This is the first of a new nonfiction graphic novel series highlighting, as the series says, “marginalized trailblazers.” This volume tells the story of the life of Edmonia Lewis, a Black/Ojibway woman born in 1844 in New York, who triumphed over prejudices against her race and sex, the challenges of poverty and lack of education, to become a well-known sculptor.
Information on her early life is sketchy, but she apparently spent much of her childhood with her Ojibway aunts, after her parents’ death. Her brother, who supported her artistic career, followed his father’s career as a barber from the age of twelve. Supported by abolitionists, Lewis struggled to get an education despite prejudices against her race and sex, present even in the partially-integrated schools available. Her college career at Oberlin ended disastrously, when she was falsely accused of poisoning two of her classmates and attacked and left for dead before the trial. Although she was acquitted, the school continued to suspect her and, accusing her of theft, forced her to leave without matriculating.
She started her sculpting career in Boston, under the aegis of the Abolitionist movement, and then traveled to Italy with the help of various Abolitionist patrons. There she found her skin color less of a hindrance than her sex and poverty, but she continued to forge her own pathway, although she sometimes angered her patrons and fellow sculptors. She reached the zenith of her career with her sculpture, The Death of Cleopatra, exhibited at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. After this triumph, she returned to Rome, but the changing artistic trends and decline in the popularity of Neoclassic sculpture eventually left her in obscurity. She eventually moved to London and died there in 1907. Her greatest work fell into obscurity only a few years after its exhibition and was only found and restored in the 1990s. Contemporaries and visitors of Lewis reported her as continuing to work and maintain her bright and cheerful personality until her death. She maintained a close relationship with her brother, who continued to support her as well.
Notes, sources, and an extensive study guide are included in this slim volume. The art is detailed and focuses on red-tinged earth hues. Edmonia is shown as a determined, strong woman with curly black hair, dark brown skin, and a red cap perched on her curls. She moves through the panels as the central figure in a swirl of historical characters and her white contemporaries. Her Neoclassic style is well-represented in the lines and faces of her white marble statues and busts. While the art focuses primarily on faces and the eponymous “talking heads,” action and interest is added by interposing examples of Lewis’ work and shifting from panels to spreads of her surrounded by action and movement as she moves through her career.
The unique subject matter, accessible art, and extensive resources for teaching in the back (they include educational standards, a multiplicity of questions on the art and subject, and educational activities) should make this a stand-out title. However, there’s one serious problem – the size and layout of the book. It’s a tiny volume, 7×5 inches, and the font and art is correspondingly reduced. While there is plenty of detail and emotion in the faces shown, it’s difficult to catch the nuances when the faces are so tiny and many readers will find the small size of the font frustrating. At less than a hundred pages, this title will quickly disappear on a shelf or be lost and only the most dedicated readers are likely to work through the small size of the font.
Nonfiction graphic novels are extremely popular with my middle school and high school readers, the best audience for this small but dense volume, but sadly, this one is likely to go unnoticed. However, with its very affordable price point and availability in paperback, schools may find it useful to purchase in bulk for a class read. The publisher appears to be planning one volume per year (Rachel Carson in 2021 and Willem Arondeus in 2022) and I can only hope that they will perhaps consider binding them into one large volume and enlarging the art and text to correspond.
Seen: Edmonia Lewis By Jasmine Walls Art by Bex Glendining, Kieran Quigley (Colorist), DC Hopkins (Letters) ISBN: 9781684156344 Boom, 2020 Publisher Age Rating: Series ISBNS and Order
Title Details and Representation NFNT Age Recommendation: Teen (13-16), Tween (10-13) Character Traits: Black First Nations or Indigenous Creator Highlights: Black
Madness, mayhem, and mystery permeate the dieselpunk world of Adventureman—a retrofuturistic graphic novel series created by Matt Fraction and Terry Dodson. In the opening pages, readers are swept into a weird and fantastical world dominated by a villainous fiend known as Baron Bizarre, demon champion of the Ultravoid, who draws his power from the fear of all humanity. Championing the heroic efforts to topple his terrorizing regime is the noble Adventureman, who leads an all-out effort to undermine and vanquish this dreaded evil in Apocalypsdra—the concluding storyline to a comic book series that was never completed.
Switch over to the real world, and meet single mother Claire Connell, along with her ten-year-old son Tommy, as they attempt to decipher the missing plot elements of the unfinished cliffhanging story arc to Adventureman. The adventure begins one day at a bookshop where Claire works when a lady clad in Victorian attire slips into her shop, drops off a rare vintage edition of Adventureman, and vanishes just as mysteriously as she had arrived. A dark, shadowy figure then storms through in hot pursuit and from there, the mystery intensifies as the figure disintegrates into a swarm of flies, beetles, centipedes, and other nasty crawling vermin. Shortly thereafter, the comics world collides with Claire’s as she starts meeting outlandish characters and locales in a dark and sinister world populated by pirates, robots, ghosts, magicians, and a host of other animated characters with strange and wondrous powers.
Reminiscent of the uncanny weirdness in Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol and China Miéville’s Dial H, Adventureman integrates shifting parallel world elements mixed with a plethora of twists and wild chase scenes that steer off the map of reality. Stylized character designs of flamboyant superheroes and villains in this vibrant universe create a majestic period piece of epic proportions. At the same time, we are introduced to Claire’s boisterous Jewish family and her six sisters—each with a distinct personality—which offers comic relief at their vibrant Friday night Sabbath dinners, grounding Claire in her “normal” family life.
Fraction and Dodson’s writing and artwork transport readers into an alternate world within a world as Claire crisscrosses dimensions of reality and fiction, literally meeting characters that materialize from the pages of the comic series Adventureman. Each panel captures detailed elements with swift narrative action, incrementally building the mounting suspense amidst an ever-deepening mystery. The background conveys a noir-like sense of place and time coupled by extraordinary characters infused with exotic personalities and powers. Like a gigantic puzzle waiting to be unlocked, Claire and her son Tommy must navigate a labyrinth of intrigue and suspense every step of the way, each chapter serving as a springboard into yet another adventure.
Structured like a multilayered mystery jam-packed with madcap thrills in a dieselpunk world, Adventureman blends magic and science intersected by plot twisting intrigue at every turn. This first volume grounds readers in a fantastic, noir-like landscape and introduces the players, setting up the stage for even more surprises to come. A fun addition to library genre collections—particularly for those who enjoy indulging in quirky fantasies—this title aims to entice readers in a whimsical and confounding way.
Adventureman, Volume 1: The End and Everything After 1 By Matt Fraction Art by Terry Dodson ISBN: 978-1-5343-1712-3 Image Comics, 2020 Publisher Age Rating: Series ISBNS and Order
Title Details and Representation NFNT Age Recommendation: Older Teen (16-18) Character Traits: Hearing loss
Every day is pretty much the same for Tara, but according to her parents, routine is good and important. She just has to keep her head down, graduate high school, and she can work towards her dream of going into space as an astronaut. It takes just one morning of breaking the routine for her entire life to flip upside down—not just some spilled orange juice, but everything she thought she understood about herself (she’s not human), her parents (they aren’t), and the world (aliens are real?!).
The story focuses on Tara Smith, a teen who until very recently thought she was human. She’s given the option to go to a special school for aliens seeking citizenship or to be sent into space. She chooses school, but has trouble adjusting to the apparent strangeness of everyone. Her roommate Summer is an especially bad case. Summer’s human form is pink haired and perky, which makes her feels like a Starfire or Miss Martian knockoff. When she reveals her alien form to Tara, which is of course large and not classically feminine by human standards, Tara screams, burns Summer, and runs away.
As the weeks pass and Tara gets more comfortable, she continues to be confronted with new information she has to process and use to break down old concepts. Eventually, Tara and Summer make up, but Summer is never quite as cheerful as she was and things are a little strained. Thankfully, we see Tara go through growth in her relationships with multiple characters, and the volume ends with her confronting the people she used to think were her parents, working together with her new friends, and finding out the school has to move because the site is now compromised. It’s a lot of ground to cover, but the comic gets the big concepts across well, at the cost of losing some smaller moments.
The art of School for Extraterrestrial Girls has a very smooth, low detail look often seen in webcomics that can be very appealing, especially as webcomics continue to climb in popularity. Backgrounds in panels are often simple without feeling generic, very clearly drawn to give an understanding of location and action. Facial expressions are where the art really shines; even in some of the moments that can be harder to convey, the artist captures very vivid emotion in every character’s face. Another great detail is that there are a number of body types (when we’re looking at humanoid bodies; there are myriad alien body types also represented), ages, physical ability, and ethnicities represented in the comic. Heck, the two main adults in the story are both older appearing women with very different bodies and aesthetic choices. I’m not sure if it lessens the impact knowing that also, almost no one in the comic is human, or not.
While the writing in the comic is pretty solid, it has some weaker moments and the story as a whole wraps up awfully neatly. In some ways, it feels like an older sitcom, with the family all smiling at the camera as they discuss the moral of today’s story. I’m not sure if that’s purposeful, but I’m guessing it is, considering how much of the story is really about acceptance and understanding, both internal and external. Some of the comedic moments feel really forced, like the continued joke about the main character’s name that’s never actually explained in-text (and I will admit, took me longer to figure out than I’d like).
At first the premise may seem somewhat unusual, but the core story of learning to accept truths about the world and differences in others is pretty universal and can be a great addition to a younger teen or middle grade audience that doesn’t feel too preachy. And though it centers on aliens, the sci-fi elements are approachable for readers less interested in that genre. Considering this is labeled as #1, I’m guessing there are plans to continue this series, something to consider for collection development if readers want more of Tara’s adventures. Currently, though, the first volume works very well as a standalone story.
School for Extraterrestrial Girls, vol. 1: Girl on Fire By Jeremy Whitley Art by Jamie Noguchi ISBN: 9781545804926 Papercutz, 2020 Publisher Age Rating: all ages Series ISBNS and Order
Title Details and Representation NFNT Age Recommendation: Middle Grade (7-11), Teen (13-16), Tween (10-13)
The Manga Classics series has done it yet again with an excellent adaptation of Anne of Green Gables; turning the classic literature into an easy to read, and easy to understand story that put Prince Edward Island on the map. The book starts off with a beautiful quote, “Dedicated to all the children who dream…” and the family of original author, Lucy Maud Montgomery, provides their seal of approval with a foreword written by Montgomery’s granddaughter, Kate Macdonald Butler.
Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert are siblings who decide to adopt a boy to help them manage their farm, Green Gables. By accident, a girl; Anne Shirley is sent instead of a boy. Anne is full of wonder, flowery language, and so much excitement at the thought of being adopted that Matthew decides to overlook the mistake and brings her home with him. Initially, Marilla and Anne have many differences to overcome, giving the story tension and comedic points. Anne has been raised as an orphan and has never been taught the social graces expected of a lady. Nor has she ever had to reign in her wild and colorful imagination that flows continuously from her.
Crystal S. Chan works wonderfully with illustrator Kuma Chan by providing him with details of how certain scenes should be drawn to ensure their accuracy; including seating charts for where students are sat at Avonlea’s school. She includes an interesting section on this at the back of the book for readers to enjoy a bit of how a huge project like this came together. Kuma Chan’s style is true to manga style with this black and white book reading from right to left, and characters feature big eyes, small lips and dramatic hair; which is quite fitting for Anne’s famous red locks. The backgrounds are realistic and set to the time period of the story, keeping it more on the accurate side rather than the fantasy side, which is often the setting for manga novels. This would be appreciated by any reader who is looking for an adaptation that stays true to the original work.
This is a very well done adaptation of the original Anne of Green Gables story. The medium of manga allows for a different interpretation of what’s happening in the story as we have visuals featured more prominently than simply text. Thought bubbles are shown as characters are having conversations, which gives the reader a full experience of what’s going on in a particular social interaction. As the author rightly points out in her notes at the end of this novel, it aids events in making them more clear and vivid. As a lover of the original story, however, I do have to admit that the flow of flowery language that is what Anne’s character is loved so much for doesn’t quite have the same feeling as reading through the original book. I highly recommend enjoying this manga version paired with the original version to truly enjoy how magical this story is.
Manga Classics: Anne of Green Gables 20 By Crystal S. Chan Art by Kuma Chan ISBN: 9781947808188 Manga Classics, 2020 Publisher Age Rating: 13-16 Series ISBNS and Order
Title Details and Representation NFNT Age Recommendation: Middle Grade (7-11), Older Teen (16-18), Teen (13-16), Tween (10-13) Character Traits: Creator Highlights: Related to…: Classic to Comic
Just when things were going so well! The Avant-Guards, a quirky basketball team at an equally quirky arts college, have been having a great season; but now stress and interpersonal conflicts are stirring. When Nicole realizes that her passion is not music, but comedy, and wants to change her major; how will her parents react? Will a new player who sets off Charlie’s anxiety derail Charlie’s relationship with Liv? Meanwhile, their newly-formed league has been hit with a funding crisis that could sink it for good. Can the Avant-Guards pull together for a fundraiser to save the league?
This volume concludes the story of the Avant-Guards, taking them from the team’s formation in volume one to the end of their first basketball season. The three volumes—collecting twelve issues of the comic—include character arcs for all the members of the team, though the greatest focus remains on reticent transfer student Charlie and exuberant team captain Liv. Volume One was told entirely from Charlie and Liv’s perspectives, while Volume Two introduced the viewpoints of teammates Jay and Tiffany and their coach, Ash. This volume gives us a Nicole-centered storyline before returning to Charlie and Liv. We also glimpse the perspective of the team’s newest member, who unintentionally throws the team into turmoil just when they need each other most.
As in previous volumes, on-the-court action is interspersed with hanging out, planning, arguing, and other off-court drama for the Avant-Guards. Readers of the first two books will be familiar with these vivid and varied characters, all with their own motivations and hang-ups, adding depth to the interpersonal scenes. Meanwhile, the basketball games—which sometimes include sprawling, dynamic double-page spreads—make for a fun and different way to view the characters. The big fundraiser, too, neatly showcases the talents and interests of each member of the team, reminding us of what they’re all actually going to art school for.
The artwork remains lively, colorful, and expressive. The backgrounds and the characters’ outfits are packed with fun little details, from posters on the walls to the way the different characters dress for the big fundraiser. At the end, the book contains a series of sketches, showing pages in progress, early character designs, and more. It also lists, with illustrations, the other teams in this unusual basketball league, including the Jetts (playing for The Royal Academy of Punk Rock), the Cuddly Retrievers (of The American Institute of Veterinary Curiosities), and the Baristas (hailing from The Academy of Specialty Coffees and Loose Leaf Teas).
Like the first two volumes, Down to the Wire is funny and heartfelt, populated by sympathetic characters who make mistakes but mean well. There are certainly stakes—mostly emotional ones, though the league’s funding is in jeopardy as well—but this is a feel-good book that isn’t here to stress readers out. Given the trajectory of the series overall, it will not surprise readers to hear that things work out in the end.
The Avant-Guards: Down to the Wire By Carly Usdin Art by Noah Hayes ISBN: 9781684155613 Boom! Box, 2020 Publisher Age Rating: Series ISBNS and Order
Title Details and Representation NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+), Older Teen (16-18), Teen (13-16) Character Traits: African-American, Chinese-American, Bisexual, Lesbian, Nonbinary, Anxiety Creator Highlights: Queer
A black and white wordless graphic novel that will both move you and make you chuckle. American author Dan Mazur does an incredible job of using expressive faces on our main character, a female, as she grows up during the Victorian era.
This story takes us through the beginning of a girl’s life, starting with her first days as a baby being pushed around the city in a pram. We see her aging, continuing to look up at the moon as she always has, and enjoying a relationship that is everything from a playful friendship to a protective and reassuring parental figure, as the moon helps her through challenges she faces. The story takes a fantastic turn in the end that will leave the reader feeling both excited for our protagonist, and curious about her fate.
This book features full page images that are filled with details and wonderful shading. Beautiful details are added to the scenery, with clothing, furniture, and belongings all accurate to the time period. You can literally see what the main character is thinking with images floating up from her, such as when she’s studying late at night and her astronomy equations are traveling through the sky to the moon that’s looking down at her. A variety of mediums are used to create these scenes and characters. The extensive use of different materials, and techniques may not be obvious to the non-artistic eye, but Mazur, the author and illustrator, includes a section at the end that will simply astonish you when you realize just how much detail, variety and thought was put into each page. Mazur uses everything from his opposite hand to add messiness to an already messy child’s room, to cutting out stencils, to repurposing a toothbrush to spatter paint to get the right effect. You can see how much work and fun Mazur must’ve had bringing this story to life. Additionally, the huge variety of mediums used further contribute to the authenticity of the time period shown.
This is an excellent book to add to any middle school to adult library collection. The story has several layers to it, and can generate discussion from the many different interpretations that one can make. Art classes would benefit from being introduced to this work, as well as readers looking for something unique. Dan Mazur’s powerful storytelling combined with his uncommon artistic style make this a very worthwhile read.
Lunatic By Dan Mazur Art by Dan Mazur ISBN: 9780993211225 Fanfare Presents, 2021 Publisher Age Rating: 10+ Series ISBNS and Order
Title Details and Representation NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+), Middle Grade (7-11), Older Teen (16-18), Teen (13-16), Tween (10-13) Related to…: Book to Comic
In this conclusion of the Ronin Island series, Hana and Kenichi have to protect the Island and figure out how to defeat the shogun. The pair and their ragtag group of refugees have made it back to the Island, but the elders deny them entry because they are afraid they are all infected. Somehow, the people on the Island already know about the spores, even though that particular mutation happened just recently. Hana and Kenichi set up on the beach across the straight from the Island and prepare to make their stand against the Shogun, his for-hire bandits, and the byonin. Reinforcements arrive in the form of the Island elder and many of the Island’s soldiers. After the battle that robs the Shogun of many of his forces, everyone, including Hanna and Kenichi, retreat to the island to make preparations for the Shogun’s eventual invasion. Hana and Kenichi must make some difficult choices and sacrifices in order to successfully stop the invasion.
While the original story and concept of the byonin was conceived well before 2020, there is something well timed about a deadly virus that turns airborne and can mutate people into monsters. The Shogun is a man who has manipulated science into doing his own bidding, and he’s overall an ignorant man who refuses to listen to anyone wiser than himself. The parallels to real world 2020 are striking, and some readers may need some distance from this year in order to appreciate the story without reality blurring the lines.
There is a strong theme throughout these three volumes of chasing a sense of belonging, and it is unresolved at the end of this story. Hana is still an outcast, and the Islanders still have a deep-seated hatred towards anyone who they claim doesn’t belong. This is in stark contrast to the motto of the Island where everyone is welcome and can find a home amongst their ranks. The growth of Kenichi is understated as most of the story focuses on Hana, but he’s nevertheless made into a leader in the village and must help rebuild everything. Hana gives herself a task off the Island at the end of the story, and it could make for an interesting story, but this is the end of the Ronin Islandadventures.
Ronin Island Vol 3 By Greg Pak Art by Giannis Milonogiannis and Irma Kniivila ISBN: 9781684156238 Boom! Studios, 2020 Publisher Age Rating: Teen (13+) Series ISBNS and Order
Title Details and Representation NFNT Age Recommendation: Older Teen (16-18), Teen (13-16) Character Traits: Japanese, Korean Creator Highlights: Korean-American
This is a book close to my storyteller’s heart highlighting the power of stories to transcend time and place while remaining relevant and personal. Initially, the protagonist Tien and Hien, his mother, listen to each other read folktales to gain language skills and deepen the strong ties between the immigrant mother and her American-born son. She struggles with English and he is not conversant in Vietnamese, but they both comprehend the tales they share. Interwoven with the tales are the very real bittersweet concerns of a mother homesick for Vietnam and the family members left behind and of her teenage son, Tien, who is searching for the precise words in Vietnamese to come out to his parents about his sexuality. The telling of the folktales, intertwined with the personal experience stories, exemplifies the alienation both characters are experiencing and the trials and challenges they must overcome along the way while illuminating the strong family bonds, love, and respect for each other.
The three folktales, the number so pertinent to the genre of western folklore, include two variants of the Cinderella tale type, a loose adaptation of the German variant “Allerleirauh” and “Ta’m Cam” from Vietnam, and The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. They serve to emphasize both the universality of the archetypes and the cultural differences in the traditional tales as well as the innate visual interpretations of the listeners reflecting their own backgrounds and individual needs.
As the author explains in his after note, Tien would be most familiar with the western sensibilities of princess stories popularized by contemporary toys and cartoons reflecting the anachronistic visual details of these tales and these sensibilities are faithfully illustrated in this retelling. The second variant is told by his mother’s aunt on her visit to Vietnam upon the death of her mother. Here, the tale is reminiscent of French colonial elements in the building structures and clothing of the characters. The third tale is told to Tien by his mother, reflecting her visual memories of Vietnam, Hong Kong, and San Francisco. “The mermaid is a stand-in for Helen’s [Hien] experiences, a woman who wanted to escape to another world and manages to make it there at the cost of her ability to communicate. It is this underlying element of not being able to adequately communicate that ties the three folktales and the contemporary story together so successfully. Because the three tales are told with such care and detail, readers of the graphic novel share the stories along with the characters. Nguyen trusts the folklore to do their magic as they illuminate Tien’s struggle to come out to his mother and the unconditional love his mother has for him as she struggles to comprehend what he is trying to tell her. The contemporary story also amplifies the friendship and acceptance that Tien has from his school mates, if not the school administration. There is one dark segment when the teacher and priest’s guidance is detrimental to Tien’s well being, but this is eventually overcome as well.
The expansive retellings are delineated by the light purple backgrounds, while the sandy yellow background signifies Hien’s memories, and Tien’s contemporary 1998 experiences is rendered in tones of red. The black and white illustrations themselves are simple with clean lines and layout except for the marvelous clothes and buildings in the folktales themselves. Most of the illustrations were created digitally, a new, but ultimately successful, experience for Nguyen.
This quiet and reflective book also warms my librarian heart as it validates the effectiveness of libraries and books. It is a book that I raved about to Gina Gagliano, publishing director of Random House Graphic, in a personal conversation without realizing her robust contribution in bringing the book to fruition. I join in Nguyen in thanking her as this is a book I will be raving about in my university courses on comic books and on storytelling and with friends.
Highly recommended for readers of all ages of folktales and those who appreciate the values of compassion and human kindness.
The Magic Fish By Trung Le Nguyen ISBN: 9780593125298 Random House, 2020 Publisher Age Rating: 12 +
Title Details and Representation NFNT Age Recommendation: Teen (13-16) Character Traits: Vietnamese American, Queer Creator Highlights: Vietnamese American, Queer Related to…: Book to Comic
Remember when Bitter Root launched and the buzz was just beginning (including my review of volume 1)? The follow-up is here, and it opens with more swagger than ever. There’s the golden Eisner Award ‘E’ on the cover, labeled “Best Continuing Series Winner 2020.” A note on the rear cover mentions that a movie adaptation is in development. The first page is loaded with four genuflective blurbs, followed by a Sangerye family tree and credits pages for the six issues within, including the Red Summer Special anthology. Can this golden series continue its winning streak, or has it reached a sophomore slump?
That family tree will come in handy if readers have forgotten any of the characters from volume 1, because the Red Summer Special that kicks off volume 2 is a cluster of short chapters from the Sangerye family’s past, going from 1850 to the story’s present in the 1920s. Among the lore is the introduction of Blink’s friend Wu. Wu and her family hunt guizi, the same monsters the Sangeryes call jinoo, suggesting each race has its own classification and means of handling the dangerous transformations of racism. Elsewhere, in a realm known as Barzakh, a multiracial coalition of warriors protects Earth from demons beyond Earth’s plane of existence. The inclusiveness of the campaign against bigotry invites readers of all stripes to feel like they can pitch in, too.
The diversity of skin color is exceeded by the color on the page, which is often bathed in warm yellows and oranges, with plenty of blues and purples used for shadows and nighttime. The vibrant palette fits the continuing supernatural conflict, as a new, more powerful avatar of hatred, Adro, crosses over to Earth. New York’s local leaders, a diverse group of men (I detected at least Black, Chinese, and Irish among them), debate the alliances needed to face it. Wu and Blink hunt monsters and defend neighborhoods against jinoo against the “old-fashioned” wishes of their families’ matriarchs who would rather they contributed from home. “You think Ida B. Wells could’ve done what she did from a kitchen?” Blink asks. Elsewhere, in an elongated flashback, a Black and Indigenous alliance discovers what appear to be Black jinoo, leading to questions of what varieties of spiritual corruption are possible.
Some things haven’t changed since volume 1. The Sangerye family continues to battle jinoo on multiple fronts. Berg, whose vocabulary marks him as “the smart one” in every scene, loves to say “indubitably” and “salubrious.” Now there are also monsters transformed by trauma called inzondo, and characters respond to their existence differently, right down to hunting methods and even empathy for them. The faith and community afforded by a Christian church represent sources of support. Berg observes as part of his own inzondo infection: “There is a grief that cries out so loud it drowns out all sound. But when the screams fall upon deaf ears, the soul becomes tormented.” Physical self-defense is as significant as reaching out and curing people before they attack anyone. The versatility of this condition as a metaphor for various social ills means the story has as many hooks as the reader brings to it.
The multiple perspectives from the first volume continue here, plus a couple more, leading to an overstuffed plot. It’s hard to summarize the juggling act of a story in digestible terms, not because it’s too complex, but because the context shifts a lot. Almost every scene takes place in a different time, place, and character perspective. Some readers may need to flip back and forth to keep the timeline straight as it bounces across years, days, and hours. Scenes do not always transition smoothly, with action left hanging and feeling disorienting upon return. The Tulsa race massacre, sunset towns, church burnings, and lynching are all salient plot points, and anyone who would object to such charged imagery would have to also reckon with the history behind them.
While the buildup in this volume is interesting and even compelling at times, it leads to an action-packed finale in which heroes verbally refute Adro’s hunger for hate and narrate their feelings out loud. On top of all this, little animals that had been used to sniff out demons make their own transformations and crowd out both the page and story. Sanford Greene and Sofie Dodgson’s talented visual work extends from the frequent martial arts action pages (there is no small action here) to heartfelt monologues. It seems like David F. Walker and Chuck Brown try to stack too many elements at once, resulting in a precariously teetering historical action / horror / mystery hybrid in need of greater focus. Big does not always lead to epic.
Hooray, then, for the back matter, where a multitude of scholars use the comic as a platform for exploring the Tulsa Race Massacre, Zora Neale Hurston’s speculative fiction, epigenetic trauma, creative resistance, oral tradition, Bitter Root’s logo design, whiteness, and power fantasies. Variant cover art pays homage to the films Do The Right Thing, Purple Rain, Boyz In The Hood, New Jack City, and Juice. There are also some process pages of roughs, inks, and colors to demonstrate how the book came together. This comic practically contains a whole class about itself, and the digging is fruitful. I just wish the story was as masterfully executed as all the lofty examinations extracted from it.
Is Bitter Root still worth collecting? Absolutely. This is a continuation and fulfillment of characters and settings established in volume 1, and should work fine for teens and up who can handle violence and some fantasy gore. There are plenty of story threads to pick up in the third arc, on its way in 2021. Language-wise, a character from Mississippi says “sumbitch,” and a sign outside a sunset town in Georgia uses the N word.
Bitter Root, vol. 2: Rage & Redemption By David Walker Chuck Brown Art by Sanford Greene ISBN: 9781534316607 Image, 2020 Publisher Age Rating: M (17+) Series ISBNS and Order
Title Details and Representation NFNT Age Recommendation: Older Teen (16-18) Character Traits: African-American, Chinese-American Protestant Creator Highlights: African-American Related to…: Book to Comic
Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious: Defender of the Daleks is a bit of an odd duck. It is a graphic novel collecting two comics that were part of a 2020 multimedia event spread across various Doctor Who novels, comics, games, audio plays, escape rooms and, well, basically every medium with a Doctor Who license apart from the television series that started it all. The oddity is that despite being a small part of what may be the biggest Doctor Who story ever told, at least in terms of its spread across various formats, this graphic novel is remarkably well-contained and serves as a solid introduction to the Doctor Who premise for newbies. While there is a title page that outlines the show’s concept and all the characters, writer Jody Houser does a fine job of slowly bringing readers into the world of the time-traveling alien hero known as The Doctor, while setting up the story proposed by James Goss, who came up with the whole Time Lord Victorious concept.
As the novel opens, The Doctor is suffering from a bout of short-term memory loss and the travel log on their time-ship, the TARDIS, has no record of where they were. This points to a serious paradox having occurred and the possibility that The Doctor was either pushed into a parallel universe or that something altered the history of their universe in a big way. However, that mystery must be put on hold after The Doctor is confronted by a horde of Daleks; the world-conquering aliens that are The Doctor’s greatest enemy. But these Daleks are not looking for a fight. They are looking for a hero.
The Daleks think The Doctor is the only one who can save the universe from The Hond, a primordial race so ancient that even The Doctor’s race thought they were a legend made-up to frighten children. Unfortunately, The Hond are all too real and, in the timeline caused by the paradox, they have advanced to become a major threat. This is something of a problem given that The Hond are a death cult dedicated to destroying every other race in the universe before destroying themselves. To save this reality, The Doctor and The Daleks must form a reluctant alliance.
While the plot of Time Lord Victorious is a standard “Enemy Mine” scenario with two enemies being forced to work together for a greater good, Jody Houser builds upon that basic premise to spin a spirited story. Her grasp of the Doctor’s character is fantastic and fans of the show will likely hear the voice of David Tennant as they read this novel, along with the digital growls of the Daleks. The artwork by Roberta Ingranata also does a fine job of capturing the essence of the show and the appearance of Tennant’s Doctor and the various Daleks. She also offers up a disturbing design for the Hond. The color art by Enrica Eren Angiolini also deserves praise, creating continual interesting visual contrasts, such as with the opening pages in which the cold of space has a subtle blue tint contrasting with the warmer orange shades highlighting the scenes inside the TARDIS.
Titan Comics has rated this volume for readers 12+ and up and I think that’s a fair rating. There’s nothing in terms of content that is inappropriate for teen or tween audiences, being on par with your average episode of the Doctor Who television program. I dare say this book could be safely enjoyed by younger readers, though they may need help with some of the bigger words.
Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious: Defender of the Daleks By Jody Houser, James Goss Art by Roberta Ingranata, Enrica Angiolini ISBN: 9781787733114 Titan Comics, 2020 Publisher Age Rating: 12+ Only Series ISBNS and Order
Title Details and Representation NFNT Age Recommendation: Teen (13-16) Related to…: TV to Comic
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Remember when Bitter Root launched and the buzz was just beginning (including 
Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious: Defender of the Daleks is a bit of an odd duck. It is a graphic novel collecting two comics that were part of a 2020 multimedia event spread across various Doctor Who novels, comics, games, audio plays, escape rooms and, well, basically every medium with a Doctor Who license apart from the television series that started it all. The oddity is that despite being a small part of what may be the biggest Doctor Who story ever told, at least in terms of its spread across various formats, this graphic novel is remarkably well-contained and serves as a solid introduction to the Doctor Who premise for newbies. While there is a title page that outlines the show’s concept and all the characters, writer Jody Houser does a fine job of slowly bringing readers into the world of the time-traveling alien hero known as The Doctor, while setting up the story proposed by James Goss, who came up with the whole Time Lord Victorious concept.
