Brave

From my school's library.

Title: Brave
Date: 2017
Publisher: Yen Press
Writer: Svetlana Chmakova
Artist: Svetlana Chmakova
Colorist: Svetlana Chmakova, Melissa McCommon
Letterer: JuYoun Lee

Constant Daydreamer (and future astronaut hero) Jensen struggles to navigate middle school, figuring out his place as he finds his chance to help the school newspaper and begins to drift apart from his art club friends. 

This is a sequel to Awkward (reviewed here), with a new focus character, and an examination of bullying, particularly the idea that the victim of bullying may not always understand that that is what is happening to them. The addressing of the topic is realistic without anything being taken too extreme. There is some justice in the end, but it is realistically incomplete, and the author does a good job of showing that there are not easy solutions to complex problems.

The characters are diverse and nuanced (even the most of the teachers who get screen time), and it was fun to see the same setting from Awkward from a completely different set of eyes.

Rating: 7/10

Anatomical Botanical

From last Spring's Flywheel Zine Fest in Holyoke MA USA.

Title: Anatomical Botanical

Uncredited minicomic/zine featuring artwork of common wildflowers and other plants growing among and within human bones. The pen/ink art and simple labeling ("Hip primrose") make for a quirky and slightly creepy vibe.

Rating: 6.5/10

Heartstopper Volume 3

From my school library.

Title: Heartstopper
Issue: Volume 3
Publisher: Scholastic / Graphix
Date: 2021
Writer: Alice Oseman
Artist: Alice Oseman

I really liked the idea that formed one of the major themes in this volume: Coming out isn't something that just happens once. Charlie and Nick are now dating, but they need to figure out who to tell and how to do it. As exams bring an end to the school year, they find themselves off to Paris on a school trip with classmates, some of whom are in on their semi-secret and some who are not.

Lots of school-trip things happen, including the beginning/deepening of some new romances among their friends group, and we get some good character development in the supporting cast, along with some more revelations about Nick's family.

There are also some revelations about Charlie's mental health struggles. as well as the continuing progress of he and Nick's relationship.

As has been the case through the series, the author does a great job of giving the scenes the time and space they need, and the positive support that the main characters receive from friends is a welcome element of the story.

Rating: 8/10

Bio Booster Armor Guyver Volume 3: Dark Masters

From the tbr shelf. Not sure where I got this one.

Title: Bio-Booster Armor Guyver
Issue: Volume 3: Dark Masters
Date: 1995
Publisher Viz Media
Writer: Yoshiki Takaya
Artist: Yoshiki Takaya

Chronos has captured members of Sho's family, and they proceed to do a bunch of villainsplaining to reveal some of their evil schemes. Betrayals, rescues, escapes, and more rescues follow. The hyperzoanoids have a big fight with two versions of Guyver, leading to a brief reprieve for the heroes. Then Chronos comes up with a new plan: Using Sho's father as a weapon against him. More battle and shocking cliffhanger follows.

I was at a bit of a disadvantage jumping into the story here, but the father/son drama was good, and the ending with its emotional impact worked well. The villains felt really generic.

Rating: 4.5/10

Marvel Comics Presents #29

From the random box of unread comics.

Title: Marvel Comics Presents
Issue: 29
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: October 1989
Writer: Howard Mackie, Don McGregor, Doug Moench, Mark Gruenwald
Artist: Rich Buckler, Bruce Patterson, Gene Colan, Tom Palmer, Paul Gulacy, Paul Ryan, Danny Bulanadi
Colorist: Andy Yanchus, Mike Rockwitz, Glynis Oliver, Paul Becton
Letterer: Bill Oakley, Joe Rosen, Tim Harkins, Janice Chiang
Cover: Dennis Jensen, Dan Adkins
Editor:Terry Kavanagh, Michael Rockwitz

Marvel's bi-weekly anthology series from the late 80's is a combination of short series of varying length told in one chapter per issue, and the occasional standalone story. There was a fairly heavy emphasis on X-Men characters in this series, with Wolverine appearing in most issues.

This one starts off with a Havok story, part 6 of 8, with the revelation of the villainess Plasma revealed as the "Living Pharaoh". Havok has taken a beating in the story leading up to this, so he's in no condition to take on Plasma, but he manages to escape. In the Egyptian desert, he's found by Wolverine, and a battle with some ethnic-stereotyped henchfolk riding hovercraft occurs. The word "infidel" gets shouted a lot as Havok and Wolverine squash the jobbers, setting up the looming confrontation with Plasma,

Next up is Black Panther in part 17 of 25 of a really interesting premise: T'Challa on seeking out his long-lost mother in apartheid South Africa. This is a pretty grim story with T'Challa dealing with his own failures, and a lot of focus placed on the corruption present in the street-level reality of South Africa. Definitely the best story here, although this segment only scratches the surface of the possible story. I'd be interested in reading more of this.

The third story is Coldblood, which looks like an attempt to soft-launch a new character. I'm not sure if anything more was ever done with Coldblood. The title character is a cyborg, in the process of escaping from his makers, I guess, who want to use him to do, well, evil cyborg things, I suppose. There is a lot of shooting and explosions. This was possibly influenced by The Terminator? It had some decent visuals, including a car crashing through, a Vegas casino, but the feel was pretty generic.

Last up was this issue's standalone story, featuring Quasar with a cameo by Man-Thing, who is involved in the plot, but doesn't actually do much. Quasar is tracking a strange energy disturbance and finds himself in Man-Thing's swamp in Florida. Jennifer Kale (inexplicably dressed in an armor-bikini; or maybe this is how she always dresses?) explains that the Man -Thing has been infected with something, and that something turns out to be a villain named Quagmire. Quagmire takes one look at Jennifer and goes into full-on attempted sexual assault mode. Quasar puts a stop to that, and quickly determines that while Quagmire is immune to Quasar's energy powers, he is fully punchable in the face. The weird body-horror setup with Man-Thing is not bad, but Quagmire is pretty disappointing as a villain.

Rating: 4.5/10

The Witch Boy: Halloween ComicFest

I got this at Most Excellent Comics and Games in Enfield CT USA last Free Comic Book Day. It's a Halloween freebie from several years back, that the store had on their table of free books.

Title: The Witch Boy: Halloween ComicFest
Publisher: Scholastic / Graphix
Date: 2017
Writer: Molly Knox Ostertag
Artist: Molly Knox Ostertag

Full color preview mini containing an excerpt from Molly Knox Ostertag's graphic novel, The Witch Boy. The scene here is a fairly standard bit with the main character getting bullied and finally getting pushed to the point where he responds with his magical powers. It does a nice job of introducing the basic rules of the world: On the "magical side of town", boys are shapeshifters and girls are witches. Aster is a boy who hasn't been able to figure out the shapeshifting bit, but has some skill at witchery.

The artwork is lovely, and the overall trans theme of the story is appreciated. This preview doesn't reveal much, but there are enough hints at the overall storyline to hook the reader, which makes it a reasonably effective marketing piece.

Rating: 6/10

XXXholic Volume 4

From the books unpacked from storage.

Title: XXXHolic
Issue: Volume 3
Date: 2004
Publisher: Del Rey Manga
Writer: Clamp
Artist: Clamp
Letterer: Dana Hayward

This was mostly a Valentines Day (and White Day) themed issue, with Watanuki lamenting his lack of Valentines attention while Domeki is showered in gifts and chocolates. Meanwhile Watanuki is stuck making chocolates for Yuko to give away. Of course, spirits of various sorts become involved.

This then leads into an adventure involving a pair of twin sisters with a strange and possibly toxic connection, before finally setting up the stage for the next issue and filling in some backstory.

The setup for future issues felt more important here than any of the Valentines mishaps, so this felt like something of a transitional volume.

Rating: 5/10

Many Moths

From last Spring's Flywheel Zine Fest in Holyoke MA USA.

Title: Many Moths

Uncredited minicomic/zine that is exactly what the title promises: A collection of drawings of different moth species, one per page, from an overhead view, to best show the patterns of their wings This is simple, straightforward, and lovely. Educational too.

Rating: 7/10

Solar Man of the Atom #26

From the Random Box of Unread Comics.

Title: Solar Man of the Atom
Issue: 26
Date: October, 1993
Publisher: Valiant Entertainment
Writer: Tony Bedard, Kevin Vanhook
Penciler: David Wong
Inker: Fred Fredricks
Colorist: Carol Vanhook
Letterer: Jade
Editor: Don Perlman, Bob Layton

Phil (Solar) and Gayle find themselves traveling through rural Georgia when Solar recognizes a photo of a small-town mayor as an alien foe who had escaped from a previous battle.

Now, Rusk the spider-alien, Mayor Russel to his friends, runs the little town of Terminus, GA, as well as its textile plant. And he's got the corrupt sheriff right out of central casting on his side.

Gayle proceeds to break into a public library at night to find... well, information she could have just found with no problems if she'd waited until normal business hours. Instead, she gets caught and damseled by the aforementioned sheriff.

Solar proceeds to do his thing, while Gayle actually talks a bit of sense into the locals. As it turns out, blood-drinking spider aliens fall into the category of "Try that in a small town".

I'm being a bit harsh here, because the flow of the plot was pretty good, and the decision to make Rusk more pathetic than menacing was an interesting choice that contributed to the tone of the story. I also liked the fact that the townsfolk were not completely blindly obedient to the bad guys.

The interactions between Gayle and Phil were good, and the dialogue all made sense. This was my first time reading this series, and for a random issue, I found it pretty accessible as a new reader.

Rating: 6/10

Action Comics #687

From the box of random unread comics.

Title: Action Comics
Issue: #687
Date: June, 1993
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Roger Stern
Art: Jackson Guice, Denis Rodier
Colorist: Glenn Whitmore
Letterer: Bill Oakley
Editor: Mike Carlin, Jennifer Frank

Reign of the Supermen! This is one of the four issues introducing the new "Supermen" following Superman's death at the hands of Doomsday. These issues (complete with gimmicky cutout covers) each featured a "pretender" to the role of Superman, based on phrases associated with the character: "Man of Steel", "Man of Tomorrow", "Metropolis Kid", and in the case of this issue, "Last Son of Krypton".

The actual character in this case is the Eradicator (no, not Rhea Ripley). The story is written so that it is possible to believe that Eradicator is actually some sort of reincarnation of Superman, who has gone full-on Kryptonian at the loss of his humanity.

In the background, we see lots of details of the ripple effect of Superman's death. This is one of those stories that felt like a gimmick at the time. After all, no one believed for a minute that Superman was actually dead. He was simply spending some time "dead in the DC Universe", as one does. But looking at this story years later, the fact that the Superman's death turned out to be as temporary as everyone knew it would be seems less important, and the story itself is quite good.

Writer Roger Stern juggles a ton of little details and character interactions and does a nice job of introducing Eradicator-Superman while adding to the overall mystery. While I wasn't buying that Eradicator really was Superman, and I knew that we were getting the real Superman back eventually, I was left intrigued to find out how we get there and what other plot twists lie ahead.

Nice piece of an epic story that still holds up pretty well.

Rating: 7/10

Midwest Books To Prisoners Community Zine 2023

This was a freebie at Pilsen Community Book Shop, Chicago IL USA.

Title: Midwest Books To Prisoners Community Zine
Date: 2023
Publisher: Midwest Books To Prisoners
Contributors: Cam Eash, Daniel Baker, Adrian Pettis, Raheem Rahman, Jacob Gaines, Dwight Quigley, Rachael Christina Hilyard, Andre Winters, Buddy Smith, Jeremy W. Winsor, Rodrigo Ramirez, Edwin Steve Suarez, Ahmeed Fowler, De'jon Yearling, Wayne Bell, Sean Swain, Michael Owlfeather-Gorbey, Dennis Rogers Jr., Alan Piwowar, Levar Williams, Jose Landa

This zine is about half news and activism, particularly focused on issues around book and mail censorship, and out right abuse of basic human rights of prisoners. The other half is poetry and essays by incarcerated persons.

This covers some important issues that don't receive enough attention. I certainly found some of the details around the control of mail to prisoners and the exploitation by technology companies marketing services to the prison systems to be eye-opening.

The poems, drawing/cartoons, and other short bits of writing were moving as well.

Rating: 8/10

The Question #8

 From the Random Box of Unread Comics.

Title: The Question
Issue: 8
Date: September, 1987
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Dennis O'Neil
Artist: Denys Cowan, Rick Magyar
Colorist: Tatjana Wood
Letterer: Gaspar
Editor: Mike Gold

A deranged Gilbert & Sullivan fan named Mister Mikado is going around mutilating people in revenge for abusive acts they committed toward others, reciting a verse about making the punishment fit the crime before carrying out the nasty bit of revenge.

And they are nasty. The deaths/maimings reminded me a bit of the film Se7en (actually released 8 years after this book).

Vic Sage does a bit of detective/vigilante work to track down Mister Mikado, which is fairly standard fare. The confrontation between them is a lot more interesting, resulting in a verbal showdown about the nature of good and evil, and whether those who have done wrong can be redeemed.

This was a self-contained story (although it did advance some ongoing subplots in the background), and it serves as a pretty good introduction to what makes the Question's seeking of truth different from, for example, the Batman's quest for justice.

Ending was clever and very open-to-interpretation. As always, the Question has one of the best letter columns of its time, and I always enjoy getting Dennis O'Neil's recommended reading suggestion at the end (in this case, a fitting tie-in with the theme of the story: Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment).

Rating: 8/10

Getting Into Gaming: Peaceful Games

From last Spring's Flywheel Zine Fest in Holyoke MA USA.

Title: Getting Into Gaming: Peaceful Games
Date: August, 2023
Writer: Silver Kahn
Artist: Silver Kahn

Video game zine designed as an introduction for non-gamers. This was one of two in the series, this one covering a selection of nonviolent games (and mostly nonviolent ones such as Minecraft). I loved the tone of this because as someone who is into most areas of geekery, but has barely minimal knowledge of video games, I felt like this was right on my level. It's going to come off as probably too basic for a lot of potential readers, but it was a perfect fit for me. As an added bonus, it did feature one of the few games that I have played extensively: Monument Valley, which I enjoyed as much as the author of this zine did.

Your mileage may vary in terms of whether this is telling you anything new, but it is well written with a clear heartfelt love of gaming and a desire to spread the word in a positive way.

Rating: 7.5/10

Choose Your Own Adventure: Tobacco Hornworm

From last Spring's Flywheel Zine Fest in Holyoke MA USA.

Title: Choose Your Own Adventure: Tobacco Hornworm
Writer: ESmorc
Artist: ESmorc

What's better than an educational micro-minicomic about insect life cycles? An insect life cycle minicomic in (abbreviated) Choose Your Own Adventure format! And I do mean abbreviated. This book involves one choice, with one very good outcome and one very bad one. The back cover contains additional useful hornworm facts including what they metamorphose into...

SPOILER WARNING...
...

...

...

...

...

...

...

Sphinx moths!

You'll also learn some size comparisons, as well as the important skill of distinguishing a tobacco hornworm from a tomato hornworm.

This was quick, but so very quirky and amusing. Plus I learned things.

Rating: 8/10

You Know You're A Rural Queer When...

First review of 2025! Not a comic. Prose zine that I got last Spring at the Flywheel Zine Fest.

Title: You Know You're A Rural Queer When...
Date: 2019
Writer: Olivia M.
Artist: Olivia M.

Short essay in micro-zine form that lays out the challenges facing those in the queer community who live in rural areas. There are a lot of isolating factors that are detailed here, not all of them completely obvious, and there are also some issues with misguided our outright counterproductive attempts at allyship that the author has experienced. There is also a good reminder of the role (and limitations) of online supports.

This was a lot of important insights in a small amount of words.

Rating: 8/10