The End of the Arab of the Future: A Youth in the Middle East Volume 1 by Riad Sattouf Review

It’s 1992 and an adolescent Riad Sattouf is living in West France with his French mother and two younger brothers. His parents’ marriage is over, though they haven’t divorced yet, and his Syrian father has done something despicable: kidnapped his baby brother Fadi and gone back to Syria with him!

The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien Review

A one-legged farmowning orphan obsessed with an obscure ye olde dead (and fictional) philosopher teams up with his employee to solve his money woes by murdering an old man with a box full of money. Years pass and they seem to have gotten away with it. So they go to dig up the box of money - only to find the old man somehow still alive and the box of money missing. Wha hoppen? So begins a bamboozling journey for our protagonist to report the missing money box to the local police - a duo of fat bicycle-obsessed lunatics who mumble numbers at one another and want to hang someone, anyone. Who is the third policeman?

Uncle Scrooge: Earth's Mightiest Duck Review (Jason Aaron, Mahmud Asrar)

Aliens have come to Earth to steal all of its treasures including its greatest: Scrooge’s coin bank. Scrooge and pals gotta send them and their robot army on their way.

Statues by Junji Ito Review

Statues is one of Junji Ito’s worst story collections. Each of the ten 30-page comics are very weakly conceived and told in an almost comedically contrived, consistently sloppy way, to little or no effect - certainly not one of horror, or even vague interest.

John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs by Ian Leslie Review

Ian Leslie’s nonfiction book John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs reveals the intangible yet powerfully real love the two musicians had for one another, told through the songwriting that began with the legendary Lennon-McCartney partnership that made The Beatles the greatest band of all time and continued past it into their solo careers.

Adventuregame Comics, 3: Samurai vs. Ninja by Jason Shiga Review

19th century Japan and your poppa gives you a choice: become a samurai or a ninja. And then: you must remove a magical bracelet from the evil Lord Touma. The only trouble is breaking into his heavily guarded castle and finding him - without getting caught!

Palookaville #25 by Seth Review

Like Norwegian cartoonist (and similarly mononym’d) Jason, Seth is a great cartoonist whose more recent work has gone from being published straight to paperbacks into fancy hardcovers with a higher price point. And, also like Jason, Seth’s work has gone from being superb back then (1990s-2010s) to boring now (2020s - although this probably has nothing to do with the fancier publications, it’s just an odd pattern I noticed).

Trust by Hernan Diaz Review

Hernan Diaz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Trust is a puzzlebox story wherein four different characters tell you their version of the same narrative and it’s up to the reader to decide which character they “trust”... even though it’s pretty obvious what is the right interpretation (and y’know also “trust” as in money).