One click and this new dimension opens. A panel is the threshold to a dimension of gutters and splash pages. A dimension made of ink and Kirby Krackles. A world where a madman writes of comics and graphic novels. You are about to enter No Flying No Tights.
News From The Fallout is a macabre delight. Any fans of the Twilight Zone or old school creature features looking for a fast paced adventure might find their fix with this mini-series. From the creators Chris Condon (Ultimate Wolverine) and Jeffrey Alan Love (The Thousand Demon Tree), News From The Fallout is a nonstop sprint of a story. This miniseries is set in 1960s Nevada and follows a private in the U.S. Army named Otis Fallows, after a nuclear bomb test goes horribly wrong.
Now, with no disrespect to Chris Condon and the script, this series is carried by Jeffrey Alan Love’s art work. It really is something to behold. It exists as some sort of combination of CRT TV static and shadowpuppetry mixed with pages of background lore. Love conveys just enough detail for your brain to fill in the rest of the horrific details. He’ll show the row of fangs in shadow and the reader can imagine what else it’s hiding. There’s a narrative focus on ash and he takes that opportunity to make every scene feel shrouded in ash as well as emulate the 50s and 60s television technology with a grayscale color palette. It really sets the mood for a Cold War era monster thriller, a haunted nuclear nightmare.
While Love’s artwork is probably the best selling point, Chris Condon’s script is no slouch. Given the limitations of a narrative in six issues, Condon makes every word count. He gives each of Love’s silhouetted characters a distinct voice, making up for the lack of clarity in Love’s chosen style. Along with tight and efficient characterization, Condon created a story propelled by its own moment. Each scene crashes into the next, usually with a great amount of violence. At the beginning and ending of every issue there is background information in the form of within-universe media like menus or redacted military orders. Condon uses these glimpses into the goings on in Atomic Alley to ground the story in some form of reality.
For any librarians looking to expand their adult graphic fiction or science fiction selection, this isn’t a terrible pick. This would be right at home in a read-alikes display with Ray Bradbury or Harlan Ellison. Image comics gives no listed age rating, but I would recommend this to mainly adults based on the horror and violent elements of the entire series.
News From the Fallout By Chris Condon Art by Jeffrey Alan Love Image Comics, 2026 ISBN: 9781534335745
Easily my worst trait. So, keep that in mind as you read this.
I didn’t need any more convincing to check out Saint Seiya: Dark Wing, it’s already Saint Seiya, it’s going to be great.
As an aging anime nerd, I watched the original DIC dub of Saint Seiya when it came to the United States… about 20 years after the original production concluded. The aesthetic is immediately recognizable as an anime from the mid to late eighties. I found it fascinating to watch as a kid, and I was so surprised that this franchise is actually still going. Maybe not in a regulated production kind of way, but every few years, something new contributing to the universe shows up, like the awful movie adaptation from 2023.
I say this to give the series some context; it is very difficult to summarize this universe because it is so long-lived. The most concise way I can put it is this: the Saints are 5 chosen ones – boys who wear sacred armor that are based on constellations, sworn to defend the earth from being taken over by competing gods.
It’s… a lot. And if you’re also into Greek and Roman mythology… uh, you’ll recognize a lot of names, but this series is not based on any of those stories, it is not a re-telling of those legends; it’s more along the lines of appropriation than anything else. Personally, I enjoy the surrealism of it all.
Set in high school, students’ fates are revealed as chosen ones, sworn enemies, divine figures, and all in the service of the battle of the gods. Our protagonist, Soichiro, goes on a school trip to the Mediterranean, but the ship is attacked and sinks into the sea as he tries to save his crush. But Soichiro is revived as one of the dreaded Judges of the Underworld, under the command of Hades. He is pitted against his twin brother, Sojiro, who is reincarnated as the Gold Saint of Gemini.
Dark Wing consists of 4 volumes in total. It is not-quite-linear, relies on dream logic, and honestly, I appreciate its updated setting of the modern world. The linework is clean and detail-oriented when it is called for—these pages have some very elaborate backgrounds when the backgrounds actually show up. It is delightfully nostalgic to look at; fans of the old Gundam Wing manga will recognize these 90s pattern and texture overlays. And maybe the best part of it all is the re-working of popular 80s design elements into a more modern aesthetic (those feathered up-do’s, I mean…).
I do want to be clear: I loved this next installment of the series, but I am fairly certain that a newcomer to this franchise is not going to know what’s going on if this is the first Saint Seiya book they pick up. It’s a good read if you’re willing to just let the story happen, wash over you as the reader. The mythic themes of destiny and fate and rising to challenges never get old for me.
It pains me to say it, but I don’t think this spin-off makes for a great addition to your library collection. If you can link it to some of the more foundational works in the franchise, I think that would be best. But, on its own, even with all four volumes, I’m not sure this is the way to go.
Saint Seiya: Dark Wing Vol. 1 By Masami Kurumada and Kenji Saito Art by Shinshu Ueda Titan, 2025 ISBN: 9781787747180
NFNT Age Recommendation: Middle Grade (7-11), Teen (13-16) Creator Representation: Japanese, Character Representation: Japanese,
Like a filmmaker having a soft spot for movies about movies, I am a sucker for a book or comic on the importance of stories. The Author Immortal is for anyone who has a soft spot for the stories that made you.
The plot follows a writer named Hector Ramirez when he is given the opportunity to reboot a classic young adult fantasy series. The opportunity comes with a cost and what’s worse is that his loved ones may pay the price. By the time he learns that the original author was sucked into his own fiction, it is too late. He and his nonbinary teen, Al, are whisked away to a fantasy land corrupted by dark magic and ink that runs like blood. There, they meet the very characters of this story, but something is wrong. Monsters run rampant and the heroes have changed into something wilder and more dangerous. We follow Al and their father as they navigate the corrupted land of The Mage’s Apprentice, a fantasy series with a strong influence from C.S.Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia. Even the title is a nod to The Magician’s Nephew, the first and often forgotten book in the series. What follows is an exploration of identity, the role stories play in our lives and the things you are willing to do for the ones you love.
This queer fantasy is a love letter to the stories we got lost in. Childhood hours spent lost in the pages of a book, going on adventures in a world far from ours. This new world of magic and monsters is from the new creative duo: Frank J. Barbiere (he/him) and Morgan Beem (she/her). Both creators have worked in the industry for years, but this is their first collaboration. Barbiere has written on titles like Violent Love and Lobo, meanwhile Beem has drawn for titles like Swamp Thing and You Belong Here. This debuting duo complement each other’s styles marvelously.
Barbiere’s biting script full of emotion is elevated to eleven through Beem’s expressive art. Her watercolor illustrations create a world not bound by limitations similar to how her paints are not bound to the pencilling on the page. Her color palette contrasts itself to match the changing tone of the scenes within the comic. The pair really knocked it out of the park with this one.
There is no publisher’s age rating but the violent and horror elements are geared towards older audiences.This new and terrifying world is not for the faint of heart. Vol. 1: Death of the Author collects issues #1-5. There is currently no release date for issue number 6. Image comics would be remiss if they do not continue this run to a conclusion. The story does not strike me as one made for an ongoing series, but a satisfying ending is for sure a possibility if allowed to run its course.
The Author Immortal Vol.1: Death of the Author By Frank Barbiere Art by Morgan Beem Image, 2026 ISBN: 9781534334786
The graphic novel medium has the ability to convey complex ideas and emotions through images, revealing many interesting aspects of the human condition. Then there are books like Final Boss, Vol. 1, written and drawn by Tyler Kirkham with additional art by David Miller.
Final Boss is not a story that will have its readers feel a variety of emotions or discover any universal truths, save for the truth that seeing people hit extremely hard appeals to many people. However, it’s important to note that this book is not trying to be anything complex or grandiose; Kirkham and Miller seem perfectly fine with Final Boss being a vehicle to show characters that could have stepped out of a video game pummel each other.
The person that does the majority of the pummeling in this story is Tommy Brazen, which is a name that could have been picked up from any martial arts movie script floating around Hollywood or Hong Kong during the 90’s. Brazen earns money by being really good at hurting people, whether it’s through his job as a paid enforcer or competing in underground street fighting matches. He’s recently acquired an ancient talisman left to him by his grandfather that not only increases his strength but lets him acquire the strengths of the various opponents he dispatches. This newfound power will be put to the test as he and his best friend Rabak travel to the mysterious country of Farthica for a fighting tournament, and while there, he meets several enemies that feed his and his talisman’s power.
The setup Kirkham presents of a mysterious fighting tournament is the same basic premise for nearly every fighting game that’s been played on a computer, gaming console, or arcade cabinet, and Kirkham leans heavily into the plot merely being the connecting tissue between bloody, high-octane fighting. In fact, Kirkham’s story could be one used for a fighting game that follows a particular protagonist. Brazen might be an ex-Special Forces guy searching for information about his grandfather, but he’s not exactly a well-developed, multifaceted character. He ultimately doesn’t need to be well-developed, though, as long as he beats the enemies he encounters within an inch of their lives, often in cinematically violent ways.
And “cinematically violent” seems to be what Kirkham and Miller are going for in their artwork, along with equating this book to a fighting game/online role-playing game. Among the splattered skulls and bisected bodies, all rendered in stunningly vivid reds, the book is presented like a video game. Panels will describe the stats of Tommy and whoever he’s fighting before a panel declares “FIGHT!” and victories are announced with words like “BRUTALITY!” plastered across the page. After Tommy kills his opponent, the book details Tommy’s updated stats in the same way many online role-playing games do.
Final Boss isn’t a book that requires deep thinking, going straight for the readers’ collective hypothalamus. To clarify, many studies have concluded violent video games don’t necessarily cause violence, but for fans of fighting games and online role-playing games, reading this book will feel like picking up a controller and playing. Librarians who count these video games fans among their patrons should consider getting this book and letting their patrons play.
Final Boss Volume 1 By Tyler Kirkham Image, 2026 ISBN: 9781534334243
Before Superman and superheroes came to dominate American comics, there was an age undreamed of. Pulp fiction was gaining in popularity, and it occurred to advertising agent Joseph H. Neebe that there might be a market for comic strips based on action and adventure rather than comedy. He approached Edgar Rice Burroughs (who had just set up shop in what would become Tarzana, California) about licensing his Tarzan character as a comic strip. Burroughs, who was already aiming to make movies based on the Lord of the Jungle agreed, but this still left the question of who would draw the comic.
Enter Harold “Hal” Foster—a Canadian illustrator who had little interest in drawing comics. However, with times being tough (and about to become tougher when The Great Depression hit), Smith got the comic off the ground by drawing the daily strip in 1929. He would later return, reluctantly, to draw a full-color Sunday strip in 1931. And yet, over the next few years, Smith began to believe he could take the comics he crafted and turn them into the high art he’d wanted to create.
However, Foster grew increasingly dissatisfied with the quality of the scripts he was given. He was also unhappy with the increasingly inadequate flat fee he was paid when the writers were given a percentage of the profits. He eventually left Tarzan for a more lucrative deal with King Features, where he was given more money, creative control, and the ability to write and draw his own adventure comic, the equally revolutionary Prince Valiant.
This history is detailed in the introduction to Hal Foster’s Tarzan. The Complete Sunday Comics 1931-1937. However, it understates just how important these comics were to the medium. Legends like Frank Frazetta, Wally Wood, Bernie Wrightson and Jack Kirby all cited Hal Foster as a major influence on their own comics. And without the success of the first Tarzan newspaper comics fueled by Foster’s work, it is possible that the action/adventure comics and the later comic books might never have come about. For that reason alone, this volume is well worth studying on a scholarly level.
Another reason is Foster’s command of anatomy, which was impressive and unlike anything appearing in the funny pages at the time. Foster took his research seriously and lamented that some of the writers he worked with failed to consider things like what kind of trees were likely to line an African river. Alas, his dedication was not appreciated by his employers and one of the chief reasons Burroughs considered Foster the best artist to handle Tarzan was that he was very good at drawing attractive women. (This skill, it might be noted, was honed by Foster’s work as a commercial artist, drawing women in lingerie in catalogs in the days before photography became inexpensive.)
On that note, there is no publisher rating for this collection. The amount of sex and violence within it was shocking for its time, but there’s nothing that would be inappropriate for a teenage audience today. There are a few bare male backsides and one naked boy who comes to Tarzan’s aid in one story, but nothing more overtly sexual than various queens of lost cities informing Tarzan that he is now theirs.
It should also be noted there is some material in these comics that has not aged well. There are multiple instances of the white goddess trope, with superstitious African natives taking in a white woman as their leader. Thankfully, Smith does not present these characters as the offensive caricatures that were commonplace in other comics of the time, but the four-color recreations for this book do feature some Asian characters with dimly yellowed skin.
One final warning. At $200 this volume may be a bit expensive for a library collection. Serious collectors of Tarzan lore and comics history should consider this a must-have. However, unless one’s library has a special collection devoted to Platinum Age comics or something similar, this one may be a bit of a budget breaker.
Hal Foster’s Tarzan: The Complete Sunday Comics 1931-1937 By Dian Hanson Art by Hal Foster TASCHEN, 2026 ISBN: 9783754402641
Related media: Book to Comic
NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+) Creator Representation: Canadian,
Charlotte Bissett seems to be a pretty average middle school girl in the quaint town of Devilfish Bay. She lives with her internet chef father, Raymond, and her loyal canine companion, Vincent. She is a bookworm and devours any book put in front of her.
However, the cracks in her personal life slowly make themselves clear. Charlotte’s mother had gone missing in the recent past on a boating trip and her father is attempting to move on and begin to date again. On top of this, Charlotte doesn’t appear to have any friends, yet when two kids from her past, Molly and Griffin, move back to town it soon becomes clear why Charlotte is so guarded in her social life. Molly used to be Charlotte’s ride-or-die bestfriend, and yet after Molly moved away the girls had a falling out. Molly wants nothing more than to have a fresh start, but Charlotte is resistant and does her best to avoid Molly. Eventually, Charlotte reveals that the reason she is upset with Molly is because when Charlotte told Molly that a sea creature was responsible for her mother’s disappearance, Charlotte didn’t believe her. It is in that atmosphere of uncertainty and pre-teen angst that Charlotte, taking refuge in her safe place, the school library, is combing the shelves when a book falls off the shelf next to her. The book appears to be bound in green, improperly prepared leather of some kind, the pieces of rotted looking material stitched together in phantasmagoric fashion reminiscent of the Necronomicon from the Evil Dead franchise. The title of the book is “Liber de Monstrum” and true to that name appears to be a grimoire of supernatural information. Taking it home, Charlotte reads from the book, very carefully sounding out the words in an unknown language and upon uttering the last word the windows of her room blow open, the electricity goes out in the area around her house and in the morning Devilfish Bay experiences the first snowfall in fifty years.
On top of these strange occurrences, that day it’s announced that one of Charlotte’s favorite teachers, Mr Cooper, has gone missing and an enigmatic woman with platinum blond hair, who doesn’t appear to be who or what she seems, takes over the class in the interim. Clearly, Charlotte has awoken something or some things from their slumber, and it’s up to her to try and fight these unknown forces. The question is whether her recently returned friends will believe her this time and offer her their help, because it is clear Charlotte cannot fight these monsters alone.
The Girl Who Loves Monsters follows spectacularly in the “kids on bikes” tradition, creating a very real and present danger in a small community and presenting the kids willing to stand up to that danger when the rest of the community can’t see it or believe in it. Charlotte, Molly, and Griffin make a compelling trio bound by their history, common interests, friendships, and burgeoning teenage emotions. In this first volume in the Devilfish Bay series, writer Insha Fitzpatrick sets the scene brilliantly for future adventures and the various mundane trials and tribulations that will also stand in the main characters’ way as they attempt to combat the enigmatic evil that has come forth from the Liber de Monstrum.
The art by Ashley Robin Franklin creates a beautiful balance between the soft, cartoonish style that sets a relaxed tone to the everyday world of the story with the sharp, phantasmagoric elements that truly evoke the horror and supernatural elements. From the first page to the last, The Girl Who Loves Monsters is a compelling read that deals with very relatable parts of adolescence, such as being taken seriously by those around you, mixed with the eerie supernatural elements that could only take place in a small town somewhat set apart from the wider world.
The Girl Who Loved Monsters By Insha Fitzpatrick Art by Ashley Franklin Penguin Random House Viking Books for Young Readers, 2026 ISBN: 9780593690901
Company Age Rating: 8-12
NFNT Age Recommendation: Middle Grade (7-11) Creator Representation: African-American, Queer, Character Representation: African-American,
The rules of the game are simple: don’t get tagged, don’t cross the Uphill/Downhill dividing line, and no adults allowed. If you get tagged, you’re immediately placed in the other side’s jail (until the streetlights come on, until the school year starts). Passed down through generations, everyone in Lakeside knows these rules are integral to keeping this decades long capture the flag game going. Newcomers must complete a puzzle in order to show their responsibility and be sworn into the game. When Fred’s family moves to Lakeside, he spends his summer playing The Endless Game, a summer he and the town will never forget.
The Endless Game, written by J.D. Amato with art by Sophie Morse, is a new middle grade graphic novel focusing on Fred’s first summer in his new town. He’s not happy his family’s moved again but almost immediately meets his fellow Downhill kids. After passing the entry test, Fred is sworn in as a member of the Downhill by the Council of Homeschooled Kids and quickly learns all about Lakeside’s infamous game. There’s DIY castles, root beer speakeasies, and bike races, plus years of lore and history to catch up on. As the summer flies by, Fred learns that the game always takes priority, even if winning never seems fully possible.
At home, Fred’s mom is glad he’s made friends and has finally fit in somewhere. She deals with her own job hunting struggles, something hinted at off page and in larger spreads, but not a main focus of Fred’s energy. His dad’s absence, however, is strongly felt throughout the story. Fred just wants his dad to finally move to Lakeside to be with his family, a move being held up by his work situation. They’re all tired of having to uproot their lives for his dad’s job and just want him to be home with them in this new place they love. Amato weaves the more emotional family touchpoints into more of a background plot, while still being a crucial element of Fred’s summer.
The Endless Game reads like the best kind of kids summer movie from the 80’s or 90’s but written for the kids of today, giving it a very timeless feeling. It takes place in a pre-cell phone time, seemingly the 90’s, without constant references to cultural touchpoints of the time, making it enjoyable and welcoming for readers of all ages. The kids of Lakeside are diverse, one benefit of this modern graphic novel over some existing classic “kids in summer” stories, and many young readers will see someone similar to themselves.
Morse’s art is lively, full of motion and movement, an excellent complement to the action-packed story. The colors are warm summer tones to go along with its seasonal setting. The characters are very expressive. One particular highlight is the spreads at the beginning of each chapter, which often feature quick looks into Fred’s life and family beyond the game.
The Endless Game is a fast-paced graphic novel full of summer fun for middle grade readers. It will appeal to readers looking for slice of life graphic novels and those looking for exciting action in their graphic novels. While it is intended for ages 8 to 12, it has appeal beyond that in both directions, as well as older readers as well. It is an excellent summertime read.
The Endless Game By J.D. Amato Art by Sophie Morse Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2026 ISBN: 9781665927154
Company Age Rating: 8-12
NFNT Age Recommendation: Middle Grade (7-11), Tween (10-13)
Cassie doesn’t have much of an in-person social life. Her former best friend, Bennett, can’t stand her now, and she doesn’t fit in at school or at the church events her mom keeps pushing her to attend. Cassie’s friends are all online, where they bond over their passion for the show Riverview. The Riverview fandom loves Cassie’s fanfiction, which features an original character named Jessica. Jessica is a fun, cool, beautiful vampire girl who is good at everything and liked by everyone – a classic Mary Sue.
Jessica is fiction, obviously. Cassie created her. But one day, Bennett is picking on Cassie when who should jump to her defense but a very real Jessica, fangs and all.
How is this possible? Jessica explains that all Mary Sues exist in their own realm, Mary Sue World, and they go hopping through different versions of reality anytime someone writes them into a new story. For a character like Jessica, Cassie’s “real” reality is just one of many where she might make an appearance. And while she’s visiting, she wants to help Cassie channel some of the confident, positive energy that she wrote Jessica to have.
Unfortunately, there’s another Mary Sue in town, and she’s not nearly as nice as Jessica. Which maybe isn’t surprising, given who created her: Bennett. Now this dangerous newcomer is targeting both Cassie and Bennett. To beat her, they will have to work together, get some help from Mary Sue World, and embrace the weird and beautiful realm of Internet fandom.
This is a smart, zany book celebrating the creativity and connection of fan culture. In particular, it is a defense of the Mary Sue. This character archetype in fanfiction has long been maligned as cringey wish-fulfillment, a way for the writer to insert an impossibly cool and hypercompetent version of herself into the story. But as Jessica points out (and other writers have noted), plenty of canonical characters—especially male ones – are just as hypercompetent and cool, and yet few people dismiss Batman or James Bond as “Gary Stus” (the much-less-commonly-discussed male form of Mary Sue). And any character can be written well or badly, regardless of whether they fit the Mary Sue description.
The fandom love continues with a series of interviews sprinkled between the chapters, in which the book’s creators talk about their own history and engagement with fan culture. They rave about their favorite tropes and tags, their first OTPs, and more. Here, and in the book’s main text, we see the joy that online fandom brings and the way it connects people, some of whom might never meet in person. As a fun visual touch, the pages with these interviews are styled to look like old websites.
The art is dynamic and expressive, and brought to us by Lisa Sterle, the illustrator of the popular Modern Witch Tarot deck. The settings are full of lived-in detail, and the characters look natural in their movements and postures. The color palette has a base of realistic earth tones, but includes pops of vibrant, 80s-esque purples, pinks, and teals, especially once Jessica shows up. The colors also help to establish the different settings, whether it’s a sepia-toned flashback, the gray-blues of a Star Trek ship in Mary Sue World, or the electronic landscape of the Digital Sea.
As a love letter to fandom, this book will be best appreciated by readers who are already at least a little familiar with the tropes and terms. Hand it to creators of fanfic or fanart, cosplayers, and anyone else who takes their passion for a fandom and runs with it.
Mary Sue By Meghan Fitzmartin Art by Lisa Sterle BOOM! Box, 2026 ISBN: 9798892158855
NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+), Older Teen (16-18) Creator Representation: Bisexual,
It is All Hallows’ Eve. It is a night of foreboding, even without a storm brewing. Some believe it is a night when the boundaries between life and death are thinner, and evil things walk abroad.
The date means little to highwayman Dick Turpin, and his partner in crime, Tom King. They already live a life where the boundaries between life and death are thin. And they think there’s no evil things about but them.
They may be wrong.
When an accident overturns the carriage that was their quarry, Tom is quick to enact a new scheme. He poses as a nobleman, with Dick as his manservant “Richard,” hoping to secure the nobles’ luggage and ride off with it untroubled.
However, the scheme goes overlong, as the two parties join to seek shelter and soon find a seemingly abandoned monastery. Alas, whether it is due to the night in question or whether their presence awoke it, some ghostly presence takes exception to the intruders. Soon the scoundrels are facing closing walls, stinking clouds and swarms of rats. To say nothing of the deadly touch of the specter clad in plague doctor’s garb…
Dick Turpin and the Vengeful Shade is an interesting blend of historic fiction and horror. Of course, there is no record of the infamous British thief ever fighting a ghost. Yet writer Steve Tanner pays as much attention to historical accuracy as he does craft in spinning a ripping yarn.
The story draws upon two main conflicts. The first is that between the Church of England and the Catholic Church. The second is Plague of 1563. History buffs will appreciate this attention to detail and how it plays into the ghost story to make it a little more grounded. Not that this matters much to Dick Turpin himself, who spends most of the story wishing he could shoot something. He’s also none too choosy about it being the ghost, Tom King (who takes a bit too much pleasure in playing the noble and bossing him around) or the various nobles and servants annoying him. This adds humor, which offsets the horror, along with a noble lady who speaks of the stories of Dick Turpin ravaging the women he encounters and then being a bit slow in agreeing with her husband in finding the prospect dreadful.
The artwork is of similar craft and quality. Roland Bird, best known for his work on Legion of Super-Heroes, is in fine form here. He proves equally adept at drawing animals, period costumes and supernatural strangeness. He is well-backed by the color art of Brett Burbridge, which adds an evocative and somber aura to the finished artwork.
As with their recent reprint of Dick Turpin and the Crimson Plague, Time Bomb Comics does not offer a rating for Dick Turpin and the Vengeful Shade. However, despite a lack of nudity or any sexual content beyond references to ravaging, I’d still suggest this one be kept in the adult collection. While the horror elements and bloodshed might be acceptable for most teenagers, I feel the historical elements and slow-boiling story will appeal more to adult audiences.
Dick Turpin and the Vengeful Shade By Steve Tanner Art by Roland Bird Time Bomb, 2020 ISBN: 9781916465343
After her mom dies, teen protagonist Joey is forced to move to Kodiak, Alaska to live with her dad; quite different from where she lived in Seattle!
Her dad hasn’t been present in her life until NOW, and even though everyone tells her he’s a nice stand-up guy, that previously didn’t include her, apparently. The only friend she’s made is a 3000-pound grizzly living in the woods near her house. While Kodiak people talk about a mythical “spirit bear”, no one has seen it except her. Did I mention that her dad is a state trooper? Did I mention that Joey can see auras? When Joey goes missing in a snowstorm while taking her dad’s boat out, (without his permission) the bear comes to her rescue. (The bear also rescues her twice!) State troopers and volunteers with rifles start a search, and well, you can imagine how this turns out. BUT WAIT! MORE drama is in store – Eons-old Mama Grizzly knows her cub has been killed, and BOY IS SHE PISSED!
I’m on the fence about this title. The pacing of this story is awkward. It seems like a LOT of sturm-und-drang in a very short time. Joey is already dealing with her mom’s death and a move and has to witness the brutal killing (TWICE!) of the only friend she’s made. Any ONE of these things would be profoundly disturbing to any teen, and the bloody killing scenes by the hunters AND THEN AGAIN by the troopers and searchers could be triggering to some teens. They were to me, and I’ve had Hunters Education classes! Car crashes, plane crashes, evacuations of people, explosions everywhere and the destruction of downtown Seattle follow. After Mama’s rampage, the story hustles on to a hurried-up and (what I felt was) unlikely, too-easy ending. Joey and her father finally work together to lead Mama and her dead cub back to the wilderness. I like a good kaiju story as much as anyone, but it’s too much plot for only 168 pages. Authority figures and adults (with some exceptions) are one-dimensionally portrayed as testosteroney enthusiastic killers. The plot lurches from one unlikely situation to another. Finally, there are plot threads that are never explained, like the huge bones found during a construction site excavation, and the hunters who kill a grizzly without facing consequences. (It’s illegal to do that in AK without a bear tag, which is won in a organized lottery, and only used legally during a certain period of time.)
The art is well developed, but I feel like the women are more realistically and positively drawn. The men are drawn with sharp angles and scatological grimaces. Joey’s dad is drawn in a two-dimensional way that blocks us from imagining the “guy everyone loves.” All the animals are drawn in a wonderfully realistic and mystical fashion.
We certainly need more comics and graphic novels that depict native Alaskan peoples, stories and culture, but I think this comic tries to do too much. Is it a Godzilla/Kaiju action story? Is it a story about a teen processing her grief? Is it about life challenges and changes? One barely has time to catch one’s breath and think about it.
The comic is marked for “Young Adult” age range, and I would shelve it there. Despite my quibbles, teens may like it purely for the action. I would call it an optional purchase.
Queen Kodiak By Christopher Greenslate Art by Riccardo Faccini Mad Cave Studios, 2026 ISBN: 9781545821015
One click and this new dimension opens. A panel is the threshold to a dimension of gutters and splash pages. A dimension made of ink and Kirby Krackles. A world where a madman writes of comics and graphic novels. You are about to enter No Flying No Tights.
Like a filmmaker having a soft spot for movies about movies, I am a sucker for a book or comic on the importance of stories. 
The graphic novel medium has the ability to convey complex ideas and emotions through images, revealing many interesting aspects of the human condition. Then there are books like Final Boss, Vol. 1, written and drawn by Tyler Kirkham with additional art by David Miller.
Devilfish Bay. She lives with her internet chef father, Raymond, and her loyal canine companion, Vincent. She is a bookworm and devours any book put in front of her. 
line, and no adults allowed. If you get tagged, you’re immediately placed in the other side’s jail (until the streetlights come on, until the school year starts). Passed down through generations, everyone in Lakeside knows these rules are integral to keeping this decades long capture the flag game going. Newcomers must complete a puzzle in order to show their responsibility and be sworn into the game. When Fred’s family moves to Lakeside, he spends his summer playing The Endless Game, a summer he and the town will never forget. 
Cassie doesn’t have much of an in-person social life. Her former best friend, Bennett, can’t stand her now, and she doesn’t fit in at school or at the church events her mom keeps pushing her to attend. Cassie’s friends are all online, where they bond over their passion for the show Riverview. The Riverview fandom loves Cassie’s fanfiction, which features an original character named Jessica. Jessica is a fun, cool, beautiful vampire girl who is good at everything and liked by everyone – a classic Mary Sue.
After her mom dies, teen protagonist Joey is forced to move to Kodiak, Alaska to live with her dad; quite different from where she lived in Seattle!
