be under the influence of the Dark Side.

The Force Oversleeps keeps up the clever humor and rapid-fire movie references (I particularly liked the student musical production of Little Sarlacc of Horror) and in-jokes that make this series fun.

Ms. Catara, the Gungan guidance counselor and school newspaper advice columnist was an amusing addition to the series, and she had some of the best humorous moments.

There is more high-stakes action here, although the major plot points feel crammed into the end. There are also some potentially emotional events that felt rushed or glossed over.

In general, this book did a better job with the small jokes than with the serious plot elements and character development. There are some good insights, especially about family, but they are thrown in so quickly that it is easy to miss them.

Rating: 5/10

Dog Man: Mothering Heights

Bought at Foreign Languages Bookstore, Shanghai, China.

Title: Dog Man: Mothering Heights
Publisher: Scholastic / Graphix
Date: 2021
Writer: Dav Pilkey
Artist: Dav Pilkey
Colorist: Jose Garibaldi

So, as it turned out, Dog Man: Grime and Punishment (reviewed here) was not the end of the series. This new installment includes a romantic subplot between Chief and Nurse Lady, a bit more about Petey's mother (hence the title), giant evil animated sippy cups, lots of malic acid, and some references to the first law of thermodynamics. Oh, and poop jokes. Lots of poop jokes, because apparently the series had not actually moved beyond poop humor so much as to take a brief scenic detour away from it.

As with most of the more recent Dog Man books, the serious stuff here was quite well done, and never felt like it slowed things down or weighed things down. The bathroom humor has never been a favorite of mine, but my son (13 now) still finds it hilarious. The main source of much of this was Molly the psychokinetic tadpole, who is Lil' Petey's best friend, which seemed a bit weird because this wasn't an aspect of her character in previous appearances.

I did feel like this relied a bit too much on tropes and gimmicks from previous installments, while not adding too much to the longer-term plotlines. That being said, it was still cute fun, with several really great jokes.

Rating: 7/10

Diary of a Wimpy Kind: The Deep End

Bought at the Foreign Languages Bookstore, Shanghai, China.

Title: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Deep End
Publisher: Amulet Books (a division of Abrams; series website at wimpykid.com)
Date: 2020
Writer: Jeff Kinney
Artist: Jeff Kinney

Following the mayhem that resulted from their home improvement efforts (As seen in Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Wrecking Ball, reviewed here), the Heffley family is stuck living in Greg's grandmother's basement. As stir-craziness sets in, the sudden acquisition of a camper provides a possible escape for the rest of the summer, so it's road-trip time!

First of all, after complaining that the ending of the previous book felt like too much of a no-consequences reset, it was nice to see that there were, in fact, some consequences and continuity from the events of Wrecking Ball. This series works better with a bit of continuity.

This installment starts slow. We've already seen the family trip adventures a couple of times now, and in the beginning, it's the usual stuff, with Greg's mom set of ruining everyone's fun for the sake of, well, having fun. This interaction has never been very entertaining, and it's not any better here.

What is a lot better is a subplot that begins when the family arrives at the Campers' Eden campground. Greg actually has a pretty fun adventure with a crew of kids who are regulars at the camp. They end up in a battle with a gang of teenagers who have been using a giant slingshot to lob watermelons at the campers in the lake. Greg's new friends have a lot of personality, which is a nice change from some of the throwaway characters encountered in previous books, and it really helps improve this story in terms of plot and humor.

The jokes build up nicely toward the end, and there is even a bit of a happy ending.

Between this book, Wrecking Ball, and Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure (reviewed here), Jeff Kinney's most recent works have been a lot more appealing to me than his earlier stuff.

Rating: 7/10

Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure

Bought at Foreign Languages Bookstore, Shanghai, China.

Title: Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure
Publisher: Puffin Books (a division of Penguin; series website at wimpykid.com)
Date: 2020
Writer: Jeff Kinney
Artist: Jeff Kinney

This was clear away my favorite book in the Wimpy Kid series, and a great comeback after I was really disappointed by the first Rowley Jefferson solo book, Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid (my review is here).

This book has a very different format from others in the series, with the first half of each chapter being the fantasy adventure that Rowley is writing about his heroic alter-ego Roland, and the second half of each chapter consisting of Rowley and Jeff interacting after Jeff reads the chapter.

The result is a multi-layered story with a fantasy quest, the meta-plotline of the conflict between Rowley and Jeff over the direction the story is going to take, and a huge pile of snark directed at everything from the fantasy genre to pop culture tropes to fandom culture as Jeff envisions the eventual marketing of Rowley's epic.

The fantasy story is intentionally ridiculous, but actually features a surprisingly good ending with several excellent plot twists (amusingly, these come one chapter after the "shocking plot twists" that Jeff talks Rowley into adding, resulting in a double dose of red herrings). The story does a great job of pulling together a bunch of references and plot threads while managing to bring in Sherlock Holmes, Medusa, a sulky vampire with lycanthopy, narwhals, and "a little mermaid, but not the Disney one".

In the "real world" story, it was great to see Rowley resist Jeff's badgering and decide to write the story he wants to write. Even earlier in the story, his ability to twist Jeff's suggestions into his own story ideas is a refreshing change from him just being pushed around by Jeff as seems to happen in the rest of the series. It also helps that Jeff's obnoxiousness it toned down a bit, and he actually has positive reactions to some of Rowley's ideas.

As for the satire elements, it's a bit of a mixed bag. Author Jeff Kinney is spot-on with some of his observations, although a few of his targets feel like he's punching down a bit. Still there was enough here that was genuinely funny, and it was layered over a surprisingly engaging epic fairy tale quest story.


Rating: 7.5/10

Lumberjanes: The Shape of Friendship

Bought at the Foreign Languages Bookstore, Shanghai, China.

Title: Lumberjanes: The Shape of Friendship
Date: November, 2019
Publisher: Boom! Studios (Boom Box)
Writer: Lilah Sturges
Artist: Polterink
Letterer: Jim Campbell
Cover:  Alexa Sharpe
Editor:Jeanine Schaefer, Spohie Philips-Roberts

The Lumberjanes find a cave full of friendly pooka, who proceed to shapeshift into perfect-camper versions of the girls while leaving the real troop trapped in a maze of tunnels (possibly full of cave snakes!).

While the escape and the reclaiming of the girls' identities provides the plot, the real conflict is April and Jo struggling to figure out their friendship, and where Barney fits into the dynamic between them.

Everything about this book gets better as it moves along. The opening scenes are a somewhat blatant crash-course for new readers on who the Lumberjanes are and what to expect from their world, and it feels a bit hurried and heavyhanded.

Likewise, at first the drama between Jo and April is pretty standard afterschool-special fodder.

The main plot gets immediately better once the pooka are introduced, and features some amusing moments along the way to wrapping multiple threads up very satisfactorily.

The resolution of Jo and April's story gains a lot of depth in the end, and is genuinely touching.

As always, Lumberjanes does a tremendous job of featuring trans and nonbinary characters and generally celebrating the differences that make each member of the cast unique and awesome.

The duotone artwork by P:olterink is understated but beautiful.

Backup feature is a preview of The Avant-Guards, a comic about a basketball team at a decidely non-sports-oriented arts college by Carly Usdin and Noah Hayes, which was a fun start to the series and looked like it had great potential.

Rating: 8/10

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Wrecking Ball

Bought at the Foreign Languages Bookstore, Shanghai, China.

Title: Diary fo a Wimpy Kid: Wrecking Ball
Publisher: Amulet Books (a division of Abrams; series website at wimpykid.com)
Date: 2019
Writer: Jeff Kinney
Artist: Jeff Kinney

In some ways I felt like this was back on track for Jeff Kinney. The jokes were genuinely funny, as the Heffleys inherit some money and attempt to carry out a big home improvement project. From do-it-yourself to dealing with contractors, to thoughts of possibly moving and dealing with realtors and movers, Kinney applies Murphy's Law in some very creative and amusing ways.

I also liked the fact that Greg was not entirely intolerable in this one. He had some decent moments, including a really good scene with Rowley. I also liked the fact that the misery (and there was plenty to go around) was spread pretty evenly among the family members.

The ending was a bit of a disappointment, as the author chose the "reset button" approach, which was the least interesting of all possible endings. Still, I was able to enjoy this one all the way through, and there were some truly creatively hilarious moments.

Rating: 6.5/10