A case of a rather predictable story executed really well. A man who has lost his daughter, ten years gone, can’t let go of his pain and refuses to negotiate the inner turmoil he has, until something gives and he has to. It’s a heavy handed allegory but filled with heart and is very relatable.

3.5 rounded up

Reminds me of Scott Pilgrim, in a good way. Gonzo fun with only an internal logic, otherwise it’s riding a wild ride. The art isn’t my favourite but it’s good storytelling that kept my attention. Loved the twists. And while funny, it wasn’t laugh-out-loud for me, but I’m sure it would be for people more into this particular style.

I’m hard pressed to find anything I disliked about this. There is always the danger of a reader not finding the same things the author found to be interesting as compelling, but that’s not me, this time. This is a fascinating encapsulation of an era, so for historical fiction, I doubt I will ever find something as good. But it’s also thematically complex and has a very intricate plot across many characters. And it is not prescriptive, despite the author inserting herself into the narrative (in a far more successful and engaging way than, say, War & Peace, I might add).

Across the characters what becomes clear is that there is no one correct negotiation to happiness or “right” choice. Especially by popular opinion. The rumour mill of Middlemarch is as savage as Twitter, perhaps even more so, since everyone actually cares what society thinks of them. As time goes by, the fortunes fall and rise with each, as they develop and forge themselves into who they will remain—more-or-less—for the rest of their lives. It touches on all manner of their lives and it was always engrossing to me. Elliot was absolutely an erudite study of people. The rendering at every level of the book is nothing short of masterful.

As I said, really the only danger is if a reader isn’t interested in this kind of book, or the style of writing, which is descriptive, high in interiority, and verbose, to say the least. Her command of language as an art is well beyond most. I personally enjoy looking up words, especially esoteric antiquated ones. It doesn’t happen all the time, but enough for it to be fun, and not an obvious deployment of a thesaurus, as sometimes these things go. Anyway: Certainly this easily makes it into my all-time-favourites shelf.

A fantastic graphic memoir about intersectional punk culture from a black perspective when it was happening. It’s very open and honest, and doesn’t feel condescending, openly criticizes the ways in which he was arrogant at that age. I also really appreciated that it wasn’t a narrative memoir, where the “story” feels very fabricated and not true-to-life to conform to the expectations of a narrative. There’s through lines that exist because they were formative experiences and they start and come to a close when they’re introduced in his life, but there’s loose ends that exist because that’s what happened, and I really liked that. It gives the rest of it authenticity, to me.

It’s also just a fascinating thing to read, since it’s historical. Punk like it was doesn’t exist as it did. Before the internet and before it was co-opted yet further. Before intersectional politics was really codified or in the mainstream, either. And it has the “real” punk ethos too, while explaining the variations it sometimes took, basically in medias res of its co-opting, though he wasn’t aware of it at the time.

It’s relatable, clear, geared towards teens, and I think would make a lot of people feel seen. There’s universal challenges to being a teenager in here and then there’s specific ones, which broaden the feel like an easy gateway to learning about a PoC experience. I can’t find a fault with it.

I think this run does a great job capturing the spirit of Superman, and there are some nicely plotted twists, as Superman goes to Warworld with friendos and invariably encounters a lot more of a problem than he thought, and they have to survive as slaves while attempting to foster a revolution. The artwork is fan-freaking-tastic. There’s a lot going for it. But it’s also overlong already and the last bit of it abruptly goes into tales from Earth that I am not the least bit interested in and was pretty sizeable. It irked me that it wasn’t just another two issues of the actual series. Baffling. What’s more, the arc is now quite predictable, now that the initial shock value of the conflict have worn out. So I hope there quite a lot of payoff at the end, because it’s dragging.

This was really fantastic. A music student who feels a bit lost and hopeless with her music because she compares herself to the success of one of her peers, gives up on aspirations of playing—until her mentor and friend enters a kind of coma, she believes is connected to The Blue. A spiritual kind of connection that jazz musicians can enter under particular circumstances. A place where time stops, and that has positive and negative effects on the artist spending time there.

This graphic novel is on point with absolutely everything. Thematically and as a metaphor, I found what is communicated about The Blue to be really compelling and highly novel. But it also manages to teach you a little bit about jazz, and why it endures, its iterations, and what can be so profound about it. The liminal space of The Blue, where an artist slips into a connection and conversation with all the great players, sometimes As they are playing themselves, in their own past, is just phenomenally done.

Then, the character arc of the protagonist is also really well done. She has her own issues that interrelate very well with the two conflicts on the page. The dialogue is good. The artwork is fantastic. When she slips into The Blue with Art Blackey, I actually physically went and took out THE FREEDOM RIDER (from Blue Note records, I might add), and put it on while I was reading it. What a great experience. As the discussion about the art form takes place, if you have a companion piece going at the same time, I challenge you to not get emotional.

One of the best graphic novels I have ever read.

It takes a long time for this to introduce something like interesting stakes, and when it does, it’s after a kind of formula has been established that deflates the tension. He’s the Sherlock of fixers, basically. And he solves problems in circuitous ways that make it so one day, when he’s not super smart and read all the angles, etc. etc., he might catch a bullet. Until then he’s swinging his thing around solving problems, which is why he needs a Watson to get into trouble he can solve. It’s fine, and at least not super derivative, but also not compelling enough for me to pick up the next volume. But I also wouldn’t describe me as someone remotely interested in gang/mafia crime-centric stories either.

I want to get the book from the library. The audiobook from the BBC is hard to follow and I feel like it assumes people are seeing sets and interactions at some points. One of the few times I’d rather just have a normal reading. Kind of annoying.

2023 re read: I found this immediately captivating, this time around, and I think appreciate the bubble crafted, far more. I think it very neatly shows off social constructs, humanities ability to adapt, and what parts of our world we internalize and perpetuate, even in absurd circumstances. All while being very empathetic toward a cast of people moving toward a rude intrusion of outside forces.

It took a while for this book to click with me. I had it in mind that it would be a weird thriller, or something. But I’m not sure what I’d describe it as. Thematically it is perfect. The character work is top notch. It’s poignant and sad and a reflection of societal problems that brilliantly reflect the reason for the event to even happen in the first place. You see it coming and you’re still shot right through at the end. Brilliant stuff.