Northlanders: Sven the Returned, by Brian Wood

“Vikings finally done right!” effuses the cover blurb from Entertainment Weekly (whose reviewers obviously never saw the Viking Kittens doing Led Zeppelin, but I digress). If we understand “Vikings” to mean “violent” and “gritty” and “bleak,” then the Northlanders series succeeds with flying colors…
…or, if we’re going to be literal about it, the Northlanders series [...]

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In the Shadow of No Towers, by Art Spiegelman

It has been eight years to the day since America was attacked on September 11, 2001. To commemorate, I’d like to discuss the best piece of 9/11 literature I’ve encountered in those eight years, a nonfiction graphic novel by Art Spiegelman, In the Shadow of No Towers.
Even if you don’t normally read graphic novels, you [...]

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Identity Crisis, by Brad Meltzer

If, hypothetically, someone completely neglected to read comics in her childhood like she was supposed to, how would this person, now a grownup, become familiar with the superheroes?
Discuss.
I posed this entirely hypothetical question to a geek friend of mine, explaining that the reader, hypothetically, was intimidated by superhero books because she wasn’t familiar with the [...]

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8 by Joss Whedon

Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended after seven seasons on TV way back in 2003. Well, fans, the waiting is over – season eight is here! Joss Whedon, creator of the popular TV series, teamed up with Dark Horse Comics to continue telling Buffy’s tale in the form of comic books in 2007. Thankfully, these comics [...]

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Bone: Out from Boneville, by Jeff Smith

The Wizard of Oz could have been awfully boring. Dorothy could have traveled to Oz, seen some munchkins and a flying monkey or two, and skedaddled back home. It’s the sort of story that would have entertained young children, but only young children.
And that’s what the Bone series is like, at first. Forced to [...]

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Mister O, by Lewis Trondheim

In the wordless graphic novel Mister O, our protagonist tries to get from one side of the chasm to the other. He does this on every page.
…and that pretty well concludes my plot summary.
Mister O is a one-trick pony. His single-minded purpose is to traverse the chasm. It also happens that Mister O is a crudely [...]

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Welcome to the Jungle, by Jim Butcher

I have not read Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera series—I’ve heard it’s good, I’ll get to it someday—but I don’t like it, and here’s why: time spent writing Codex Alera is time not spent writing the Dresden Files. (If you’re not up to speed on Dresden, Melissa can give you the background).
One new Dresden book per [...]

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100 Bullets, by Brian Azzarello

Revenge has never been so sweet—or for that matter, so easy. There will be no legal consequences, the mysterious Agent Graves assures us. These one hundred bullets are completely untraceable. Use them to kill the person who wronged you. Or don’t use them, it’s your call. Or hey, use them to kill anybody. Politicians, spouses, [...]

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The Gunslinger Born, by Robin Furth

I sobbed my way through the final book of the Dark Tower series, not only because Stephen King kept killing off characters but because I knew there was nothing more to look forward to. I shall wax eloquent about the series, some other day, but for now I’ll tell you about the graphic adaptation of [...]

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These Things Ain’t Gonna Smoke Themselves, by Emily Flake

Are you a smoker who’s trying to quit? Are you a former smoker?
Yes?
Okay, sorry, you can’t read this book. I forbid it. This memoir of smoking is too powerful. Your cravings for nicotine will shoot through the roof.
If you’re a smoker with no intentions of quitting, it can’t hurt anyway. And I’ll grudgingly let you [...]

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