Unwritten by Mike Carey art by Peter Gross SF CAREY

Tommy Taylor is a worldwide phenomenon.  The boy wizard that has repeatedly bested the evil Count Ambrosio is beloved by people of all ages across the globe, and even has a almost religious following among his most fanatical fans.  Tom Taylor is just the son of the author and coasting on his celebrity as the 'inspiration' for Tommy.  Then a woman tells him he has it all backwards.  He IS Tommy and fiction is far realer than any of us know.  Happy to write her off as a raving lunatic, Tom changes his tune when he becomes targeted by a secret society dedicated to controlling all human history and destiny by controlling the stories we tell. This starts an amazing adventure beyond truth, fiction, fantasy, or reality.

This series just keeps getting better and better! It starts as a mystery/thriller and the story keeps twisting and turning and adding all sorts of amazing new layers.  The slower start really lets you get to know Tom and watch him grow and falter. It helps build the relationships between Tom and his two companions to something of real substance. What makes the series so great is that Tom isn't just a reluctant hero, he's not necessarily even a hero at all.  He has been written to be a hero by his controlling, reality-altering father for ;the greater good', but he balks at heroism at every turn.  The book's villains are definitely capital E evil, and raise the stakes remarkably well.  However, Carey isn't afraid to upend everything and start anew with Volume 7.  The book feels epic in scope and grandeur, without ever feeling forced or corny.  It has a lot to stay about the power and source of stories and builds a fascinating and ever growing world of fiction that lies underneath our own.  You will find yourself finishing one volume and jumping to the next immediately.  You will also find yourself rereading several pages over and over, or even whole issues to relive a big moment.  This book has serious complexity and depth and challenges the very notions of what is fiction and what is real.  It does it all with a mix of action, adventure, romance, humor, and philosophy that is hard to match in comics today.  

The art took a while for me to really appreciate. Peter Gross isn't the flashiest or most detailed artist, but he really does work for this project.  He helps ground the book in a sense of reality, so when they interact with the world of fiction it feels momentous.  That's hard to do in a comic book, where we are used to impossible things on every page.  This is an absolute must read for fans of serious comics, and I think it will make a lot of fans of comics for anyone that gives it a shot.

SIDENOTE: We have volumes 1-7 and a sort of prequel called Tommy Taylor and the Ship that Sank Twice.  I'd wait to read it until you've finished Volume 6.  That was when it was published and it fits really well there.

You can find the first volume of Unwritten in our catalog here.

Batman: Death Mask by Yoshinori Natsume YP FIC NATSUME

Is Batman really Bruce Wayne? Or is Bruce Wayne a mask the Batman wears for the public? There's a demon from Japan in Gotham stealing faces and taunting the Dark Knight; a demon straight from Bruce Wayne's time training in Japan before he was Batman.  He'll have to find the answer to who Batman is and face his own dark shadow to stop this deadly new threat.

How can you not love BatManga? It's got Batman and Manga! That's chocolate and peanut butter levels of greater than the sum of its parts! This definitely isn't the best or most original Batman story or the best manga, BUT it is a fun and stylish Batman adventure.  I love the face stealing baddie best of all.  He's a super cool masked assasin with the same silhouette as Batman, but in a traditional Japanese style.  It works really well for the  book, because he is super creepy and a great visual counterpoint to Batman.  The visuals are by far the strongest selling point of the book, as Batman really pops in a manga style.  i also like how the book kept me guessing about whether the villain is REALLY a demon or if there is some sort of scientific explanation behind the mystery.  They have several fun twists with this and I love it when Batman stories are also mysteries.  The only real down sides are that these ideas have been looked at before in loads of other Batman comics and that the dialogue is a little wooden.  I think the language barrier probalby explains the latter, and it's never so bad that it's unreadable.  As for the story covering old ground, many readers won't have read quite as many Batstories as I have and the book will feel fresher to them.  Also, the great visuals more than carry the book to being a can't miss Batbook.  It's Batastic! Batrific! Batstanding! Okay, that's probably enough bats for...ever.  So if you like Batman or manga, definitely give this one a read.  If you like Batman and Manga then you are pretty much legally obligated to love it!  

You can find Batman: Death Mask in our catalog here.

Johnny Hiro: Half Asian, All Hero by Fred Chao YP FIC CHAO

Johnny Hiro is not a hero…really.  He just minds his own business and tries to (barely) make ends meet and keep from ruining things with his girlfriend.  Sure he may occasionally have to face down a giant monster, business men turned samurai, or the FEARSOME WRATH OF JUDGE JUDY, but that’s just what life in the big city is like.

This is a surprisingly hilarious graphic novel that brings out the comic side of comics.  The art is sort of loose and sometimes feels amateurish compared to some more accomplished draftspersons, but the off-kilter, absurdist humor won me over again and again.  Johnny is a slacker, 20-something without much ambition, drive, or vision, but he slowly grew on me.  He may not want a lot out of life but he fights zealously for what’s important to him as bizzarro situations come left and right.  I mentioned above that he has to face down Judge Judy and I was not joking.  What’s even better is that he faces her in night court, but not any night court, Night Court.  The much loved mid 80s-early 90s sitcom starring John Larroquette, Markie Post, Richard Moll, Charles Robinson, and Marsha Warfield.  ALL of which are in this comic in a pitch perfect recreation of the series. The book also features NYC mayor Bloomberg, LL Cool J, Alton Brown, and many other completely hilarious unnecessary cameos. These types of off the wall tributes to ENTIRELY dated 80s and 90s pop culture keep things fresh and liven up what could be another karate/samurai/Asian sterotype montage send up.  And we do have LOADs of Japanese stereotypes thrown around for humor, but they are done in a way that looks playfully at the nature of stereotypes and the difficulties of living between differing cultures. This is a very original and out there comic with loads of humor and some real heart.  I’d highly recommend it to comic fans who like a good dose of humor and especially the Scott Pilgrim fans out there.

You can check our catalog for Johnny Hiro here.

Ichiro by Ryan Inzana YP FIC INZANA

Ichiro is lost between worlds.He has a Japanese mother and an American father who died in a war before he ever really knew him. He feels out of place in New York and when he has to stay with his grandpa in the Japanese countryside, it’s more like another planet than another country. But none of this prepares him for when he catches a raccoon that’s really an ancient Japanese spirit that pulls him into the realm of the gods and in a fight for his life.  Now he has to find his way home when he's not even sure where or what his home is.

This is a graphic novel with pretty big ambitions. It tackles war, national identity, religion, violence, and even the fallibility of gods. It does this all within the backdrop of myths and legends of Japanese folklore. Inzana takes the risky move of explaining only the major figures of the mythology and leaving the rest for readers to research on their own, so you’ll learn a good deal about Japanese folklore but have even more to find out for yourself. I actually think this works out for the best, it lets readers feel as lost and bewildered as Ichiro. This makes his adventure more effecting and exciting than if every page was littered with footnotes explaining what a kappa is. The art is a mix of manga style, Japanese ukiyo-e wood prints, and American art. This fits the story and themes of the book perfectly and is also just gorgeous to look at. Inzana uses color sparingly to highlight important objects and for startling contrasts. This is a unique, original, and touching story with superb art throughout. It is a must read for any and all comics fans looking for a great story and great art, but especially for anyone interested in Japanese culture.

You can check our catalog for Ichiro here.

Brooklyn Burning by Steve Brezenoff YP FIC BREZENOF

Kid loved a junkie named Felix until he disappeared and left Kid with nothing more than pain and the questions of who started the fire.  Scout comes along and gives Kid a shot at reclaiming the life, love, and music Kid that had disappeared forever.

This is a true original.  Kid is our narrator and he always talks directly to ‘you’.  However, in this case ‘you’ isn’t an imaginary, unnamed audience.  ‘You’ is Scout.  We learn all about Scout through Kid’s eyes and eventually more about Kid.  This is not only a way to keep the reader wondering about who the characters are, but also allows for the story to be very ambiguous in a wonderful and surprising way. We NEVER find out the gender of Kid or Scout.  The book never reveals if Kid is male or female or Scout is male or female, so this story is universal.  No matter gender or orientation, you can see yourself as a reader in Kid, Scout, or both.  This doesn’t just feel like a gimmick, because the story is all about identity, love, loss, and how easy all three get mixed up together.  Kid feels like Felix took away love, music, and Kid’s identity.  They are all rediscovered in Scout.  I liked Brezenoff’s previous book The AbsoluteValue of -1 or l-1l for short, but found it sometimes lacked focus with the multiple narrators, but Brooklyn Burning is a perfect and original use of the single narrator.  This book is honest, gritty, and raw.  It would be good for fans of edgier contemporary fiction.

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray YP FIC BRAY

A plane full of beauty queens crash lands on a desert island, but this isn’t the start of a cheesy joke!  They must band together to survive the elements and a dangerous cabal of drug dealers using the island for less than noble purposes.  More importantly they must struggle to find their inner beauty and common strength or be trampled by the misogynistic hegemony of the patriarchy!  Also, they need to get their dance routines down in case they are rescued.

Libba Bray has hit it out of the park.  Her last book, the hallucinatory bizarre epic Going Bovine won raves and adulation and acclaim and other good things.  Beauty Queens has all the wit and daring of Bovine but with a more straight forward (and to me more enjoyable) narrative.  The James Bondesque adventure plot actually is thrilling and action packed, it’s just also filled with hilarious social satire and genuine emotion.  The genuine emotion and satire can come from the same characters because Bray makes what seem like stereotypes at first (like Miss Texas the brash go-getter with big hair and big dreams) evolve into real young women.  A good deal of humor and satire comes from footnotes added by the corporate sponsors of the pageant. This isn’t JUST a super funny and exciting book. The problems it tackles of how companies sell young women horrible ideas of beauty and how that affects female identity are really intelligently and bravely addressed. A great read for anyone looking for a lighthearted dark comedy with adventure and Big Ideas!

The Replacement by Brenn Yovanoff YP FIC YOVANOFF

Mackie Doyle is not Mackie Doyle. He’s a replacement. Left in exchange for the real Mackie Doyle sixteen years ago, he’s lived with humans his whole life knowing he was different, but not fully knowing why. All he knows is that the mere presence of iron makes him deathly ill and he can’t go onto consecrated ground, but no one is willing to talk about what he really is. When another child is taken and Mackie finds himself becoming friends with the child’s sister Mackie decides to go with her into an underworld known as Mayhem and face the creatures that left him in the first place and his own destiny.

This is a confidently written first novel from Yovanoff. It’s got well developed characters an unusual plot, and great descriptive language. It draws very well from the darker of Irish folk tales and keeps things gross and ghoulish like the classic Grimm fairy tales that usually ended with children dying horribly for misbehaving. If you like heroic journeys with lots of strange creatures in fantastic lands then you should really like this one. It reminded me some of Goto’s Half World (YP FIC GOTO), which I also quite enjoyed.

Brain Camp by Susan Kim and Laurence Klavan Art by Faith Erin Hicks YP FIC KIM

Camp Fielding excels at taking even the dimmest camper and making them into a genius. The catch: they put something in your braaaaaaaaain!!! Jenna is an underachiever in a super competitive family. Lucas has been written off as prison bound most his life. As the two newest campers they form an unlikely bond to try and figure out the mystery of Camp Fielding before it’s too late…for their brains.

The first thing that grabbed me about Brain Camp was the art. Faith Erin Hicks also drew the very good War at Ellsmere (YP FIC HICKS) and her work remains really effective. She uses thick lines and simple designs mixed with small touches of detail. This allows her to switch between different emotional touches very well. The story is quirky and weird with a nice touch of menace. The classic story of people being brainwashed and trying to stop them when no one believes you is a staple of Sci Fi Horror and putting it at a summer camp is a fun twist. It’s a fun and short read with unique art and some really fun twists. If you like your comics a little quirky then check it out.