Below you will find pages that utilize the taxonomy term “comics”
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Superman: Secret Identity, by Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen
- kudos:This is a fun concept—a teenager named Clark Kent who’s tired of the jokes about being named after the fictional Superman suddenly develops Superman’s powers and has to figure out how to live with them. Busiek strikes me as the perfect person to write a story about how a world familiar with superhero tropes would deal with their becoming real, but as much as I love little bits of this story, I just don’t know that it will ever stand out as a favorite of mine.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Danger and Other Unknown Risks, by Ryan North and Erica Henderson
- kudos:I really wanted to like this more than I did! North and Henderson are one of my favorite creative teams in comics, and North’s dialogue and Henderson’s art come together in perfect ways throughout the story. At the end of the day, though, I don’t know if there was enough to that story or to the worldbuilding to really interest me. There are neat ideas in here, and the plot comes together in smart ways at times, but neither feels fleshed out enough to really stand out.
thoughts on Mormon mission dreams
- kudos:I’ve only read two Mormon missionary memoirs (plus one compilation of Mormon missionary comics), but both have been helpful for me in thinking about my own missionary experience. Brittany Long Olsen’s Dendo: One Year and One Half in Tokyo is a remarkable graphic novel memoir of her missionary service in Japan. The art is great, the ambition is fantastic, and it absolutely deserves the 2015 award it won from the Association of Mormon Letters.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Gender Queer: A Memoir, by Maia Kobabe
- kudos:This is a frank, vulnerable memoir that I learned a lot from; I’m glad for Kobabe’s willingness to share eir story. I also appreciated the art style. I’d been meaning to read this in print a while ago but had checked out too many books from the library and had to return it before I got to it. I’m glad it was available on Hoopla so I could read it on my phone instead of mindlessly scrolling through TVTropes.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga Volume 10, by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
- kudos:Well, this is the last of the PDFs I got from the Humble Bundle, and I think that means I’m caught up on Saga in trade paperback format. I’m hooked, though, so I’ll have to find other ways to keep up with it!
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga Volume 9, by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
- kudos:Heck of a volume right here; I can see how it would be frustrating for the series to go on hiatus right after this, and I’m glad I’m reading the series post-hiatus. It’s interesting to see just how willing Vaughan is to change things up hard, and I wonder how this will affect the running themes of the book moving forward. As usual, it’s also fascinating to follow the beautiful, very weird art.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Saga Volume 6, by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
- kudos:I don’t know what it is about particular volumes of this series that makes them rise above the rest, but this was one of them. Maybe it was adorable Ghüs becoming a badass when needed or a father-daughter reunion or something else. Whatever it was, this series continues to deliver.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga Volume 5, by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
- kudos:Still reading, still enjoying! It’s interesting to watch the stories and themes play out (sometimes slowly) over time.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga Volume 4, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
- kudos:I still love so much about this series and am looking forward to continuing it. Vaughan is blending together characters and plot threads in interesting and new ways, and I’m eager to see where he goes with it. This didn’t get as high as a review from me as the last volume, though. Maybe it’s because there was some more of the gore that’s my least favorite part of this, or maybe it’s because I don’t like media about couples going through rough patches, even if it’s well done.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Saga Volume 3, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
- kudos:Okay, no more caveats. I’m really into this series now. The themes (the difficult love of family and the creeping destruction of war) are more clear, and the art and weirdness continue to be excellent.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga Volume 2, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
- kudos:You know, I still feel like Saga leans into being a comic for adults by putting adult material in there just because it can. That said, I’ll admit that I have a certain amount of inherent prudishness that may be coloring my thinking there. More importantly, I enjoy the art, the story is getting better and more interesting, and I’m eager to keep reading.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga Volume 1, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
- kudos:I gave Saga a try a few years ago, but it didn’t quite work for me (or my prudishness), so as good of a reputation it had, I didn’t stick with it. I just got the first ten volumes through a Humble Bundle, though, and so it’s time to give it another try. I’m no longer bothered by swearing and sex like I was a decade (or whatever) ago, though I’ll admit that casual gore is not something that endears me to comics.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Chroniques de jeunesse, by Guy Delisle
- kudos:J’ai déjà lu la traduction anglaise de cet album magnifique—Delisle est assez connu aux États-Unis pour paraître (en traduction) dans les bibliothèques près de chez moi. Pourtant, il y a toujours quelque chose de decevant quand je sais que j’aurais lu le lire en français. Quand une ami a visité Bruxelles récemment, je lui ai donc demandé de m’acheter l’album en français. Ayant passé quelques étés dans des usines, l’expérience de Delisle m’a beaucoup marqué.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Top 10, by Alan Moore
- kudos:There’s a lot to love about Top 10, which is why I read it for what is at least the third time (likely more). The story is well-crafted, the concept is interesting, it riffs on superhero tropes while breathing new life into them, and the art is full of so many easter eggs for the savvy reader (my favorite is probably the Astérix and Obélix cameo, but there are lots of other great ones).
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Mech Cadet Yu (Volume Three), by Greg Pak
- kudos:Still a fun series, and I’m glad it’s short enough that I could go ahead and finish it out. It continued to get more interesting as it went along, but it also didn’t give any of its twists and turns enough time to feel deserved.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Mech Cadet Yu (Volume Two), by Greg Pak
- kudos:I liked Volune Two more than Volume One: The story breaks free of simple troping and the characters become a bit more interesting. That said, none of this is enough in my mind to really set the series apart. I wonder if this would be better as a long-ish YA novel than as an ongoing comics series.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Mech Cadet Yu (Volume One), by Greg Pak
- kudos:The premise is fun, and I liked (most of) the art, but I felt like the story moved too fast to move beyond recycled tropes—or let the characters be more than flattish archetypes. It probably won’t stop me from reading the next volume, but I think it’s aimed at a younger audience than me.
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One of kiddo’s library books right now is part comic and part choose your own adventure, all wrapped up in a solo TTRPG adventure. It’s a bit too old for her, but we’re both loving it.
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Une vraie amie, c’est celle qui visite Bruxelles en vacances, trouve par hasard une librairie avec plein de BD et t’envoie un message pour te demander quel album tu veux qu’elle apporte aux États-Unis pour toi.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Un art neuf | Collège de France'
- kudos:Il y a quelques années, j’ai découvert Thimas Römer grâce à un entretien sur le podcast « Le rayon bd ». C’était peu après que j’ai découvert ses leçons sur les milieux bibliques données au Collège de France. J’aime bien écouter ces leçons comme podcast même si elles n’ont rien à voir avec la BD. Ça semble tout réunir d’entendre Römer présenter Benoît Peeters pour des leçons sur la BD au Collège de France, et j’en suis bien content.
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Even on my second read-through, it’s hard to believe how good the 2016 Flintstones comic actually is.
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Bien content d’avoir découvert le Calendrier de l’Avent de noelenbd.fr (même si je suis deçu d’avoir raté les premiers jours). Encore plus content qu’Izneo ne défend pas aux non-Français de profiter de l’offre.
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This weekend, I read Kate Beaton’s new graphic novel memoir, “Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands” in a single sitting. It was excellent and really got me thinking.
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Hearing about Kevin Conroy’s death (😭😭😭) has me reading about Batman: The Animated Series, which has me reading about various “ages” (golden, silver, bronze) of comics. Was there ever an aluminium age? If not, what would it have looked like?
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I am rereading through old FoxTrot comic strips and bookmarking all the tech ones I think I might use in lectures next semester. Wish I’d done this years ago.
pourquoi le français ?
- kudos:Hier soir, juste avant de me coucher, quelqu’un a posé une question sur r/French: Pourquoi les non-Francophones choisissent-ils d’apprendre le français ? J’ai vu la question peu après qu’elle a été posée, et j’ai dit la vérité : On m’avait offert le choix entre les cours de français et les cours d’espagnol. Il y avait plus de monde qui voulaient étudier l’espagnol, et j’avais envie de contrarier. J’ai donc choisi le français comme acte de rébellion.
schools' Acceptable Use Policies and R. Sikoryak's 'Terms and Conditions'
- kudos:Kiddo starts at a new school on Wednesday, and I’ve been putting off signing the Acceptable Use Policy and Chromebook Policy because I want to read them carefully. I don’t know how much I can do about anything that I’m really concerned with, but I’m a tech researcher when I’m not being kiddo’s dad, so I feel an obligation to be informed and raise a fuss when something is fussworthy.
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Grâce à une épisode de Culture BD sur France Culture, j’ai décidé de lire (enfin) Corto Maltese. Content de trouver des traductions chez ma bibliothèque locale, mais il faut que je trouve plus de moyens pour lire la BD en français, quoi.
some scattered thoughts on Superman
- kudos:When I was in college, I ran into a friend on my way to a professor’s office hours. He saw that I had a copy of Superman for All Seasons with me and gave me a hard time about it—he was much more of a Marvel fan than a DC fan (these were the days when this was primarily a reference to comics, not sprawling cinematic universes) and just didn’t get the appeal of Superman—how could you do anything interesting with a character that powerful?
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I always found the Inhumans stuff the least interesting part of Ms. Marvel comics, so I’m digging the reimagined parts of the TV show.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'How 'Peanuts' creator Charles Schulz pushed for Title IX in the 1970s : NPR'
- kudos:I had no idea about this history, and I think it’s fun! link to ‘How ‘Peanuts’ creator Charles Schulz pushed for Title IX in the 1970s : NPR’
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Very happy to learn that the whole run of Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is now available through my library. I am several years behind and eager to catch up.
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Je suis impressionné par le nombre de BD francophones disponible aux bibliothèques du Kentucky, mais c’est quand-même hyper decevant de lire une BD francophone en traduction.
XIII comic reference in Slow Horses series?
- kudos:Since April, I’ve gotten sucked into the Slow Horses British spy series after really enjoying the Apple TV+ adaptation. I’ve been powering through all the full-length novels and am now reading 2021’s Slough House, which features a character who’s survived a bullet wound to the head. Her description stood out to me for one particular detail, though: Her hair was different. Maybe that’s what death does to you. I twas still mostly red but now punkishly short, with a white stripe across her left temple where the bullet had passed…
small radio delights, everday cultural artifacts, and other thoughts on audio media
- kudos:I’ve been a big fan of audio-only media for a big chunk of my life. I grew up listening to NPR radio shows like Car Talk and Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me on Saturdays while my dad drove us around to do errands. TV wasn’t allowed in my family on Sundays, but the NPR Sunday Puzzle was—depending on what time church was that year, we’d listen to it on our way to Sunday meetings.