The Red Mother Volume One

The Red Mother Volume 1 is a fantastic comic psychological horror story by Jeremy Haun. In Volume 1 Daisy McDonough loses one eye and the man she loves in a brutal mugging. As she tries to put the pieces of her life back together, Daisy gets a glass eye to match the other.  Just when she begins to think she can move on, she begins to see strange things through her new prosthetic eye. Daisy sees everything in red in the prosthetic eye. Her doctor says she has Charles Bonnet Syndrome. Charles Bonnet Syndrome (CBS) is a condition that causes vivid, complex visual hallucinations in people who have lost significant vision, where the brain creates images to fill the visual void, similar to phantom limb pain. These hallucinations are purely visual (no sounds/smells), the person knows they aren't real, and they typically involve patterns, people, or landscapes, lessening over time as the brain adapts, though no specific cure exists.

Daisy is a puzzle designer but she hasn't worked in months because of the accident. She receives a puzzle in the shape of a heart by delivery and easily solves the puzzle. The name and phone number in the puzzle refers her to Leland Black. After meeting him Daisy has another red hallucination. Something strange then happened. She was asked by a passerby if she had seen the red mother. This is where the story ended. I wish I had picked up the next Volume because this cliff hanger was intense. 

I liked all of the characters. Daisy is very sympathetic. The drawings of her show how much pain she had to endure. They also show her going to endless doctor appointments. Her life was on hiatus as she recovered from her injuries. I liked that her career was as a puzzle maker. It's an interesting field and I am looking forward to reading more about it in future installments of the series. Daisy's best friend Pari is supportive, always trying to get Daisy to go out for dinner or even business meetings. They work together in a puzzle business. Pari is very likable. Daisy's boyfriend Luke was not featured much. Daisy was told that he was lost after the mugging.

Volume 1 is a fun start to the Red Mother series. It is a clean story, no sex or foul language. 5 out of 5 stars.

The High Desert

I selected this graphic novel because it has won several awards.The book won the 2022 ALA Alex Award and the 2023 Cartoonist Studio Prize for Print Comics. In addition, it was one of The Washington Post's 10 Best Graphic Novels of 2022, one of New York Public Library's Best Books of 2022 and a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2022.  I had high expectations for it. However, I did not like it much. 

High Desert is a coming-of-age graphic memoir by the creator of Afro-punk, James Spooner. We read about him as a teenaged African American boy who has to deal with identity, racism, teen love and belonging in the isolated California desert that he lived in with his white single mother. James searches for community by being punk. James thinks going to a new high school will bring him new friends but he finds that he is just one out of 15 African American students at the school. The African Americans are gangbangers while the white students are racist. Some are skinheads. James doesn't know where he fits until he meets Ty, a young black punk who introduces him to the school outsiders, skaters and unhappy young rebels caught up in the punk groundswell sweeping the country. His life changes with a new punk haircut and becoming a bass player in a band. 

I did not understand the slang. After looking up several pages worth of slang I gave up. The story was actually judge dialogue between James and his fellow students at various moments in school. There was no plot. I felt sorry for James, though. He had a rough adjustment to his new community and didn't feel his mother understood him. I read several reviews of this book and all were positive. These reviewers had the same life experiences as James. While I didn't like the book I would definitely recommend it for my friends' kids who might be feeling just like James.

Ginseng Roots: A Memoir

It's always a pleasure to find hard cover copies of graphic novels by my favorite cartoonists. Two weeks ago I found Craig Thompson's newest graphic novel at an odd place: my local hospital's bookshop. Thompson is the author of the world renowned comic "Blankets" so I had high expectations for this read.

The publisher's summary:

Ginseng Roots follows Craig and his siblings, who spent the summers of their youth weeding and harvesting rows of coveted American ginseng on rural Wisconsin farms for one dollar an hour. In his trademark breathtaking pen-and-ink work, Craig interweaves this lost youth with the 300-year-old history of the global ginseng trade and the many lives it has tied together—from ginseng hunters in ancient China, to industrial farmers and migrant harvesters in the American Midwest, to his own family still grappling with the aftershocks of the bitter past.

Stretching from Marathon, Wisconsin, to Northeast China, Ginseng Roots charts the rise of industrial agriculture, the decline of American labor, and the search for a sense of home in a rapidly changing world.

To describe this memoir with one word I would say it is poignant. It is also funny and a visual masterpiece. Thompson gives the story of his life from age seven to the present. His parents were overly strict evangelical Christians and made him work every summer in local ginseng farms alongside his family for twelve to sixteen hours per day. He never had free time the way most American kids have. Thompson grew up in the rural town of Marathon, Wisconsin which is where most of the world's ginseng is grown. When his brother was old enough to join the toil, they worked next to each other telling tall tales and making games out of their labors. The activities included pulling weeds, gathering rocks out of the fields and at the end of summer, harvesting berries. It seemed abusive to me but farm families probably still operate this way. However, I felt sorry for him and his siblings not to be allowed to enjoy in the fun of summer days. Both Craig and his brother left Marathon as soon as they could seeking an easier life. They found it. Craig was lucky to work as a cartoonist, his dream job. 

The story gives the reader all the information you could ever want on how to grow and harvest ginseng. When Hmong laborers joined work on a nearby farm, Thompson tells their story from living in Laos, leaving, and starting over in America. After Thompson developed an immune system disorder, his hands were in alot of pain, affecting his ability to draw. We read about his progress with a Chinese medicine practitioner and the difficulty he dealt with in creating this wonderful book.

The artwork is striking. It has been drawn in vermilion ink with intricate details. The red color is what initially drew me to the book. The reason this color was chosen is explained at the end of the story: because he was told it should never be used.

I cannot say how much this book touched me. I am rating it 5 out of 5 stars.

Muybridge

Muybridge is the graphic biography of Eadweard Muybridge. He was one of the earliest pioneers in photography during the nineteenth century. He is famous for his time sequence of a horse galloping. Cartoonist Guy Delisle brings this unknown photographer to life in this book.

The publisher's summary:

Sacramento, California, 1870. Pioneer photographer Eadweard Muybridge becomesentangled in railroad robber baron Leland Stanford’s delusions of grandeur. Tasked withproving Stanford’s belief that a horse’s hooves do not touch the ground while galloping atfull speed, Muybridge gets to work with his camera. In doing so, he inadvertently createsone of the single most important technological advancements of our age―the invention of time-lapse photography and the mechanical ability to capture motion.

Critically-acclaimed cartoonist Guy Delisle (Pyongyang, Hostage) returns with anotherengrossing foray into nonfiction: a biography about Eadweard Muybridge, the man whomade pictures move. Despite career breakthrough after career breakthrough, Muybridgewould only be hampered by betrayal, intrigue, and tragedy. Delisle’s keen eye for detailsthat often go unnoticed in search of a broader emotional truth brings this historical figureand those around him to life through an uncompromising lens.

Translated from the French by Helge Dascher & Rob Aspinall, Muybridge turns a spotlighton what lives in the shadow of an individual’s ambition for greatness, and proves thatEadweard Muybridge deserves to be far more than just another historical footnote.

The biography begins with Muybridge as an adult and continues until his death. He traveled to the U.S. west coast to take the first photos of Yosemite and American Indians and was known nationwide for his feats. He also traveled to Europe in order to obtain more job assignments. He married but was never home, always traveling to a photo shoot. His wife got bored and cheated on him, getting pregnant in the process. Muybridge exploded in rage when he found out. I was surprised by his anger because, after all, he could be away from home for as long as a year. 

The art work was done in black and white drawings in comic strip panels. It was cool to see Muybridge's actual photos throughout the book too. The dialogue was spot on and showed how big Muybridge's ambitions were.

I enjoyed reading about one of our early pioneers in this field. I wish, however, that Delisle would write more travelogues. I loved reading them.  5 out of 5 stars.

Profane

This 2024 publication of the Profane comic collects releases 1 through 5. It's a well drawn and colored comic in a 8" x 11" softcover book. The main character is Will Profane, a well-dressed African American. He believes that he is a private detective who has been tasked with finding the killer of Spud Coltrane. Profane soon realizes that instead he's actually a fictional character in a story written by Coltrane. 

Profane pursues his investigation into Coltrane's murder but begins having thoughts about where he himself stands as a person given that Coltrane cannot continue to write about his character. Will he die? The main suspects into the murder are Ken Kane, Spud’s professional rival, Lili Macbeth, a beautiful nightclub singer and Red Glove, Profane’s nemesis who is determined to escape his tormented existence of losing to Will again and again. As Profane begins crossing suspects off his list, he worries that  someone from the world of non-fiction can become a suspect.

I thought it was funny that Profane was not a real person but, rather, a fictional character. The author was creative to come up with this idea. Another aspect of Profane's character that I enjoyed was his witty personality. It made reading his dialogue fun. Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention how much the artwork contributed to my enjoyment of the book. The comic strip panels were beautifully colored by Giada Marchisio and I even liked the font. 

All in all, Profane was a fantastic read. 5 out of 5 stars.

We Called Them Giants

I purchased a hard back of this comic last week. It was satisfying to hold an actual book in my hands. Usually I read ebooks. Turning the pages felt surreal but that matched the dystopian nature of the story.

The main character is Lori. She is a recently adopted teenager who awakens one morning to a mysteriously depopulated world. Lori had heard about the rapture from friends and neighbors but doesn't believe that is why everyone disappeared. She calls it the not-rapture event. Lori ventures outside and finds storefronts and other businesses devoid of employees. Most of the food shelves are bare. A few days later, while rummaging for food, Lori comes across her best friend Annette. They decide to stay together in a cave and forage for food daily. There are gangs, monsters and aliens that they must avoid in order to stay alive. Along the way they meet an elderly lady in the same circumstances and join forces with her. She knows the red giant and the green giant and how they operate. The red giant is benevolent while the green giant exudes evil. You can probably see where this story is going.

We Called Them Giants was a finalist for the 2025 Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story or Comic. I am rating it five out of five stars.

Feeding Ghosts

Feeding Ghosts is a graphic memoir of three generations of Chinese women. It was published last year and has won many awards. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Memoir and was a winner of the National Books Critics Circle. Also, the book won the Libby Award For Best Graphic Novel and was a Kirkus Nonfiction Prize finalist. This awesome memoir was also named a Best Book Of the Year by Time, Forbes, NPR, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and my library, the Chicago Public Library. It is a chunkster as it is over 400 pages long.

The publisher's summary:

In her acclaimed graphic memoir debut, Tessa Hulls traces the reverberations of Chinese history across three generations of women in her family. Tessa’s grandmother, Sun Yi, was a Shanghai journalist swept up by the turmoil of the 1949 Communist victory. After fleeing to Hong Kong, she wrote a bestselling memoir about her persecution and survival—then promptly had a mental breakdown from which she never recovered.

Growing up with Sun Yi, Tessa watches both her mother and grandmother struggle beneath the weight of unexamined trauma and mental illness, and bolts to the most remote corners of the globe. But once she turns thirty, roaming begins to feel less like freedom and more like running away. Feeding Ghosts is Tessa’s homecoming, a vivid, heartbreaking journey into history that exposes the fear and trauma that haunt generations, andthe love that holds them together.

The story is told in black and white comic strip panels. The dialogue is densely packed into the strips so it is a slow read. However, it's well worth reading. With over 400 pages the book is definitely a chunkster. 

I was fascinated by Tessa's retelling of her mother and grandmother escaping from China and heading to the United States. She explains that there was inter-generational trauma that affected her. How she was raised and her relationships with her family was based upon her mother and grandmother's stunted emotions. Tessa inherited this. When she traveled to China with her mother, her mother was freed from her trauma and acted like she was at home. Mom was at peace from seeing the family she left behind. I wondered whether it would have been better to have stayed behind in Maoist China.

This is a memoir to cherish. I loved the story and learned alot about the immigrant experience. 5 out of 5 stars.

Feral Volume 1

Feral is a cute graphic novel about a group of cats who are friends. When the government evacuated their neighborhood due to a new strain of rabies, they are picked up by animal control for euthanasia. When the truck they are inside crashes the cats escape and try to find their way home. All of them are indoor catswho are lost outdoors. Elsie, Lord Fluffy Britches, and Patch encounter threats from foxes and wolves as they rush to find their way home and their usual food. The cats are smart enough to notice that the creatures they encounter have an illness of some sort and they have to stay in the trees as they travel home to avoid getting bit or scratched by them.

I loved this story from the first page to the last. It reminded me of 2024's Animal Pound comic. It's definitely kid friendly with no foul language, sexual content or graphic drawings. The comic was drawn by Trish Forster and Tone Rodriguez with coloring by Brad Simpson. Simpson used a muted pallette of blues and purples and reds. It's gorgeous. 

Volume 1 collects issues 1 through 5 of the series. It was published in March 2024. There are currently 10 volumes available. I hope that they all are eventually published in an omnibus edition. It would be nice to them all contained in one big book.

5 out of 5 stars.

Brownstone

I loved reading this YA graphic novel. The main character is Almudena, a fourteen year old girl, who is sent to live with her father for the summer because her mother is taking a once in a lifetime trip. The problem is that she has never met him and he does not speak English. Xavier is Guatemalan and is happy to see her, but he expects her to live in (and help fix up) his old, broken-down brownstone. Along the way, Almudena must navigate the language barrier. 

As Almudena tries to adjust to this new reality, she gets to know the residents of Xavier’s Latin American neighborhood. Each member of the community has their own joys and heartbreaks as well as their own strong opinions on how this young Latina should talk, dress, and behave. Some can’t understand why she doesn’t know where she comes from. Others think she’s “not brown enough” to fit in.  However, Almudena becomes fast friends with them all.  By summer's end, she hates leaving her new friends behind but is happy to return to living with her mother.

I loved the Almudena character. She is a happy go lucky girl who can deal with any situation. She helps all of her new neighbors with their problems without skipping a beat. Somehow she is able to communicate with her father and new friends who only speak Spanish. Note that the novel is bilingual. While it is mainly told in English, there is dialogue in Spanish that is not translated.  The artwork was primarily colored in brown tones to match the storyline.

5 out of 5 stars.

Ms. Tree Volume 2: Skeleton in the Closet

Volume 2 of the Ms. Tree graphic novel saga was published in October 2020.  It collects Ms. Tree Quarterly releases 2, 4, 6, and 10. These issues were originally released by DC Comics and have been republished under Titan Comic’s Hard Case Crime imprint.

Our protagonist Ms. Michael Tree is a 6 foot tall, gun toting female private investigator. She solves crimes of passion, murder and intrigue. Ms. Tree doesn't think any case is too small, or too violent. All she cares about is getting the job done. Along the way she fights to get revenge for her murdered husband.

Skeleton in the Closet was set and written in the 80's. It's definitely for mature audiences as the story deals with cases of Satanic worship, homophobia, date rape, and missing POW's from Vietnam. It was quite innovative at the time it was originally written, being one of the first comics to not only deal with homophobia but have a supporting character come out in the book. The storyline also takes a hard look at date rape decades before the MeToo movement began. 

This was a fascinating look back in time. I am rating it 5 out of 5 stars.

Ms. Tree Volume 1: One Mean Mother

I recently discovered this book from Comixology Unlimited. It is the first collection of five classic Ms. Tree comics. Collection #1 collects issues #1, 4, 7, 8, and 9 of the “Ms. Tree Quarterly,” the follow-up series by DC Comics to the fifty-issue series by smaller publishers. The Ms. Tree comics began 37 years ago and over the years has been optioned to several TV stations.

Ms. Michael Tree is a 6 foot tall,  gun toting female private investigator. She solves crimes of passion, murder and intrigue in these  satisfying stories. Ms. Tree doesn't think any case is too small, or too violent. All she cares about is getting the job done. Along the way she fights to get revenge for her murdered husband.

One Mean Mother begins with Ms. Tree being hired to find out who killed her arch nemesis at Muerta Investigations, Dominique Muerta. She was hired by the deceased's daughter who just happens to be dating her stepson, Michael Tree, Jr. Ms. Tree begins her investigation by taking over the security of the Muerta company and tightens up security at the building in which it is located. Then we backtrack in time to when Ms. Tree met her husband while they were both in college. The book continues to move back and forth in time, but telling a complete story.

If you like hard boiled mysteries and/or are looking for a strong female character in your comics then you want to get this book. 5 out of 5 stars.

The Great British Bump Off: Kill or be Quilt #1

Following the success of the Great British Bump Off baking murder mystery series, John Allison brings us a companion series. The Kill or Be Quilt series will have five releases and takes place in a fabric shop that we quilters refer to as a quilt shop. The next release will be published later today.

The publisher's summary:

When wildcat arson hits her new employer right where she lives, Shauna Wickle is drawn into the brutal and vindictive world of quilting, as sisterhood and community needlecraft deteriorate into internecine strife. With the promise of an end to all her financial worries, Shauna must cross enemy lines and infiltrate a cadre of “monsters in human skin”. But they seem…so nice

This is a light hearted cozy mystery in graphic novel format.  Shauna Wickle is the main character. She is a bright, kind, peppy girl who embarks on a relaxing vacation, sailing down English canals in a boat she borrowed from her uncle. However, Shauna is not an experienced sailor and soon finds that the boat has run aground and needs to be fixed before Shauna can continue her vacation. She is lucky to land in Barton-on-Wendle, and gets a job working at a fabric shop in order to earn money for repairs. At the shop she learns what a fat quarter is and is delighted to see bobbins of thread organized by color. Because of her bubbly personality, the shop owner believes Shauna will scare off their customers. We have to wait for the next release to find out how she fits in with the employees.

Way, way over 5 out of 5 stars.

The Dark

The Dark is a political thriller in comic book format. The plot concerns a worldwide cyberwar the U. S. has with Russia. 

The publisher's summary:

A short time after this international internet shutdown event known as "The Dark", we follow Carver, a former special forces super-soldier who after losing his eyes during this event, gets caught up on a mission hunting down Camille, a NSA analyst who has stolen dangerous information. With a potential war with China on the horizon, Carver and Camille are thrown together to get the world back on track while a shadowy force that is manipulating events is hot on their heels.

I loved this futuristic story. The plot is based on the use of the Stuxnet computer virus that Israel and the U. S. used against Iran several years ago. However, in this novel Russia has used it against the entire world. No more Internet use or electricity. Bioluminescence is used by the characters to tackle the dark. I am assuming the loss of the Net puts everyone in the Dark. Politics also plays a major part in the story. The U.S. is gearing up for war with China and has bombers on the way there. Texas has split from the U.S. Then we see a soldier with a service animal who's eyes glow. The soldier is hunting a transgender woman who just wants to become physically who she truly is. 

You can always tell when the illustrator is a man. The male characters are completely covered with body armor but the female character is always in a bikini. Sometimes she's just wearing underwear. It's unclear why female soldiers don't need to wear body armor. Kristian Donaldson is the artist. The colorist Lee Roughridge used a pallette of blues, teals and purples which I loved. The style of the art has a futuristic feel and I wondered whether it was drawn from a computer. That said, the art matched this futuristic story.

The Dark is light reading despite the political story. U am rating it 5 out of 5 stars.

Bad Mother

Bad Mother is a 2021 comic series featuring April Walters and her teenaged daughter Taylor. The story opens with April grocery shopping when armed robbers appear. All the staff and shoppers are on the floor hoping not to get shot when the police arrive. A shootout ensues in favor of the cops. When April gets home she realizes that Taylor is not home. She reviews her text messages from Taylor and sees Taylor's response to leave her alone. The next morning Taylor is still not home so April tries to make a missing persons report at the police station. She is told to wait 48 hours but instead April embarks on a harrowing mission to find her. April's journey that takes her through the underworld of her suburban community and sets her on a collision course with a massive crime syndicate and its lethal matriarch. Tested to her limits and beyond, April discovers that hell hath no fury like a mother scorned.

I loved this story! I read it in one sitting because it was so intriguing. April is not your ordinary soccer mom. She will go to any extreme to keep her kids safe. She also is one hell of a fighter who gets in rumbles with crime figures but manages to come out on top. The pacing was fast and with the colorful comic book panels this book is fantastic. The plot was very well thought out with plenty of twists and turns and the characters were realistic. This book is a winner.

5 out of 5 stars.

Dumb

Dumb is the true account of cartoonist Georgia Webber's experience with a temporary but lengthy loss of her voice. This is an unusual disability, one I have never heard of before. Certainly there are those who have been born with speech impediments but an experience like Webber's is new to me.

The publisher's summary:

This graphic memoir is about how the author copes with her loss of voice due to a severe injury. Part memoir, part medical cautionary tale, Dumb tells the story of how an urban twentysomething copes with the everyday challenges that come with voicelessness. Webber adroitly uses the comics medium to convey the practical hurdles she faced as well as the fear and dread that accompanied her increasingly lonely journey to regain her life. Her raw cartooning style, occasionally devolving into chaotic scribbles, splotches of ink, and overlapping montages, perfectly captures her frustration and anxiety. But her ordeal ultimately becomes a hopeful story. Throughout, she learns to lean on the support of her close friends, finds self-expression in creating comics, and comes to understand and appreciate how deeply her voice and identity are intertwined.

Georgia has a difficult time getting her point across to her friends in everyday life. Alot of the drawings have no dialogue but you can see what is happening as she tries to communicate with others. She decides not to go to loud places and mainly uses writing to converse with friends. Georgia still meets friends at bars but gets stressed because it takes alot of effort to communicate. It is tiring. Friends begin to view her as someone who needs to be helped constantly. Many of them, though, find her silence attractive. I love that she began wearing red lipstick to make it easier for people to read her lips. 

The memoir reads fast. It's 178 pages are filled with drawings that are actually scribbles in black and red that are not always legible. However, they match the storyline concerning  communication problems.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this graphic memoir and am rating it 5 out of 5 stars.

Budding Crisis #1

Budding Crisis is a Comixology Original comic that was released last month. It is the first installment of a 5 part historical fantasy series about power, privilege, magic and thieves.

In the fictional Bay of Cygnus, magic seeds from the Onamanthe plant have the ability to grant the user any wish they want. When the ship known as The Eclipse gets robbed in the Bay of Cygnus, the Dureni people have to find them before it’s too late. There won’t be another chance for them to find more seeds as they’ve become extinct and each nation was only allotted three seeds. However, in the process of searching for these seeds and the thieves who stole them, they uncover a conspiracy against one of the strongest armies in the world. A shipmate on the Eclipse loses a small box containing the magical seeds. The ship is docked at a foreign port where they have little to no authority. Of course, they are going to try and get the box back. 

I loved this story. It was easy to understand the plot but with many characters, all shady, I was not able to determine who the protagonists were going to be. Maybe the 2nd installment of the series will make this plain. The artwork is done in bright colors which always helps me love the story. I am drawn to these colors and it's what helps me decide whether I want to purchase a comic.

All in all, Budding Crisis was a fun read. 5 out of 5 stars.

Sacred Heart

Sacred Heart is a coming of age graphic novel. The story concerns the children of a town called Alexandria. Their parents are on a  mysterious, four-year religious pilgrimage so the kids are on their own. 

There are alot of characters. We have Ben Schiller, Otto, Empathy, Josh, Tommy, Lola, Tony, Erica, and Jessie. However, the main characters are Ben, Otto and Empathy. They speak with rude, crude and lewd words and cannot get their minds off of sex. I didn't like any of them. The characters are consumed with their love lives and going to parties. Ben (a girl) takes care of her younger sister who is hiding a dark secret. Ben ardently believes that her parents will someday return. Ben also has problems with her best friend because they are maturing at different levels. The characters are undisciplined but show up at school every day. I found that unusual because I would have been cutting class.

The artwork consisted of black and white line drawings that were crudely drawn. It matched the crude behavior of the characters. However, I didn't care for the artwork. The story itself was all over the place. There wasn't a story per se but rather snapshots of events the characters attended.

Sacred Heart has received many positive reviews but I didn't care for it. It's just not my kind of comic. No rating.

War on Gaza

Renowned cartoonist Joe Sacco recently published his latest book War on Gaza. Sacco is famous for his reporting on life in Gaza. He is well renowned for creating the reportage comic sub-genre. However, this book is less about war on Gaza or war in Gaza but more about "I hate the USA." Only two pages out of the book’s 37 pages is directed against Israel. Three explain why he wrote the book. The remainder express Sacco's hatred of the U.S. and it's leaders.

He mocks our politicians for creating a "kinder, gentler genocide" and drew a line drawing of Biden in a diaper with a dialogue box "patent is pending." Also, we see another drawing of Biden with a scarlet "G" on his forehead which I thought was cute. I like the scarlet letter analogy. In addition, he uses sarcasm to rewrite Biblical passages such as "O, Israel, let a monument be raised atop the flattened cities of Amalek so that future generations will never forget the Miracle of Joe Biden's Hallucination." Of course, the November 2024 presidential election choices are what a "rotting republic deserves."

Sacco describes himself as "our hero cartoonist" out for a stroll. He claims he was walking to a postal box to mail a check to the IRS but that the government stole the check from the box. He might be paranoid but I am inclined to believe that this actually happened. 

This comic is dripping in anger and hate with a ton of sarcasm on every page. I give the author credit for his cleverness but the anti-American attitude was too much for my taste.

Sliced

My second comic of the year is a pizza story. It's appropriate because there is no food I love better than a greasy pizza. Sliced is a Comixology Original 130 page graphic novel that was published in November 2024. The story is about two rival pizzaiolos who are forced to give up their generational rivalry and collaborate against a new high-tech competitor. 

Silvio Zampini and Pietro Pizzuti own restaurants on the same street and both are failing. Both have refused to sell their pizzerias to the Cannoli Mafia crime family. They want to find a way to continue their family pizzerias. When the Cannoli family opens a new pizzeria, Wonder Pizza, across the street they are outpriced by them. Wonder Pizza is selling a slice of pie at a price seemingly more expensive than the ingredients. The ingredients are created from technology and contain a specific ingredient that makes every customer addicted to it. Silvio and Pietro combine their pizzerias into one restaurant in order to fight the Cannolis. 

This is a traditional mafia family story with typical New York City characters. Silvio and Pietro grew up together as friends but a rivalry began when they came of age. At that time both began working in their respective family restaurants. As I read the dialogue I could hear that NYC accent. Don Tommaso heads the Cannoli Mafia family. His character is so realistic that he could have been in the Godfather movie. His goons are likewise realistic. 

The writing has appropriate pacing and dialogue. There isn't much narrative, if any at all. The plot, while not original, is complex with plenty of twists and turns. I must say, though, that the idea of a technology created pizza is creative. I liked the color palette of the artwork which contained alot of different colors. 

4 out of 5 stars.

Two Tribes

After a late night yesterday I wanted easy reading this morning. I found this full length graphic novel by Emily Cohen. The story is based upon her own life and dissects her two ethnic nationalities:  Native American and Jewish.

The publisher's summary:  

In her poignant debut graphic novel inspired by her own life, Emily Bowen Cohen embraces the complexity, meaning, and deep love that comes from being part of two vibrant tribes.

Mia is still getting used to living with her mom and stepfather, and to the new role their Jewish identity plays in their home. Feeling out of place at home and at her Jewish day school, Mia finds herself thinking more and more about her Muscogee father, who lives with his new family in Oklahoma. Her mother doesn’t want to talk about him, but Mia can’t help but feel like she’s missing a part of herself without him in her life.

Soon, Mia makes a plan to use the gifts from her bat mitzvah to take a bus to Oklahoma—without telling her mom—to visit her dad and find the connection to her Muscogee side she knows is just as important as her Jewish side.

I enjoyed reading about the Jewish and Muskogee customs. It was fascinating to see how the author wrote into the story Mia's punishment for running away by having to spend time with a rabbi. The rabbi used a study of the Bible story of Jonah to teach Mia a lesson. Jonah ran away from God after refusing to preach gloom and doom and ended up inside a whale. There was also an element of mystery in the story. While Mia was making strides in making her dream come true, I knew that her deception was going to catch up with her soon. Each chapter ending provided enough action to make me think that Mia was finally about to get caught. When she did get caught, Mia admitted her deception. She owned it. You don't see that every day. 

While this book was written for kids aged 8 to 12, there are lessons for adults as well. I am rating it 5 out of 5 stars. This is an educational  story for everyone.