I read a lot of memoir, and this one jumped immediately to the top reaches of my favorites list. Damon Young is a really excellent writer- each chapter could stand alone as an essay with a very satisfying beginning, middle, and end, but read together they tell a nuanced, intimate, hilarious and honest story of his life growing up black and neurotic in Pittsburgh. As a kid, he and his parents navigated lower middle class, a series of near-financial disasters that were always precariously recovered from. Damon shaped his early identity around his love of and talent at basketball, which landed him a full-ride scholarship to Canisius College. It was there his career as a writer began, from the humble beginnings of a series of terrible, semi-plagiarized poems written to woo a long-term crush. The romance was unsuccessful, but the poems sent him in the direction of blogging, back when doing so was still a novelty. Post-college he co-founded a site called Very Smart Brothas, which still runs pop culture reviews and social commentary to this day, and landed a writing job at Ebony magazine. This book entertainingly chronicles his relationships with girlfriends, with barbers, with parents, with the n-word, with friends, with basketball, and his career (both successes and big mistakes). Buy this book and shelve it with Shrill, Sissy, Hunger, She Wants It, and Bad Feminist.

I asked the owner of my local comics shop what he was most excited about lately, and this is the book he put into my hands. I had never heard of the character before, and had never read anything by this author. But I flipped through it while he gave me a passionate description. I ended up buying it, partly because of the absolute mastery of the page layouts. Every single page is done in a 9 panel grid, to stunning effect. The fight scenes are exciting, the jokes are perfectly timed and the emotional moments are very powerful- effects often achieved by the use of a variety of layouts. I can't even imagine the amount of communication that must have gone on between this writer/artist team. The story focuses on Scott Free, one of the New Gods from New Genesis. There's a short prequel which explains his origins- he was given away as a baby by his father to secure a peace treaty between two warring worlds. His childhood was a series of unending tortures. But now he is an adult, living on Earth, happily married and working in entertainment as an escape artist. At the opening of this book, he has just survived an attempted suicide. Then he is called back to New Genesis and the war. This book is evenly divided between Scott and his wife Barda's home life on Earth and their insane life as nearly invulnerable killing machines in the New Gods war against Darkseid. Both parts are treated with equal seriousness, and the result is a story unlike any I have read in superheroes before.

Marvel 1602 was one of the earliest American comic books I ever read, during a high school Neil Gaiman binge. I'm not sure I had ever read a Marvel comic before. I was only familiar with the characters from the first two X-Men films, but I loved the Elizabethan setting, so I happily muddled through the confusing parts. I was delighted to discover this companion volume written by Marguerite Bennett, primarily illustrated by Stephanie Hans (other artists step in to illustrate some of the short stories sprinkled throughout the four chapters). The story begins with Angela and her lover Serah, confronting and then killing King James, who in the struggle reveals himself to be a Witchbreed. In the Mermaid Tavern they encounter an even more dangerous enemy: a Faustian. Whereas Witchbreeds are born with powers, Faustians gain their powers by bartering with a dark supernatural being. This presence reveals herself to Angela and makes a threatening promise: if Angela kills three more Faustians, Serah will die. Angela must make a choice to give up her calling or give up her one true love. This is a very strong mini series, with a nice balance of humor and drama. The art is gorgeously luscious and matches the tone of the writing perfectly. And I can attest to the fact this book stands on it's own even if you are unfamiliar with the title character.

I picked up this book because I have recently fallen in love with a podcast co-hosted by the author (Be The Serpent). I had heard her describe bits and pieces of what the story was about, and I was intrigued. It's quite different than any other fantasy novel I've read before, in a way that only really sunk in after I had finished it. The main character is Chant (that's his name and his job), a man past middle age who wanders through many countries collecting and telling stories. When we meet Chant he is on trial in a country called Nuryevet, which has fantasy Soviet-Russia vibes but also five elected rulers who control various parts of government: Coin, Order, Law, Justice and Pattern (spying/diplomacy/foreign affairs). Chant has a very good advocate, but he is bad at keeping his mouth shut. He was arrested for witchcraft but by the end of the first trial day he is being accused of espionage as well. Spoiler: Chant spends almost the entirety of this book in prisons, sometimes being upgraded or downgraded in security levels, sometimes being questioned by one facet of government or another. If you are looking for a book with a lot of action, this is probably not the one for you. But if you are interested in a slow-burn political drama peppered with fairy-tales and myths (Chant takes every opportunity he can for story-telling) that this is your book! There's some really nice causal queer representation- Chant's apprentice is a young man who gets crushes on every handsome fellow he meets, and additionally Nuryevet-style marriages are across the board poly and queer. There's a lot of unflashy world-building and a door left open at the end of for a sequel.

I am too close to the incidents of this book to be unbiased about it. The 2017 California fires didn't take my home, but came within less than 10 miles or so of us. I had a friend who had been evacuated staying on my couch, and a go-bag packed on my floor for a week. I had met the author, Brian Fies, before the fires and I read his original comic online the day he posted it. If you want to know more about this natural disaster, I highly recommend this book. It's clear, direct, and honest. There are a few dense text pages which tell the experiences of others, and other lighter comic sections which share moments of grim humor found a midst the disaster. Brian Fies has a real talent for this kind of work, and I am glad he chose to use his skills to document this story.

I've been hearing about this comic for years, and I can see why. It's a gorgeously drawn, intense story about a very specific kind of teen experience. The story mainly follows tomboy Ben and the people she most interacts with: her sister Empathy, her best friend Otto, Otto's sometimes-girlfriend Kim, the members of Crotchman (the only band in town), Ben's crush Dominic, two oddball pre-teen girls who run a fortune-telling operation, the kid who runs the movie theater, the kid who runs the 7-Eleven... slowly, as these stories unfold, it becomes clear that the town all of these characters live in is completely devoid of adults. Ben and Empathy are alone in their house. Ben worries about Empathy staying out late, because there have been several murders recently. The teens still hang out at high school and enact many of its rituals, including football games and dances, but there are no teachers and no one goes to class. Every day is like a Saturday, in that all days are fair game to smoke pot, watch movies, drive aimlessly around down, head down to the creek, scramble together a punk show, make out, have sex, break up, give your friends haircuts and tattoos. Every now and then people reference "when our parents left" or "how long until they are coming back" but this thread of the story is left extremely open to interpretation. For someone who's teen years resembled this scene, this book is probably incredible. It didn't quite hit the spot for me, but I do think the black and white line art is some of the best I've ever read.

I picked up this collection of short stories after hearing one of them ("As Good As New") read aloud on the LeVar Burton Reads podcast. After reading the collection, that one remains my favorite, but there are some other really vivid pieces in here as well. "As Good As New" starts after the end of the world. Marisol, a pre-med student and playwright, managed to survive in a panic room stocked with a massive supply of frozen dinners and TV shows. After two years she finally ventures out of her safe box to find the world has turned to endless expanse of grey ash. Except for one object: an antique glass bottle which contains a genie. "The Cartography of Sudden Death" tells of a scientist who can travel through doors made in time by the sudden death of a historically-significant person; "Six Months, Three Days" tells of a complex romance between two people who can see different versions of the future and so both think they know where it will end; and "Clover" is the story of Anwar, a gay Middle Eastern brewery owner who lives with his husband in North Carolina, and what happens after he is gifted two strange (possibly magical) cats. I definitely plan to read more of Charlie Jane Ander's work soon after these brief tantalizing tales!

Nem was raised to believe that everything outside the walls of Bezkamp was poison, that writing and reading were blasphemous and illegal, that humans predated the creatures of the wildlands, that his mother was a traitor, that asking questions was wrong, and that he was too weak to be valued. It is only when Nem gets lost in the wildlands outside Bezkamp's walls does he discover that nearly everything he was taught is wrong. Sam Sattin has skillfully crafted an inventive, action-filled sci-fi adventure that simultaneously wrestles with family trauma, environmental destruction and the danger of destroying history. Nem's ancestors fled Earth as refugees but when they found a new habitable plant they arrived as invading colonizers. Jen Hickman's gorgeous art illuminates a hopeful future in which humans are willing to learn from their mistakes, change their ways, work in partnership with the native beings and save their mutual home. Humorous and deeply moving by turns, I highly recommend it! I was delighted to receive an advanced reader copy of this book, which is one of the best perks of having author friends :)