Christmas Gaphic Novels

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Christmas Gaphic Novels

Jan 20, 2022 | Book/Graphic Novels

It has become tradition in the last few years for David and I to exchange graphic novels as Christmas gifts. Yes, they all end up at the Geekhouse and are technically business expenses, but I do enjoy unwrapping them and reading them for the few weeks after Christmas. This year we had quite the haul and I honestly can no longer remember who got which one for whom, except Far Sector as we both ended getting that one for each other and Nightwing because I got that one for myself. Merry Christmas to me!

For the last few weeks I have been making my way through the pile. Instead of writing a long review on just my favorite I thought it would be fun to let you know my initial thoughts on each one. I have another pile to get through but that will probably have to wait until after the floor is done at the building.

These are in no particular order, some I liked, some I loved and some were just meh but I’m glad I read them all. I hope you enjoy and you are inspired to pick some of them up yourself!

Nightwing: Leaping into the Light

Nightwing is my favorite superhero. Full stop. I collected every issue of his namesake title for years and gobbled up every crossover he had in any other title. I adored his witty banter and loved his sentimental, positive outlook on life. But like a lot of DC titles, there was a phase in the writing that turned me off. Everything got really serious and was depressing and characters I had known and loved were unrecognizable. I lost interest and stopped reading and collecting. So, when I saw Tom Taylor’s Leaping into the Light hard cover collected issues on a few “Best of 2021” lists I wasn’t interested. David even asked if I wanted to get it for the Geekhouse Library. I told him no because I was angry at what DC did to my favorite character. Then, as a spur of the moment decision I added it to my Amazon cart and got it for myself.

I loved it.

I laughed out loud on almost every page, there was romance again with Barbara Gordon (my personal OTP), it had wonderful brotherly interactions between Nightwing and Robin, and the story, despite a moment of preachiness, was solid. It reminded me of what I fell in love with all those years ago. On the back of the book it says “Back in blue and better than ever,” and I realized, the writers knew when Nightwing was good and Taylor decided to go back.

The Girl from the Sea

I’m always keeping an eye out for good YA graphic novels for our younger customers. You know, the stuff I would have loved when I was a teen. And I’d be lying if I said a few of them didn’t turn out to be my favorites even now. So, I was hopeful when I got The Girl from the Sea. Unfortunately I was sorely disappointed.

There’s a solid chance this missed the mark for me because I’m not the target audience, but I couldn’t connect with any of the characters. I was constantly confused by the actions they took and I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to remain friends with people who were vapid and didn’t seem to care about their so called friends. Also, a true love at first sight scenario just doesn’t feel believable when the characters are teenagers.

Far Sector

I’ve never read any Green Lantern comics and the only info I have is what sunk in the summer my brother became obsessed with the lore. He actually hadn’t read any of the comics either, he just fell down a Wikipedia rabbit hole and I was the only one even remotely interested. So, having that as my only knowledge in the IP I probably wouldn’t have picked up Far Sector had it not been on the top of almost all of the Best of lists.

It was good … but it could have been great.

The world was absolutely amazing. You can tell N.K. Jemisin was a novelist that knows her stuff. Everything from the planet itself, to the rich history of the three alien races, to the cool governmental system, to the concept of genetically engineering emotion out of an entire society was well thought out and rich with detail. It was cool. I even loved the characters, especially our main character Jo the Green Lantern. The dialogue was spot on and consistent with the different races.

But the entire book was very preachy about current social hot button issues and it wasn’t even remotely subtle about what it was trying to say. Because of this force fed ideology, the story suffered. Jemisin didn’t concentrate enough on the relationships that ended up being paramount to the plot. We were supposed to care about certain characters and their decisions but the beats were never earned. There were multiple missed opportunities to grow certain characters, relationships, events and concepts.

So, in the end, I liked this one, but it was all the more frustrating that it could have been so much better with not a lot of effort on the part of the creators. I have this hope that someone, somewhere will pick this up and turn it into an amazing mini-series.

Hawkeye: My Life as a Weapon

I have had the Hawkeye Omnibus on my wish list since I first saw Thor. Clint Barton’s quiet demeanor and snarky wit won me over immediately. He’s a fun character. This summer I was super stoked to see there was a book of collected issues called the Saga of Barton and Bishop going to be released. It came out and I missed it. It’s currently completely sold out at all of my distributors. I was probably a bit wrapped up in the new building. C’est la vie.

We ended up binging the entire Hawkeye mini-series on Disney+ and I loved it so much I knew I had to find something Hawkeye related. I got my hands on the first volume of My Life as a Weapon (which has the first 5 out of 22 issues that are in the Saga) and this has to be the best graphic novel I got over Christmas. I am officially in love with Hawkeye, both of them: Barton and Bishop. Matt Fraction is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers as I’m slowly reading more and more of his stuff. His use of humor to diffuse deep moments is perfect and hits me right in my funny bone. That’s my kind of humor. And I have never seen comic art like David Aja’s wonderfully simple art with Matt Hollingsworth’s flat coloring. There are so many panels of this graphic novel I want as posters.

It was really fun seeing how the Disney+ show pulled so much from this story line. I might write an entire post about the comparisons at some point. I can’t wait to read the entire story run!

2 Guns

David introduced me to the movie 2 Guns starring Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg a couple years ago. I absolutely loved the movie, and was shocked that I had never even heard of the 2013 film. I was watching it again recently when I noticed in the credits it was based on a graphic novel. Say what?! So it ended up in my Christmas graphic novels.

While I liked the movie a lot more, the graphic novel was still fun and I could tell it was laying the groundwork perfectly for the film. It felt like a really good first draft. If had read the comic before the movie I may have enjoyed it more, but reading it in the opposite order just made me appreciate how great the movie was.

Thirsty Mermaids

I didn’t expect to like Thirsty Mermaids. I had really liked Nimona by Noelle Stevenson so I thought I would like Lumberjanes because Stevenson was one of the writers on that series but I didn’t. So when I saw that Thirsty Mermaids was done by Kat Leyh, another writer/artist on Lumberjanes I was worried whatever it was I didn’t love about Lumberjanes would translate to the Mermaids. But I was pleasantly surprised.

To be clear, on first glance Thirsty Mermaids is a silly, chaotic book that doesn’t take anything seriously, which makes the gut punch in the middle that much more impactful. The three Mermaids go from being really shallow and ignorant, using magic to become human so they can get drunk … all the time, to dealing with societal rejections, finding places in their worlds that fit their interests and skills, to found families, to body dysphoria. To say this graphic novel surprised me would be an understatement, especially after the massive disappointment of Girl from the Sea. Plus the art was fun and beautiful.

Dreadnoughts

Dreadnoughts was the most difficult for me to read. I’m not 100% sure why, but I found myself needing to go back to re-read cells or sometimes entire pages because something wasn’t making sense. I don’t know if it was because I was bored and my mind wandered, or if the dialog heavy cells were to blame, but it was hard to get through. The art was beautiful but it was a bit dark and had a lot of action driven scenes so there was a lot going on in each cell. Also, because of the nature of the Judges our main character was difficult to relate to having next to zero emotional responses. I understand that this dystopian world is meant to be a horror but I didn’t feel fear, just apathy.

Barbalien: Red Planet

After falling in love with all of the characters from Black Hammer, I was super stoked to find a standalone trade featuring one of my favorites: Barbalien. What I was not prepared for was the gritty, gut wrenching story set during the AIDS crisis. This story felt important and it’s surprising and frustrating that it took this long to be told. As the writer Tate Brombal said, “Queer writers don’t often get to write queer stories for queer superheroes in mainstream comics.”

It wouldn’t be quite right to say I enjoyed this graphic novel. It was really good but it hurt. I forgot I was reading a comic about a superhero alien and just fell into the story. I feel like this could end up being something read in school along with Angels in America.