A library patron somehow falls asleep and stays overnight in the library to be awakened by the narrator of this novella: a lovesick librarian who decides to use her surprised audience as a sounding board for her thoughts on her job, myriad subjects of interest and - of course - the graduate student she’s secreting pining for.
The Killing Joke is one of the most famous and bestselling Batman books of all time so it makes sense that DC would model an entire series around it to try to replicate that success for each of Batman’s less-but-still-quite-famous villains.
I love me some Noah Van Sciver but his latest collection, As a Cartoonist, was very weak with few strips in it that were entertaining or funny.
Mona is a novelist who gets nominated for a prestigious award in Sweden (not the Nobel), so goes there to be with her fellow nominees and enjoy Swedish hospitality, etc. Riveting stuff, eh?
Tom Gauld’s latest comic strip collection, Revenge of the Librarians, is a bookish-themed one and, perhaps being a bookish chap (as you are too, probably, being on this supposedly-book site - oh, you’re here to natter about the She-Hulk TV show and post Office reaction gifs? Well I suppose it’s also a social media site…), I really enjoyed this one.
Tales from the DC Dark Multiverse is an anthology of really bad bumper-sized one-shots presenting What If…?-style retellings of famous, and also really bad, storylines. Two bad tastes that taste bad together. I’m guessing it’s “dark” because it’s spinning out of one of those Dark Nights things. Ugh…
Anthony Horowitz’s play, Mindgame, opens to a crushing opening night review from famously viperous theatre critic Harriet Throsby. So when she is found stabbed to death the morning after, with a knife belonging to Horowitz, he is the prime suspect. Only one man can help him clear his name: Hawthorne!
Four desperate people meet on a site called Black Paradox and arrange their group suicide. But their attempt takes an unexpected turn as they discover a gateway to the afterlife and a precious - but dangerous - resource called Paradonite that’s going to change the world…
Roberto Saviano’s book, Gomorrah, about the warring Camorra clans in Naples, was published in 2006. Due to the enormous success of the book and Saviano publicly insulting the head of the Casalesi crime family, he has had to live under police protection for the last 16 years. Together with Israeli cartoonist Asaf Hanuka, Saviano’s first comic, I’m Still Alive, explores his feelings on his situation as well as relating anecdotes and showing the realities of his way of life.
San Francisco 1989, post-earthquake, and a woman who was abused as a kid is killing her abusers one by one. Ethan joins in ‘cos he lurves her, ooo!
A group of seemingly random people join a community acting class. But then the fictional scenarios they play out in the class start happening in real life. Some of the people begin losing time, disappearing into a fugue state with no memory of the last few days, and the lines between reality and fantasy blur for many of them. Who is the charismatic acting teacher and what’s really going on?
Razorblades is a horror magazine comprised of short comics, prose short stories, interviews with horror comics creators like Scott Snyder and Gou Tanabe, and standalone pieces of art. The most shocking thing about this first book - featuring work from James Tynion IV, Steve Foxe, Ram V, Marguerite Bennett, Michael Walsh, Lonnie Nadler, Tini Howard, Dan Watters, Steve Orlando, and Alex Paknadel (to name just a few of the contributors), a veritable who’s who of the worst comics writers around at the moment - is that there isn’t a single story in 400 pages that’s worth reading!
A young boy dreams of competing in a magical martial arts tournament. But when the next tourney rolls around, his partner suddenly drops out - until a mysterious stranger appears in town who wants to compete too but needs a partner. Who is this person and do they have what it takes to win the tournament?
Chiharu Yamakawa is a Japanese housewife in the 1980s, married to a typical salaryman with two young daughters and a cat. The strips in this collection, first published from 1981 to 1984, show an unromantic view of married life and parenthood through a realistic lens.
David Sedaris is back with his latest collection of essays, Happy-Go-Lucky, which are, of course, about his life yet again but a number are focused on two topics: the last days and death of his elderly father Lou and, inevitably, COVID.
One-dimensional bad guy kills man giving man’s daughter reason to hunt down bad guy. Supergirl’s involved because bad guy also kills Krypto, her dog. Hey, wasn’t the latter the plot for John Wick…?
Dr Abraham Norton Perina writes his memoirs from a prison cell where he’s convicted of child molestation - and yet he was once a Nobel Prize-winning scientist. What did he win it for? He found the secret to eternal life on a Micronesian island where the people consumed sacred turtle meat. But living forever comes with a terrible cost…
Barbara Stok is back with a new biographical comic, this time on Hipparchia, one of the first female philosophers, who lived 2300 years ago in Ancient Greece. Stok’s story centres around a young Hipparchia who is preparing to be married off to a wealthy Athenian family - until her intelligence, curiosity and love of learning get in the way of her potential future, particularly once she meets the Cynic philosopher Crates. What will Hipparchia’s fate be?
Blade finds himself in a world where Steve Rogers was never thawed out of the ice so the Avengers never formed. What’s going on?! Oh - another desperately thrown-together and bloated Marvel event book that’s not worth reading.
Nao Brown is a half-English/half-Japanese young woman with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. After a visit to her dad in Japan, she returns to London to work at her friend’s kitschy Japanese toy shop where she meets and falls for an alcoholic washing machine repairman. Also Buddhism and Ghibli-esque stuff.
