The library is a great place for readers to discover comics, and it’s a great place for comics readers to check out things that they want to try without spending their hard-earned cash. I’m looking at comics that I find in the New York Public Library system.

Jeff Smith’s Bone is one of the greatest comics of all time, so his new series Rasl obviously merits considerable interest. A far cry from the all-ages fantasy of Bone, Rasl’s protagonist is a slightly amoral, dimension-hopping art thief, a ladies’ man out for a buck wherever he can make it. The Drift collects the first three issues of Rasl, and it’s very hard to make any firm judgments from what’s between these two covers.

Plenty happens – Smith jams a lot into these three issues – but because he’s creating all new characters, establishing the rules of the Drift between universes, introducing alternate-universe versions of characters and generating the back story that drives Rasl, it doesn’t quite coalesce into a definitive image of where the series is heading. Because so much of what occurs is laying the groundwork for the character and what follows, you’re left feeling that The Drift is little more than stage setting - effective stage setting, but groundwork nonetheless.

Smith’s cartooning remains very strong. He knows how to use angles to maximize the drama of panel, without drawing attention to the layouts. The pace is casual, with plenty of panels on each page to convey information while still allowing room for moments of silent introspection or breathless action.

Based on Smith’s track record, most readers are likely to give him plenty of time to build his new world, and I hope that readers new to his comics don’t get impatient with The Drift’s casual setting up of future events. Rasl shows promise, though it’s too early and there’s too much territory yet to cover to make any universal proclamations. If you find it at your local library, check it out and look forward to future installments, because Jeff Smith’s proven himself a cartoonist to watch.

The library is a great place for readers to discover comics, and it’s a great place for comics readers to check out things that they want to try without spending their hard-earned cash. I’m looking at comics that I find in the New York Public Library system.

This is the third of three reviews focusing on Jeff Lemire’s Essex County trilogy.

Although it’s the least of the Essex County books, The Country Nurse is still a very engaging comic. It simply had a high standard to live up to, and cartoonist Jeff Lemire didn’t quite match the subtlety of Tales From the Farm or Ghost Stories in this concluding portion of his trilogy.

Like Ghost Stories, The Country Nurse takes place in two time periods, following the lives of two young women – one a nun running an orphanage in 1917, the other a nurse working with elderly Lou LeBeuf. Lemire has an interesting two-page spread early in The Country Nurse which slyly spells out the theme of the book, a thread connecting a tapestry.

Flashing back and forth in time, Lemire finds two women whose connections run deep to the LeBeuf family, bringing them into Essex County and, in a sense as Lou’s health fails, escorting them on their way out. The 1917 segment is solid, but not particularly inspired – it seems a quick overview of Canadian frontier life that’s been explored by a number of Canadian cartoonists – including Chester Brown’s Louis Riel and Scott Chantler’s Northwest Passage. Lemire’s intent is completely different, a more personal, internal tale, but the nun’s temptation struck me, personally, as perhaps too obvious.

Nurse Anne’s modern-day life was much more compelling, though much of the appeal is predicated on having read the both previous volumes of Essex County, as Tales From the Farm’s and Ghost Stories’ protagonists Lou, Lester, Jimmy and Ken all have prominent roles in her life. Her own family issues seem almost an after-thought.

Nevertheless, if you can find the entirety of Jeff Lemire’s Essex County trilogy in your local library, The Country Nurse is a solid complement to Tales From the Farm and Ghost Stories, providing closure to the characters you’ll certainly love in the first two books in this story cycle.

The library is a great place for readers to discover comics, and it’s a great place for comics readers to check out things that they want to try without spending their hard-earned cash. I’m looking at comics that I find in the New York Public Library system.

After talking about Jeff Lemire’s first Essex County trilogy book, Tales From the Farm, last week, today I’ll give a few thoughts on the middle segment of the inter-connected tales. Splitting pages between the modern day and the past, Ghost Stories uses Lou LeBeuf’s wandering, disassociating mind to draw connections between today and events of his family past. Retired, modern day Lou is a deaf old man struggling to hold onto his independence, arguing with his nurse and belligerently trying to remain in his home. In the past, Lou and his younger brother Vince were young hockey players hoping to graduate from semi-professional status to NHL stardom, torn apart by family matters, differing priorities and lost in seas of solitude.

Far more assured and nuanced than the first chapter of the trilogy, Ghost Stories is easily the most gripping of the Essex books, and among my favorite comics ever. Lemire adds natural humor to the confusion of the elderly people in current-day Lou’s life, while he adeptly mixes the pastoral setting of Essex County against the urban crush of younger Lou’s life in Toronto. The hockey sequences are exciting (and I don’t like hockey), yet the emotional sequences are quietly brutal.

As this is a trilogy of books, Ghost Stories ties back to Tales From the Farm, though Lemire doesn’t make the connection explicit until near the end, and even then he lets readers make the connection themselves. If you’ve not read Farm, there’s nothing in Ghost Stories that will leave you scratching your head. If you’ve read both, you’ll smile at the deeper understanding of Ken and Les you’ve gained by reading the lives of Lou and Vince.

Strong dialogue complemented by evocative, loose artwork brings the characters to life, each of them reminiscent of some you might’ve known.  It’s powerful stuff, and if you find a copy in your local library, I’d strongly encourage you to check out Jeff Lemire’s Essex County vol. 2: Ghost Stories.

The library is a great place for readers to discover comics, and it’s a great place for comics readers to check out things that they want to try without spending their hard-earned cash. I’m looking at comics that I find in the New York Public Library system.

With Jeff Lemire’s profile rising higher on a seeming daily basis – his soon-to-be-released Vertigo graphic novel The Nobody and his recently announced Vertigo series Sweet Tooth – I found myself pressed to finally check out the acclaimed and popular Essex County trilogy of books that Lemire authored through Top Shelf Books during 2007-2008. Fortunately, I was able to get all three books from the library: today, Vol. 1, Tales From the Farm.

Young Lester lives on a farm in rural Essex County, a fictional setting somewhere in Ontario, Canada, with his Uncle Ken. Orphaned, emotionally disconnected, lost in fantasy, Lester wears a domino superhero mask and a red cape wherever he goes. Ken, well-meaning but unable to connect with the dreamer boy, struggles to find ways to relate to his only nephew, the son of his only sister. Lester’s closest friend is Jimmy, the slow moving and thinking owner of the local gas station and garage.

Subtle and quiet, Tales From the Farm explores the tension between dreamer and a pragmatist, from the perspective of both surrogate son and surrogate father. Casting no blame, Lemire allows both Ken and Lester’s vantage points to express themselves to readers, suggesting familial tragedies and secrets that underscore their tenuous relationship.

The artwork, powerfully chiaroscuro, has a sloppy, loose energy, yet a delineated clarity of strong page composition and character design. Lemire’s use of blacks and whites would be impressive coming from a 20-year veteran of the medium. Tales From the Farm is definitely one of the best comics I’ve read recently.

Next week, I’ll discuss the second book in the series, Ghost Stories.  But a tease: it’s better.  If you find any of Jeff Lemire’s Essex County books at your local library, definitely pick it up. Like me, you’ll probably decide that they belong in your personal library.

The library is a great place for readers to discover comics, and it’s a great place for comics readers to check out things that they want to try without spending their hard-earned cash. I’m looking at comics that I find in the New York Public Library system.

Bernie Krigstein’s one of those comic book legends whose work you just have to read. It’s like watching a Stanley Kubrik film or listening to an Eric Clapton song – even if it’s not your thing, you just have to see for yourself.

Like Kubrik and Clapton, I find Krigstein a mixed bag, but I find few faults with the quality of this book. Over-sized, hardcover, assembled by editor Greg Sadowski, recolored mostly by Sadowski and Marie Severin, the book presents Krigstein’s art in full force.

The earliest stories reprinted here are mostly from Krigstein’s crime comics days, and the stories have the standard early crime comics motif: a criminal plans something evil, but his own character fault or some inherent flaw in his scheme lead to death. Krigstein does make most of the stories look good, however obvious their narratives may be. His panel compositions are strong and focused, and his use of shadow is often staggering, though I find the figures themselves somewhat erratic and backgrounds drop out far too frequently.

Later stories, Krigstein’s art explodes forward, becoming far more consistently striking than early efforts. The ECs (the revolutionary 1950s publisher EC Comics, that is) in particular showcase Krigstein’s fondness for jamming as many panels as possible onto a page (why hasn’t that lesson been learned by more of today’s artists?!), creating staccato bursts of information, tension and character. Sticking to tiered pages, Krigstein’s able to squeeze tons of information into all those panels without sacrificing any storytelling clarity, and each panel remains a succinct statement of the narrative. His figure work and backgrounds remain an occasional distraction though.

There are so many cartoonists who’ve done so much to reshape the comics we read today.  As a fan of the medium, it’s a privilege to have access to volumes like B. Krigstein Comics that we can use to observe the evolution of the comics form, and you can find this and other important historical comics at your local library.

The library is a great place for readers to discover comics, and it’s a great place for comics readers to check out things that they want to try without spending their hard-earned cash. I’m looking at comics that I find in the New York Public Library system.

Lewis Trondheim is really a can’t-miss cartoonist. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve read by him, a claim I can make about very, very few fixtures in the comics market. Trondheim manages to tell stories for all-ages that are fast and funny to keep young readers interested, but filled with crisp dialogue and considerable moral questions to keep older readers engaged. Readers of every age are likely to be stunned by his endlessly surprising twists.

Astronauts of the Future tells of Martina and Gilbert, a pair of elementary school kids who believe that everyone around them are either robots (Martina’s theory) or aliens (Gilbert’s). It starts off as a precocious kid comedy, with our heroes attempting to prove their theories without getting into (too much) trouble. Of course, when they find out they’re both correct (I thought I was annoyed at NBM’s cover copy for spoiling the surprise, but it happens so early on that NBM’s claim of a shocking twist could refer to any of a dozen different events!), the world becomes a wholly new experience, one that justifies Gilbert’s ray-gun obsession and needs Martina’s creative leadership. The first of the European albums reprinted in this book from NBM Publishing establishes the world and circumstances. A second tale pits Martina and Gilbert against an alien invasion with a truly startling moral quandary.

Sometime Trondheim collaborator Manu Larcenet (author of the superb autobio Ordinary Victories) provides the artwork. Packing each page with information (usually around ten panels), Larcenet keeps every scene active, exciting and filled with drama and humor. The character designs are clever and cute – from people on the streets to alien ships, and Larcenet captures the broad humor of boys and ray guns, and the shock, terror and excitement of living among an aliens and robots.

Trondheim’s upbeat and lively dialogue keeps the story moving.  Twists come flying at the reader with rapid-fire pacing, and the subtle sense of family and belonging is built with strong, distinct supporting players that ground Martina and Gilbert in this wild sci-fi world.  Readers of all ages will find plenty of reasons to fall in love with comics if they’re lucky enough to find a copy of Lewis Trondheim and Manu Larcenet’s Astronauts of the Future in their local library.

The library is a great place for readers to discover comics, and it’s a great place for comics readers to check out things that they want to try without spending their hard-earned cash. I’m looking at comics that I find in the New York Public Library system.

Let’s start with an admission: I’d like to read more manga. I really would. It’s become such an inescapable part of the comics dialogue, a hugely important part of how future generations of cartoonists are going to approach comics, that I really feel we here at Newsarama should give it more bandwidth. It’s just that, for me personally, it’s really hard to commit to sticking to an 18 or 26 or 46-volume series. Most of my manga experiences have been a good start, followed by some thematic repetition, which leads to me inevitably taking the series for granted and spending my limited dollars elsewhere. (And lest you think the flaw is with manga, I’m the same with long-running American series – see my unfinished runs on Transmet, 100 Bullets, Y, etc.)

So a friend recommended Solanin, and he thankfully mentioned that this particular manga volume is self-contained, one-and-done, a stand-alone chunk of teen ennui and struggles with the inevitability of adulthood. Thankfully, because Solanin is really, really good comics. I can totally see why the kids love the manga when I read a book like this (actually, I can totally see why kids love the manga in general).

Writer and artist Inio Asano does a superb job exploring the mindset of five young adults, fresh out of school (well, four of them are), as they try to figure out where their dreams, relationships and ambitions fit into the “real world” of bills, rent and 9-to-5. With one couple as the central focus, and three other characters each getting a fair share of the narrative focus, Asano provides plenty of perspectives on the slippery quality of “the rest of your life.” Jobs, relationships and hobbies all seem to intersect in confusing jumbles that leave the characters indecisive about which string to pursue.

Using understated tragedy and spirited triumphs, Asano keeps the story moving quickly and prevents the daily turmoil from becoming turgid.  The characters’ voices are all crafted strongly and clearly, and the art is striking and clear.  For manga fans of readers looking to familiarize themselves with manga, finding a copy of Solanin at the local library is likely to be a treasure.

The library is a great place for readers to discover comics, and it’s a great place for comics readers to check out things that they want to try without spending their hard-earned cash. I’m looking at comics that I find in the New York Public Library system.

Gary Panter’s something of a legend in this field, so I felt it long past time to finally immerse myself in some of his work. Fortunately, the library had a copy of this over-sized hardcover collection, bringing together an entire epic (in only 40 pages!) of Panter’s most famous character.  And man, is it over-sized.  You can really dive into the huge artwork in this book, which probably has the largest pages of any comic I’ve ever read.

Without much idea of what to expect – Panter’s the “punk master of comics,” so I’ve gathered – I dove in and did my best to roll with the waves. Artistically, the book is great. Panter’s loose and scratchy, very cartoony, yet still full of solid details that ground the scenes and add palpable reality to the characters, settings and world of this Inferno.  Great designs and scratchy, kinetic action fill every single panel.

Sticking mostly to six-panel grids, and entirely to a three-tier layout, Panter constructs each page around a visual motif. Sometimes, it’s as simple as a static view of the scene, with the characters moving into and across a consistent background for all six panels. Other times, a trip on a river, for example, finds Panter moving images across both panels of each tier, adding an illusion of travel and time. Using strong visual lines, Panter moves readers’ eyes around the page very effectively as well, keeping every single page lively and totally engrossing.

So yeah, Jimbo’s Inferno is a truly beautiful comic book.  I just wish I understood anything that happened in it, because it was a totally baffling experience.  But maybe if you take it out of the library, you can help me figure it out.

The Library is a great place for readers to discover comics, and it’s a great place for comics readers to check out things that they want to try without spending their hard-earned cash.  I’m looking at comics that I find in the New York Public Library system.

I have a few other NYPL articles in queue at the moment, but with this Watchmen film out (I haven’t seen it yet, so don’t ask what I thought) and the library having finally delivered a copy of this collection odds and ends from his Wildstorm stint in the late 90s, I thought I’m bump up this selection of less renowned Alan Moore comics.

One can only hope that fans of the Watchmen movie don’t find a copy of this book lying around their local library or bookstore. It’s simply not a good comic. Not good by any standard, but it’s particularly bad when you consider the name splashed across the top of the cover is the “greatest comics writer of all time.”

I like Alan Moore’s work a lot, and he’s typically worth the praise he receives, but the Spawn/WildC.A.T.S. crossover miniseries included in this book is practically a document of all the shortcomings of its era. The irony is that it’s everything Moore seems to hate about post-Watchmen superhero comics. Terrible, clichéd dialogue, abysmal art by Scott Clark, and a story with no worthwhile point at all. The entire plot seems to hinge on the thin, and short-of-brilliant, concept that by traveling into the token Sucky Future, the WildC.A.T.S. and Spawn are at a disadvantage facing the future (and evil) Spawn because – y’know, he remembers the battle from the perspective of his younger (not evil) self. It’s dreadfully thin stuff, and the ending comes from out of nowhere. Maybe regular Spawn readers found it compelling, but with nary a Spawn issue in my entire comics reading collection, I found it lacked set-up, emotional context or believability.  I can’t imagine any neophyte reader will feel any differently; there’s not a redeeming moment in the entire storyline.

There’s a Voodoo miniseries here, as well, that just lies there on the page, lifeless, pointless, utterly boring.  Moore seems to hint (very, very slightly) at certain mystical themes that he’d later explore in greater detail and to great effect in Promethea, but the Voodoo serial seems to exist largely for the sake of showing its protagonist’s pole dancing skills, literally.

Travis Charest does a superb job drawing a WildC.A.T.S. short story, one I suppose might’ve made some sense if I’d read Alan’s WildC.A.T.S. run. But I haven’t, so it didn’t. The Deathblow three-parter seems to function only as a loose framework on which Jim Baikie can draw pulp sci-fi imagery (the fun Baikie had is at least a minor virtue). The one-off Mr. Majestic story isn’t too bad, casting the hero as a wanderer and scientist at the end of time, traveling with the pitiful band of survivors still left to face the End of Everything. It’s sad, quiet and reflective, and has a bang of an ending, but it’s nothing essential and it’s certainly not worth paging through the rest of his drek to read.

So, Watchmen film fans, if you’re looking to explore the world of comics and you come across Wild Worlds at your local library, please find another place to start your searching.

The library is a great place for readers to discover comics, and it’s a great place for comics readers to check out things that they want to try without spending their hard-earned cash. I’m looking at comics that I find in the New York Public Library system.

With vol. 5 of the hipster-popular Scott Pilgrim series recently arriving in shops, I suddenly realized that I was a full volume behind in reading this series. Perhaps my affection for the series has waned during the lag time between volumes. Perhaps I just found vol. 3 very good but unexceptional. Whatever the cause, vol. 4 dropped without much notice in my world, but having enjoyed the previous books in the series, I went to the library to catch up.

A few of my issues with previous volumes – the characters, particularly Scott, are mostly annoying, and for all his art’s many virtues (and there are many), cartoonist Bryan Lee O’Malley’s characters are often hard to distinguish – remain as minor distractions in this otherwise intelligent and entertaining book. Specifically frustrating in this book, Scott’s girlfriend Ramona and Scott’s flirtation Lisa could nearly be twins. Pay attention, reader, for Ramona’s hair often dangles in front of one eye.

Despite a few problems, however, I still found the book very engaging and fun. The video game-stylizations remain cute, for example Scott’s “level up!” when he makes a personal breakthrough. The layouts work well, keeping all the talking heads’ scenes just as exciting – more exciting, honestly – as the sword battles. While I have problems with O’Malley’s character designs being difficult to distinguish, his character acting is terrific. The story is filled with complicated human emotions, yet you never fail to understand when Scott is confused, happy, lonely, or anything else on the emotion rainbow.

The meta-textual elements are used cleverly as well, with multiple in-story references to other volumes of the series or to the page structure itself.  Still, the best part is simply the evolving character arc of Scott Pilgrim.  He’s not someone I have much sympathy for, but he’s moving (very, very slowly) toward becoming one. It’s a fun book, a coming of age story couched in outlandish and fun video-game conflict metaphors.  If you come across it at your local library, be sure sure to check out Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together.  Meanwhile, I’ll cross my fingers and hope for vol. 5 to arrive at the NYPL soon.

The library is a great place for readers to discover comics, and it’s a great place for comics readers to check out things that they want to try without spending their hard-earned cash. I’m looking at comics that I find in the New York Public Library system.

This collected edition of the Green Lantern/Green Arrow comic series from the mid-70s was written by industry legend Denny O’Neil and illustrated by Neal Adams.

I’m not much of a traditional superhero fan. In fact, for my entire comics reading life, I’ve been pretty much completely indifferent to the two heroes sharing cover billing in this book (particularly the power ring-wearing one). Still, I have considerable interest in the evolution of the form and there’s no denying that the issues collected in this story – despite being the final issues leading into the comic’s cancellation (the ensuring Green Lantern series continued this series’ numbering, but there was a four year gap between #89 and #90) – had a huge impact, for better and worse, on how creators approached superhero comics afterward.

These comics, with Stan Lee’s Amazing Spider-Man drug issues, opened the door wide for creators to address social and political topics in superhero comics. On the con side, this has led to occasions of heavy-handed, simplistic soapboxing. Alternatively, we’ve been treated to the occasional smart superhero title that balances the hero’s ability to mitigate complicated issues with the hero’s inspirational qualities. Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams, the creators behind this run of GL/GA, manage to be simultaneously the best and the worst of what followed. Subtlety isn’t found very often in the pages of this book; however, the heroes often find themselves in no-win situations that pose complex questions to the readers.

Easily the most legendary of the tales herein is the two-part story that sees Green Arrow Oliver Queen’s ward Speedy revealed as a drug addict. Heroin is suggested, but no drug is actually named. Here, Speedy himself, despite Ollie’s cruel judgments (despite being the one I’m likely to identify with, Ollie is an absolute prick in most of these stories, particularly this one), is the hero of the story, overcoming his failings on his own terms. The story, however, might’ve meant something more if Speedy had actually appeared in any of the issues leading up to the two-parter.  Like many modern comics, you’re expected to bring some interest in Speedy’s fate to the comic.

The art’s very good. Adams is a master, and no amount of years passing will dilute the visual impact he brought to the table.  The stories push hard, but they clank and show their age regularly. The heroes come across as painfully naïve and judgmental more often than admirable. Still, I’ve never cared much for the Green Lantern concept – superheroes who hang out and sip lemonade while their ring does all the hard lifting just take the visceral fun out of it – but I appreciated how O’Neil and Adams depicted using the ring as a physically draining process for Hal.

Overall, I don’t really know what to say about this book, honestly.  It has moments of coolness.  It has moments of eh-ness.  I appreciate what it represents, and I like a fair portion of what’s on the page.  Conversely, I didn’t have a single wish-I-owned-it pang when I turned it back in at the library.  Readers who did superhero comics, particularly Bronze Age heroics or witnessing the creative evolution of the medium (at least the superhero end of it), will probably enjoy Green Lantern/Green Arrow vol. 2 if they find it in their local library.

The library is a great place for readers to discover comics, and it’s a great place for comics readers to check out things that they want to try without spending their hard-earned cash. I’m looking at comics that I find in the New York Public Library system.

It was probably a year ago that I took the first volume of Checker Books Flash Gordon reprint series out the library, and I enjoyed it considerably. Efforts to take out subsequent books have all met with similar fates: two or three months of the book being “on hold,” only to receive notice that the last remaining copy is no longer available. So, New Yorkers who’ve destroyed Flash Gordon vols. 2 through 4, I say thank you with all my considerable sarcasm. However, I got to volume 5 before you could destroy it. So suck it.

Without knowing what occurred in the three volumes I’ve passed over, I must admit, I had absolutely no difficulty diving right into the fifth collection of Alex Raymond’s classic Sunday newspaper strip, compiling material from 1940 and ’41. Regular comics readers will likely find at least one peculiarity to these comics – there are no dialogue balloons. Each strip is six panels with accompanying text – often with dialogue in the narration.

Every single panel moves the plot along. These strips, I’m not kidding, move like lightning. The pace is relentless, danger dogs Flash in every strip, and somebody’s always scheming against him. The blocks of text slow the reading down, but you read only four pages and you can’t believe how much has happened.

If I’m going to recommend a classic adventure strip, Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates is still the gold standard. Raymond doesn’t give his characters the emotional depth, nor does he add natural and believable elements of humor, but Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon certainly deserves recognition. It’s pure plot, pure cliffhanger excitement, restless, excitable and explosive, and Raymond draws the hell out of it. Each page is packed with images of Flash’s lady-love Dale Arden in exotic bikinis, shirtless Flash demolishing Ming’s guards, and iconic sci-fi spaceships and citadels. As an added bonus, in vol. 5, the inflexible status quo of traditional adventure comics is pulverized, as Flash’s revolution against Ming reaches its great culmination. But don’t worry, Raymond has plenty more drama in store for his heroes.

Any reader looking for a solidly crafted, juggernaut paced good time is going to find plenty of pleasures in Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon comic strips. And, if you’re really lucky, you can find several of these adventures in your local library.

The library is a great place for readers to discover comics, and it’s a great place for comics readers to check out things that they want to try without spending their hard-earned cash. I’m looking at comics that I find in the New York Public Library system.

The prerequisite to any current discussion of this book seems to be to mention that Scott McCloud is famous these days for his academic theorization about the comics form, most popularly in his trio of books Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics and Making Comics. Those are fine books.  I own ‘em and love ‘em, but they’re for comics aficionados, for those of us who’ve devoted far, far too much brainpower to unlocking the secrets of the form and why it presses the buttons it does. Far and away, however, Zot! is McCloud’s most accessible and purely fun work.

On a world similar to our own, except with all the bad parts cut out, Zach Paleozogt, known as Zot, is a superhero. Well, more a retro-futuristic sci-fi adventurer with superheroic overtones, because Zot doesn’t really have any powers – except his relentlessly cheery attitude and an impossible derring-do will to overcome all odds. On our world, there’s Jenny, a teenage girl who has divorcing parents, a problematic older brother, homework and plenty of questions about what she’s doing in her life.

Half of the book alternates between Zot’s world and Jenny’s world, blending retro sci-fi adventure drama with slightly off-beat comedy episodes, copiously complemented by engaging characterization as Jenny tries to reconcile her dream world against the reality she experiences most days. It’s engaging, fun if light and forgettable comic book entertainment. Around halfway through Zot! The Complete Black & White’s 570-odd pages, McCloud’s interest clearly shifts to the human element.

From that point forward, Zot is stranded on our Earth, and Jenny is unable to escape the pressures of her conflicted teen anxieties. McCloud’s strong grasp of his supporting cast allows him to use them as narrators of their own lives while still driving forward Jenny’s story. His formalist tendencies, evidenced through his follow-up projects, even get a few chances to shine, as in the surprising finale of Terry’s chapter – with its secret last page. Carefully constructed and emotionally true, despite the presence of a heroic figure who seems to always inspire positive thoughts, these chapters are where Zot! truly shines. There are a few hiccups, such as the tediously one-note school bully who attacks Woody, but the simple humanity evidenced throughout the stories – from Brandy’s effusive positivity in the face of the worst traumas of any of Jenny’s friends, to Zot and Jenny’s frank and hesitant conversation about their physical relationship – lifts the series to truly memorable heights.

Simply, Zot! is effusive, fun comics, with an uplifting yet believable emotional core. Many young and old readers will find themselves pleasantly surprised if they check McCloud’s earliest comics work out of their local library.

The library is a great place for readers to discover comics, and it’s a great place for comics readers to check out things that they want to try without spending their hard-earned cash. I’m looking at comics that I find in the New York Public Library system.

I should admit one thing up front: literally every shred of previous information I’ve acquired about the computer game World of Warcraft has been gleaned from an episode of South Park. I say this because readers familiar with the game will likely take something completely different from this book than I did. For me, when you consider that Walter Simonson’s work on Thor and Orion is just about the pinnacle of superhero comics in my eyes, the potential attraction of the World of Warcraft comics should be obvious, but it’s not due to any attraction to the game.

Alas, despite a few teases of a greater mythology, World of Warcraft seems to be a marginal fantasy comic going through the motions. Penciller Ludo Lullabi does Simonson no favors, with action sequences that often difficult to follow and characters too often likely to scream or gnash their teeth in every circumstance.

Nevertheless, Simonson is not on top of his game here. Rather than building a mythology and universe, every time the chance comes to explore the structure of the WoW universe, Simonson opts to throw the characters into another battle. In fact, they get into so many fights that it becomes a point of reference even to the characters themselves in the final chapter! Disparate factions of the WoW universe are met in brief bursts, but before we can get a coherent sense of the connections between these cultures or how they lives their lives, it’s fight! fight! fight! and we’re off on another quest. Even the dialogue doesn’t have Simonson’s usual snap.

Now, again, fans of the game (where, I assume, the back story is filled out?) or fans of quest-based fantasy in general may take something completely different from this comic than I did, but I’m comparing this to previous Walt Simonson titles where the nuances of new universes were built up over a succession of encounters with Frost Giants or Darkseid’s lieutenants, and World of Warcraft is lacking in comparison.

Also, I imagine it’s not just me, but isn’t it strange that Lo’gosh is three times as thick on the covers as he is in Lullabi’s pages. Weird. So, anyway, big picture here, it has a huge brand, but I wouldn’t expect that many readers or gamers are likely to find the first collected comic book edition of World of Warcraft a satisfying title whether they find it in the library or elsewhere.

The library is a great place for readers to discover comics, and it’s a great place for comics readers to check out things that they want to try without spending their hard-earned cash. I’m looking at comics that I find in the New York Public Library system.

Hope Larson’s Chiggers is an Eisner Award-winner and a totally charming book. On one level, it’s an upbeat, girls-at-summer-camp romp, full of catty banter, fun camp activities and awkward teen social interactions. On another, it’s a discussion of growing up and finding not only your friends, but also yourself. Abby’s back in summer camp for another summer, but as the youngest girl in her group of camp friends, she’s suddenly an outsider among the older girls and their new responsibilities and new interests. Befriended by the mysterious Shasta, Abby finds herself torn between peer groups and confused about her interest in awkward boy camper Teal.

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The library is a great place for readers to discover comics, and it’s a great place for comics readers to check out things that they want to try without spending their hard-earned cash. I’m looking at comics that I find in the New York Public Library system.

I already posted my Best of 2008 list, but if I were to do it over again, Dash Shaw’s opus about the Looney family would certainly be somewhere on it. Mixing humor and tragedy, Shaw charts the family’s lives over a single weekend, as the three adult children, one of their children and another’s spouse, come together to spend time with their parents who are divorcing after forty years of marriage.

Shaw does great work establishing each character’s core personality and the conflict each faces during the course of this emotional weekend. Then each person’s dilemma is explored and resolved in a plausible and sensible fashion, leaving the reader satisfied yet also leaving us with the understanding that these characters’ lives are not over and they will continue to deal with life.

Artistically, Shaw’s not a great illustrator, but his storytelling is precise and clear, moving everything forward at a deliberate and specific pace. He also uses some nice tricks, including diagrams and depicting youngest son Peter as a frog (which is later explained, and in a particularly effective panel, shown as artifice).

Although it is a little padded at times, Shaw is in total control of the pacing, drawing out emotional moments and teasing readers through tough times. He’ll literally draw only one panel per page – not a splash page, just a single, regular-sized panel in a field of blankness – to slow a sequence down and focus the reader on the quiet beats unfolding in a characters’ life. It’s pretty much a virtuoso pacing performance.

It’s a moving, funny, sad and melodramatic piece.  Adult readers who are capable of dealing with the emotional subtleties and occasional bits of graphic sexuality are likely to enjoy Bottomless Belly Button if they come across it at their local library.  It’s a strong ambassador of quality adult comics.

The library is a great place for readers to discover comics, and it’s a great place for comics readers to check out things that they want to try without spending their hard-earned cash. I’m looking at comics that I find in the New York Public Library system.

This week, rather than wait in line in the brutal cold (which, personally, I love), you could go the library and check out Charles Hatfield’s academic study of comics, specifically alternative comics including Gilbert Hernandez’s Palomar and Poison River, Spiegelman’s Maus, R. Crumb’s revolutionary work, and Harvey Pekar’s subtle recognition of daily turmoils.  Technically, yeah, it’s not a comic, but it is heavily illustrated with plenty of examples from the relevant works.

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The library is a great place for readers to discover comics, and it’s a great place for comics readers to check out things that they want to try without spending their hard-earned cash. I’m looking at comics that I find in the New York Public Library system.

Last week, the book I read probably suffered a bit from expectation.  Joshua W. Cotter’s Skyscrapers of the Midwest came to me as nearly a blank slate.  I’d heard the title enough to know it existed, but the between-covers content was completely unknown. The title refers to the towers of the mind contrasted against the incongruous mundanity of smalltown life. As such, it’s part autobiography and part tribute to childhood imagination. The narrative follows Cotter and his brother through their early childhood, dealing with schoolyard taunts, burying pets, losing toys and stumbling through awkward interactions with adult relatives. Running alongside the everyday and emotionally bruising reality, we get to witness Cotter’s young mind translating images into giant robots and imagining his own heroic triumph over impossible odds.

It’s that juxtaposition between imaginative victories and real struggles that gives the book its meat and raises it to engaging and successful levels. The art’s very strong. Cotter chooses to anthropomorphize everybody as cats. I can’t guess why he made that choice, but it adds a certain innocence to the characters, particularly the children. Cotter’s ability to weave between flights of fancy and grounded pseudo-tragedies is impressive, as it keeps you engaged, forcing you to question everything that’s happening in even the most straightforward sequences.

By balancing and weaving together mundanity and imagination, Cotter’s created a pretty compelling book. Each of its separate halves are solid, yet short of exceptional. Taken together, he’s crafted a whimsical, tragical, and very well drawn almost-memoir of young adolescence. I suspect that if they’re allowed exposure to the occasional cuss word, many teenage readers will connect with Cotter’s Skyscrapers of the Midwest, as will many adults.

The library is a great place for readers to discover comics, and it’s a great place for comics readers to check out things that they want to try without spending their hard-earned cash. I’m looking at comics that I find in the New York Public Library system.

Today, Jack Kirby’s Silver Star.  I’ve been a total mark for the recent surge of archival Kirby reprints, having adored all the Fourth World volumes and OMAC, and owning (but not yet having read) Eternals and Demon (I have some cheap, ugly Essential reprints of Thor and FF, which I’ll hopefully begin to replace with better editions in the next year), yet based on the indifference even hardcore Kirby fans show to this latter-day Kirby series, I opted for the financially conservative option of checking Image Comics’ recent Silver Star hardcover out from the library.

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The library is a great place for readers to find comics, and it’s a great place for comics readers to check out things that they want to try without spending their hard-earned cash. I’m looking at comics that I find in the New York Public Library system.

Too Cool to be Forgotten, by Alex Robinson. Top Shelf.

Oftentimes, when I take a book out of the library, it’s simply because I have a small apartment and there’s limited shelf space for “keeper” books. Giving back the books that I really want to read, but probably won’t reread is the best option. Sometimes, however, I borrow because I’m curious, yet concerned, about the quality of a book and don’t want to fork over the money for it. After buying and loving Box Office Poison and Tricked, Alex Robinson was pretty well established on my must-buy list of creators, but something about his latest book, Too Cool to be Forgotten concerned.

Here’s the premise: Smoker Andy Wicks goes to a hypnotherapist to quit smoking. He ends up being transported back into the mind of his own high school self, to prevent himself from lighting up that first ciggie, or so he assumes. Thing about this premise is, it’s not that interesting. I think we’ve all seen a film or TV show in which an adult is somehow, magically or improbably, back in high school. It’s just not that interesting, and so I approached this book with some caution.

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