Below are posts associated with the “comic” medium.
📚 bookblog: Electric Love (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
Peut-être que c’est bête de tellement aimer un petit « storyboard » qui n’a même pas de fin, mais ça fait un moment que je m’intéresse à l’art de Boulet, et ça m’a fait beaucoup de plaisir de m’offrir une petite bd en numérique à quelques euros seulement. J’aime l’histoire, j’aime surtout l’art, et j’espère que les Éditions Digitales vont trouver beaucoup de succès parce que j’aimerais bien acheter plus de choses comme ceci.
📚 bookblog: Carmilla: The First Vampire (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)
Vampire stories aren’t really my thing, but as far as vampire stories go, this is a good one! 90s New York is an interesting setting, I like the cultural shake-up, and the art is a lot of fun.
📚 bookblog: Seed of Destruction (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
Hellboy reminds me a lot of Atomic Robo. I love the idea, I like the art, it’s pulpy in a fun way, but after a while, I just get bored of it.
📚 bookblog: Farmhand, Volume 5 (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)
Okay, so I didn’t actually read the final TPB. I cobbled together individual issues from hoopla (boooo, hoopla) but couldn’t be bothered to review them individually.
That’s probably good, because I didn’t like the first issue at all—I had trouble remembering what had happened in the previous TPB and struggled to get back into the plot. I still think the plot is kind of dumb, but reading the remaining issues reminds me that I like Guillory’s characters, art, and clear personal investment in this story. I’m being generous with my rating, but I think he’s earned it. (Chew is still too weird for me to try, though).
📚 bookblog: Ghost, Omnibus 1 (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)
There’s so much about this series that shouldn’t work. The protagonist is clearly meant to be feminist but borders on angry manhater and is clad in typical comic book superheroine attire. Would it surprise you to know the creative team is all male?
Yet, for all of its very clear faults, there’s something about it that works? Or at least that I found to be an engaging read. Maybe there’s something here under the problems, or maybe I’m just part of the problem. 🤷🏼♂️
📚 bookblog: Dark Horse Heroes, Omnibus 1 (❤️❤️🖤🖤🖤)
I chuckled at the Ben Reilly scenes in the second Spider-Verse movie because I know the jokes about 90s superhero comics, but I hadn’t actually experienced 90s superhero comics.
While, now I have, and I get the jokes even more. This was hard to convince myself to finish: It felt like a trying-too-hard attempt to build an interesting comics universe, but it just wound up being dumb and sometimes poorly illustrated.
📚 bookblog: Empowered, Volume 1 (❤️❤️🖤🖤🖤)
I struggled with how to rate this one. I’m going to settle for this: Just because a series that knows it’s being dumb and fanservicey does not automatically elevate it above being dumb and fanservicey.
📚 bookblog: 47 Ronin (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)
Not life-changing, but a pretty good comic. I didn’t know about this apparently legendary story, but it was fun to learn about.
📚 bookblog: The Seed (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)
Like the last volume, I’m less convinced by the plot as it continues, but there’s still so much about this that’s good. I appreciate the portrayal of faith without being preachy, I like the art, and there is still plenty of humor.
This is the last PDF I own, and I didn’t realize there was a fifth TPB that rounds out the story. I’ll have to track it down somehow…
📚 bookblog: Roots of All Evil (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)
I’n pickier about this volume because it’s harder to follow up on a good premise than to set it up, but it hasn’t entirely jumped the shark, and I’m still enjoying it.
📚 bookblog: Thorne in the Flesh (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
This volume has some more obvious furniture moving so that important things can happen later, but it’s still great so far.
📚 bookblog: Reap What Was Sown (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
Uh, this is amazing—and in a way I never would have expected. I don’t usually do body horror, but it’s just restrained enough for me to work with. The concept is fascinating, the art is good, and there’s a sense of humor that has me checking every detail in every panel for a chuckle. Glad to be getting back into this huge bundle of comics (but also, I just bought a bunch of Dark Horse titles, sooooo).
📚 bookblog: The Way of the House Husband, Volume 4 (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
Would I read more of this? Absolutely. But I’m also glad to have exhausted the volumes available at my library, because as fun and cute as the premise is, there’s only so much I can read in a short time without getting tired of it.
📚 bookblog: The Way of the House Husband, Volume 3 (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
Part of me feels like there’s only so long you can drag along the premise of “retired yakuza becomes stay-at-home spouse,” and a lot of the humor here builds on, rather than outright challenges, traditional gender roles. Yet, it remains a fun read!
📚 bookblog: The Way of the House Husband, Volume 2 (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
This series is clearly formulaic and episodic, but it’s still fun (and since I struggled to follow the ongoing plot of My Hero Academia, maybe it’s an easier entry point for me).
📚 bookblog: The Way of the House Husband, Volume 1 (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
“Cozy Yakuza comedy” was not a genre I was aware of, but it seems I like it!
📚 bookblog: I'm a Trash Goblin Who Craves Mess (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)
This storyline is a bit tough for me, but reading it in a collection reminds me of how much better Dumbing of Age is when you can read a storyline all at once. Really enjoyed the read even if it’s not my favorite arc.
📚 bookblog: Rebirth (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
The finale of this series (or at least this arc) focused more on the parts I liked less, so meh. I still enjoyed the series though and would be interested to read more Andolfo.
📚 bookblog: The Hunt (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)
Gotta say that I don’t like the fantasy elements of this story as much at the digs at totalitarian policing of gender and sexuality, but this second volume is still a good read.
📚 bookblog: Awakening (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)
This comic is very weird, but the art is good, the translation is excellent (or at least I don’t think of it being translated), and the social commentary is very well done.
📚 bookblog: The Boy Born with Everything (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
I waited a couple of days before writing my review, and I had trouble remembering what I had read. I really want to like this series, and I don’t actively dislike it, but that is just not a great sign.
📚 bookblog: All Might (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)
I enjoyed this volume more, likely because I read it in a shorter timespan. I still feel hesitant about the series, perhaps because I have read so dang much superhero fiction that it’s hard to feel like there’s anything new here. I still have a bunch of volumes checked out, though, and I do want to keep going.
📚 bookblog: Rage, You Damned Nerd (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
I read this in scattered chunks before and during a busy week of family camp, so this might not be the measured assessment this deserves. There are things to like here, and I want to continue trying the series, but I confess to having trouble following this particular volume. I’m still learning to tell many of the characters from each other (and a LOT get introduced here), and manga conventions remain unfamiliar to me, so I’m still trying to get used to the medium.
📚 bookblog: Reagan Youth (❤️❤️🖤🖤🖤)
This series just does not work for me, I think. I passed it up countless times at various libraries before coming into PDFs of it through a Humble Bundle. That was also not a done deal until I read Remender’s Black Science, which I mostly appreciated and figured that maybe I should try this one, too.
It was shortly into the second volume that I ruled it out for good, so I guess this is a partial review of that, too. I get that the series is supposed to be an allegory or whatever, but the violence and grossness just does not work for me, whatever it is supposed to mean more broadly.
📚 bookblog: Other Confections (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
See, here’s a volume that is also reallll dark but has enough anti-nihilism in it to make it shine. This is apparently the last of the volumes I own, and I don’t mind not having any more to read… this series isn’t quite as much fun the second time through.