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Top 7 Graphic Novels, Comics & Manga:
February 2022
February 2022 brings a noticeably leaner crop of fresh releases, but here are the stand-outs that caught my eye, originating from Australia, Ecuador, Finland, France, Italy, Japan and Sweden - and some places in between…
Barcelona:City of Comics
by Benjamin Fraser
State University of New York Press
$95.00
The publisher says:
Barcelona, City of Comics introduces readers of English to a range of Spanish- and Catalan-language comics published after the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975. During this time of palpable social change, the Catalonian capital regained its reputation as the hub of comics publishing in Spain. Comics collectives such as El Rrollo and Butifarra, as well as individual artists from Montse Clavé to Mariscal, contributed to a thriving comics subculture that drew from and pushed beyond the countercultural comics tradition in the United States. As the Salón Internacional del Cómic de Barcelona (1981-) drew greater attention to the city, comics magazines teemed with graphic depictions of urban scenes. On the comics page, themes of architecture and city life were employed as social critique, while the city of Barcelona itself increasingly solidified its reputation on the global stage through urban planning. With a foreword by Pere Joan, Barcelona, City of Comics delves into the relationship between comics and urbanism in one of Europe’s most notable global cities. Benjamin Fraser is Professor of Iberian Studies at the University of Arizona. He is the author of many books, including The Art of Pere Joan: Space, Landscape and Comics Form and Visible Cities, Global Comics: Urban Images and Spatial Form. 246pgs B&W hardcover.
Came The Mirror and Other Tales
by Rumiko Takahashi
Viz
$17.99
The publisher says:
An eclectic collection of short stories, five intimate magical-realist tales, from master manga artist Rumiko Takahashi, beloved creator of Inuyasha, Ranma 1/2 and Urusei Yatsura. A supernatural mirror compels a teenager to draw out and destroy the evil lurking within others. But will his duty destroy him? A has-been manga creator acquires the power to curse his competition. Is it worth it? A pet cat possesses a human—warning, side effects may include partial transmogrification… And more! Plus, a rare behind-the-scenes autobiographical story about Takahashi’s lifelong love affair with manga (and friendship with manga creator Mitsuru Adachi). The spotlight on Rumiko Takahashi’s career began in 1978 when she won an honourable mention in Shogakukan’s prestigious New Comic Artist Contest for Those Selfish Aliens. Later that same year, her boy-meets-alien comedy series, Urusei Yatsura, was serialised in Weekly Shonen Sunday. This phenomenally successful manga series was adapted into anime format and spawned a TV series and half a dozen theatrical-release movies, all incredibly popular in their own right. Takahashi followed up the success of her debut series with one blockbuster hit after another—Maison Ikkoku ran from 1980 to 1987, Ranma 1/2 from 1987 to 1996, and Inuyasha from 1996 to 2008. Other notable works include Mermaid Saga, Rumic Theater and One-Pound Gospel. Takahashi was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame in 2018. She won the prestigious Shogakukan Manga Award twice in her career, once for Urusei Yatsura in 1981 and the second time for Inuyasha in 2002. A majority of the Takahashi canon has been adapted into other media such as anime, live-action TV series, and film. Takahashi’s manga, as well as the other formats her work has been adapted into, have continued to delight generations of fans around the world. Distinguished by her wonderfully endearing characters, Takahashi’s work adeptly incorporates a wide variety of elements such as comedy, romance, fantasy, and martial arts. While her series are difficult to pin down into one simple genre, the signature style she has created has come to be known as the “Rumic World.” Rumiko Takahashi is an artist who truly represents the very best from the world of manga. 208pgs B&W paperback.
Crude: A Memoir
by Sophie Tardy-Joubert, Pablo Fajardo & Damien Roudeau, translated by Hannah Chute
Graphic Mundi / PSU Press
$19.95
The publisher says:
A gripping, richly illustrated recounting of the battle indigenous Ecuadorians and their allies waged against Texaco/Chevron over the energy company’s destruction of portions of the Amazon. As a teenager, Pablo Fajardo worked in the Amazonian oil fields, where he witnessed the consequences of Texaco/Chevron’s indifference to the environment and to the inhabitants of the Amazon. Fajardo mobilised with his peers to seek reparations and in time became the lead counsel for UDAPT (Union of People Affected by Texaco), a group of more than thirty thousand small farmers and indigenous people from the northern Ecuadorian Amazon who continue to fight for reparations and remediation to this day. Pablo Fajardo is an Ecuadorian lawyer and activist. He is lead counsel for the UDAPT and continues to dedicate his life to prosecuting the case against Chevron. He travels the world to defend the UDAPT cause, advocating for environmental justice and human rights. Sophie Tardy-Joubert is a French journalist. In 2014, she met Pablo Fajardo and wrote a profile on him for the magazine XXI. She adapted Fajardo’s story for Crude. Damien Roudeau is a graphic journalist. He has published illustrations in magazines and the popular press, collaborating with various organizations and NGOs.136pgs colour hardcover.
Publisher Weekly says:
‘The pollution of Indigenous Ecuadorian land by American oil companies —described here as the “Amazonian Chernobyl” —propels the activism at heart of this visually stunning graphic memoir, which is part horror story, part urgent manifesto. Fajardo, one of 10 children from a poor family, travels from the Pacific Coast to find work in Lago Agrio, an oil-drilling boom town built by Texaco. In addition to hard labor, he finds both the land and human beings are treated as dumping ground. Supported by progressive Franciscan fathers, Fajardo goes to law school so he can hold Chevron (which owns Texaco) accountable for the destruction it leaves upon its 1993 departure. The seven-year, $9 billion case is won, only for the plaintiffs to face years of violent retribution, corruption, and nonpayment. As an afterword by Amnesty International underscores, multinational corporations slither between jurisdictions, getting away with literal murder (cancer skyrockets among locals who drink polluted water). Timelines and maps clarify the issues, and though the legal nuances are dense, the power of the testimony comes from Fajardo’s narrative and Roudeau’s impressionistic depictions of the Amazonian tapestry and inhabitants. Though UN legislation offers glimmers of hope, Fajardo admits that “after 25 years of fighting, I’m starting to think justice is a fiction, a nice story to tell children.” Readers will root for Fajardo’s account to herald meaningful change.’ 224pgs colour paperback.
Flung Out of Space: Inspired By The Indecent Adventures of Patricia Highsmith
by Grace Ellis & Hannah Templer
Abrams ComicArts / Surely
$24.99
The publisher says:
A fictional and complex portrait of bestselling author Patricia Highsmith caught up in the longing that would inspire her queer classic, The Price of Salt. Flung Out of Space is both a love letter to the essential lesbian novel, The Price of Salt, and an examination of its notorious author, Patricia Highsmith. Veteran comics creators Grace Ellis and Hannah Templer have teamed up to tell this story through Highsmith’s eyes—reimagining the events that inspired her to write the story that would become a foundational piece of queer literature. Flung Out of Space opens with Pat begrudgingly writing low-brow comics. A drinker, a smoker and a hater of life, Pat knows she can do better. Her brain churns with images of the great novel she could and should be writing—what will eventually be Strangers on a Train— which would later be adapted into a classic film by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951. At the same time, Pat, a lesbian consumed with self-loathing, is in and out of conversion therapy, leaving a trail of sexual conquests and broken hearts in her wake. However, one of those very affairs and a chance encounter in a department store give Pat the idea for her soon-to-be beloved tale of homosexual love that was the first of its kind—it gave the lesbian protagonists a happy ending. This is not just the story behind a classic queer book, but of a queer artist who was deeply flawed. It’s a comic about what it was like to write comics in the 1950s, but also about what it means to be a writer at any time in history, struggling to find your voice. Author Grace Ellis contextualizes Patricia Highsmith as both an unintentional queer icon and a figure whose problematic views and noted anti-Semitism have cemented her controversial legacy. Highsmith’s life imitated her art with results as devastating as the plot twists that brought her fame and fortune. Grace Ellis made a name for herself in the industry by creating unforgettable, lovable and funny characters. She burst onto the comics scene with The Lumberjanes, which she co-created and co-wrote. It was a New York Times bestselling, Eisner and GLAAD Award–winning comics series that broke the mold of both YA and superhero comics. She is also the author and creator of the series Moonstruck, illustrated by Shea Beagle, and writer of the soon-to-be-released series Lois Lane and the Friendship Challenge for DC Comics. Ellis lives in Columbus, Ohio. Hannah Templer is a queer cartoonist currently living in Baltimore, Maryland. She has worked as a colourist, cover artist and interior artist on titles such as GLOW, Samurai Jack, Jem and the Holograms, Captain Marvel and Tomb Raider. She is also the creator of Cosmoknights, an original graphic novel series published in 2019 by Top Shelf Comics. Her work as a cover artist—with clients like Dark Horse, IDW, Valiant, BOOM! Studios, Marvel, HarperCollins and Abrams Books—is as extensive as it is dynamic and stunning. 208pgs colour hardcover.
Forget My Name
by Zerocalcare
Ablaze
$19.99
The publisher says:
When the last vestiges of his childhood are taken from him, Zerocalcare discovers unsuspected secrets about his family. Torn between the soothing numbness of the innocence of youth and the impossibility to elude society’s ever expanding control over people’s lives, he’ll have to understand where he really comes from, before he understands where he is going. Zerocalcare is the pen name of Michele Rech, Italy’s best-selling graphic novel artist of the past twenty years. Michele, born in 1983, spent his very first years in France before moving to Rome. His comics blog, Zerocalcare.it, has become one of Italy’s most read and shared on social media. His first book, The Armadillo Prophecy (BAO, 2012) is structured as a set of inter-connected humorous stories, leading to the acceptance of the news that an old friend had passed away. The book has now been reprinted seventeen times in Italy, shooting toward 100,000 copies sold. It is now considered a modern classic among Italian graphic novels. In the same year Un polpo alla gola was released (BAO; Tentacles at My Throat), a longform graphic novel about his school years. Dimentica il mio nome (Forget My Name, BAO, 2014) is the true story of his grandmother’s passing, through his eyes. The book was shortlisted for the prestigious Strega literary award, making it only the second time in its sixty-year history that a story told in comics form has been considered for that honour. Brutally honest and touchingly deep, this book has been repeatedly reprinted in Italy, where it has sold over 100,000 copies. 240pgs colour paperback.
Halcyon
by Ron Regé Jr.
Fantagraphics
$24.99
The publisher says:
Halcyon is a graceful and psychedelic vision of a graphic novel that spans time, terrestrial planes, SF and new age mysticism to detail the spiritual journeys of its two nonbinary protagonists. The sleeping figure on the cover hints at the dream logic that drives this visual feast of a graphic novel. It can’t all be explained, and it isn’t meant to be explained. Ron Regé, Jr. is one of the singular cartoonists of his generation, an unusual but skilled stylist and storyteller with an acutely passionate moral and idealistic core that stands out amongst his peers. Halcyon is a spiritual cousin to Regé‘s 2012 graphic novel The Cartoon Utopia, which has garnered a following in new age and hermeneutic studies circles and in which higher beings try to communicate with us through art, music, and storytelling ― a theme revisited here via the book’s central characters. Halcyon is the work of a cartoonist at the height of his powers, a superlative use of the form in the service of relating the author’s compassionate ― and visually stunning ― worldview. Ron Regé, Jr. is an artist and musician (Lavender Diamond) living in Echo Park, CA. 112pgs colour hardcover.
Kisses for Jet: A Coming-of-Gender Story
by Joris Bas Backer
Nobrow Press
£14.99
The publisher says:
In 1999, when most people think that the world is about to end with the Y2K crash on the eve of the new Millennium, Jet is just trying to get through high school. When their Mom moves to another country to work on fixing the Millennium bug, Jet is forced to stay at a boarding house while they finish the school year, and they’re not pleased about it. But something’s not quite right, and it’s not just the out-of-control kids that Jet has to live with, or the staff who look after the boarding house who act super suspiciously. As Jet slowly starts to feel overwhelmed by their peers, they begin to notice that they don’t feel like the other girls in their class. As new feelings start to emerge, Jet slowly begins to realise that they may be more of a boy than a girl. Is that even possible? And who do they talk to about these feelings when there’s not even any internet around, and cell phones are barely used? This coming-of-gender graphic novel debut from trans creator Joris Bas Backer is an enlightening and often hilarious tale that casts light on what it was like to be transgender before information and help was more accessible and widespread. Joris Bas Backer grew up in The Hague, Bucharest, New York and in an uninviting Dutch city called Oegstgeest. His work deals with the topics of longing, identity, gender dysphoria and gender roles. Since achieving his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam in 2003, Joris has lived in Berlin and works independently as an artist, comic artist and illustrator. 208pgs colour paperback.
Mamo
by Sas Milledge
Boom! Studios
$14.99
The publisher says:
Family matters aren’t just hocus-pocus for this young witch! Cartoonist Sas Milledge (artist on The Lost Carnival: A Dick Grayson Graphic Novel) makes her astonishing debut in her first original graphic novel that answers the question of how we all reconcile our responsibilities with our dreams for our own future. Orla O’Reilly, the youngest in a long line of hedge witches, is compelled to return home after the death of her grandmother, Mamo. In the wake of her Mamo’s passing, seas are impossible to fish, crops have soured, even Jo Manalo’s attic is taken over by a poltergeist. And to make matter worse it appears that the cause is Mamo, or her mislaid bones that is. Can Orla shoulder the responsibility of quieting her Mamo’s spirit, saving her hometown, and will she have to step up as the new witch of Haresden like Mamo always wanted? 224pgs colour paperback.
My Badly Drawn Life
by Gipi, translated by Jamie Richards.
Fantagraphics
$22.99
The publisher says:
This coming-of-age graphic memoir is a relentless and exhilarating journey to the depths of the human condition, rendered with precision and verve by one of the world’s greatest living cartoonists. “You’ve always got to laugh at tragedy. That’s why I laugh about my ailment. Ailments. About being a sexual spastic. About my perennial, cowardly, tantalizing desire to die. You can laugh about anything. Almost.” Spoken by his self-depiction, these bitter words set the tone for Gipi’s pitch-black humour in this unvarnished and uncompromising autobiographical tale. A young adult adrift in the world, Gipi’s stand-in grapples with sexuality, insecurity, deception, depression, drug use, fading friendships and the capricious cruelties of the world as he struggles to determine whether his life is worth living. Drawn in Gipi’s signature elegantly scribbled ink style and punctuated by vivid watercolour splashes, My Badly Drawn Life weaves through the past and present, through narratives both real and imagined, to create an impressionistic account of his complex inner life. In this kaleidoscopic journey into the depths of his psyche, Gipi processes the shadowy traumas of his upbringing; in doing so, he produces a gripping work of utter cartooning mastery. Gipi (Gianni Pacinotti) is an Italian cartoonist whose graphic novel Notes for a War Story won “Best Book” at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. He also teaches and has directed a film, 2011’s The Last Man on Earth. He lives in Pisa, Italy. Jamie Richards is an Italian-to-English translator from Southern California currently based in Milan, Italy. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Oregon and an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Iowa. 144pgs part-colour hardcover.
Olympia
by Bastien Vivès, Florent Ruppert & Jerome Mulot
Fantagraphics
$24.99
The publisher says:
Meet Alex, Carole and Sam: the most notorious trio of cat burglars of the 21st century, starring in this graphic novel sequel. Alex, Carole and Sam use technology, know-how, and some serious chutzpah bordering on hubris to reinvent a profession that has lost much of its fun and insolence since the early 20th century. After successfully stealing Le Grande Odalisque by Ingrés from the Louvre, the art thieves have a new mission: nab Édouard Manet’s Olympia ― plus two other masterpieces ― from the Petit Palais in Paris. Naturally, complications ensue, and not just from the fact that Carole is nine months pregnant at the time of the heist! Forming a trio as formidable as their protagonists, Bastien Vives, Jérôme Mulot and Florent Ruppert deliver an explosive, grand symphony of adventure, as well as a very touching and funny character study in this eagerly anticipated sequel to The Grande Odalisque. Jérôme Mulot is best known for his comics collaborations with Ruppert; each French artist both writes and draws. Florent Ruppert is a French comics writer and artist who frequently collaborates with Mulot. The two met at the National School of art in Dijon and began publishing their creations in their fanzine Del Adventure. Together, they won the Revelation Prize from the Angoulême International Comics Festival for Barrel of Monkeys (Panier de Singe). They began publishing the crime fiction Le Grande Odalisque in 2012. Bastien Vivès is a Parisian who has drawn or collaborated on more than a dozen graphic novels since his published debut in 2006, including most recently The Butchery (Fantagraphics, 2021). The Angoulême Comics Festival granted Vivès the “Revelation” Award in 2009 and the prize for best series in 2015. 136pgs colour hardcover.
Resurrection: Comics in Post-Soviet Russia
by José Alaniz
Ohio State University Press
$149.95 / $37.95
Resurrection: Comics in Post-Soviet Russia traces the “kopecks to rubles” journey of Russian comics at the turn of the century. As the follow-up to José Alaniz’s groundbreaking Komiks: Comic Art in Russia (2010), Resurrection authoritatively and exhaustively details the Russian comic landscape of the last three decades: beginning after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union and encompassing the fourth Putin administration, the COVID-19 crisis, and beyond. Bolstering his analysis with interviews with some of the major figures in Russia’s comics industry, Alaniz particularly focuses on the representation of masculinity, disability, historical trauma and superheroes, as well as on the recent rise of fandom, alternative micropresses and nonfiction graphic narrative. Resurrection is a sweeping discussion of the metamorphosis of contemporary Russian comic art from its rebirth to its entry into mainstream culture. José Alaniz is Professor in the Departments of Slavic Languages & Literatures and Cinema & Media Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. He is the author of Komiks: Comic Art in Russia and Death, Disability, and the Superhero: The Silver Age and Beyond. 248pgs B&W hardcover / paperback.
The City of Pigs
by Hideshi Hino
Star Fruit Books
$15.00
The publisher says:
Hideshi Hino’s horrifying tale The City of Pigs is coming to both print and digital in English for the first time. His first work released in English in over a decade. ‘One night, under a blood red moon glimmering with demonic beauty, a group of devilish creatures armed with axes and spears came riding into a quiet city on horseback. One by one, they loaded the villagers up into cages and carried them off without any explanation… I barely managed to escape alive…’ Hideshi Hino was born in China to Japanese immigrant workers and soon after moved to Tokyo with his mother. Although he initially had the ambition to work in the movie industry, he joined a group of manga artists that created self-published comics, so-called doujinshi. He eventually got a job with a publisher, and established himself as a successful horror mangaka, publishing his first graphic novel in 1978. Throughout the years, he has published over 200 works, including in English Hell Baby, Hino Horrors, Panorama of Hell, The Bug Boy and The Red Snake. 188pgs B&W paperback.
The Crows
by Anders Fager & Peter Bergting
Dark Horse
$19.99
The publisher says:
What lurks in the corners of the house originates in the corners of the mind. When Kim inherits an old family house in rural Sweden, there are notes posted everywhere. On the walls, the doors, even the ceiling. Reminders. And drawings. Of the monsters that still haunt this house and the land on which it sits. But the monsters aren’t just outside; they’re in Kim’s head, in the traumatic memories of an upbringing as different, other, alone. Dive into this stunning graphic novel full of darkness, reconciliation, and exploration of the self. Anders Fager is a Swedish game designer and horror writer. Born in Stockholm, eighteen year old Fager joined Äventyrspel in 1982 to travel around the country demonstrating Sweden’s first role-playing game, Drakar & Demoner, a game that at the time was compared to “improvised radio theatre”. Fager wrote Spindelkonungens pyramid, the first role-playing game adventure published in Swedish. He also co-designed board games for the Äventyrsspel label, such as Lützen and Monstret som slukade Stockholm. After among other things an army career, Fager made his debut as a writer in 2009 with the short story collection Swedish Cults (Svenska kulter) that received a most favourable review in Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter and launched Fager’s career as full-time writer. Fager writes modern urban horror in a style he has repeatedly described as ”what would happen if James Ellroy took on H.P. Lovecraft”. Set in present-day Sweden, his interconnected stories form a modern part of the Cthulhu mythos with entities such as Dagon, Hastur and Nyarlathotep making appearances. Fager’s fictional world, known as “The Cult’s World”, has been made into a role playing game and a graphic novel and his stories are currently being worked into the Swedish edition of role playing game Call of Cthulhu. Fager has also been published in Finland, Italy and France. In the 2010s he has written role-playing supplements for such games as Kult, Twilight: 2000, Call of Cthulhu Tales from the Loop and the new release of Chock, originally a Swedish translation of the RPG Chill. In 2020 his short story “Backstairs” was published by US publisher Valancourt Books. 104pgs colour hardcover.
The Nightingale That Never Sang
by Juliana Hyrri, translated by Juliana Hyrri & Zach Dodson
Featherproof Books
$18.95
The publisher says:
For children, the world is possibility. But grown-ups would do well to remember that possibility extends to places full of light and steeped in darkness, with plenty of other spaces in between. Children are human after all, and as such, they are sometimes innocent, sometimes cruel, and frequently impossible for others to truly understand. In her debut graphic novel, The Nightingale That Never Sang, Juliana Hyrri gives us stories that are stolen from real life, seen through a child’s eyes—and which do not look away when it comes to the scary parts. If it can happen out there, it can happen within these pages, too. Her visual style comprises the smudged, scribbled, and smooth lines one might expect from a (very) young artist, but also pulsing, boundless backgrounds painted with near-manic energy. If there is any true purity to be found here, it’s only in the reflection of how a child feels, before those feelings are tempered with adult ideas of what ought to be revealed in polite conversation. Nightingale takes us along for the ride as children discover and dream their world, through glimpses of tadpoles and tent forts, field trips and forest ventures, stray cats and sleepovers. On the surface, these are scenes anyone might recognise from their own childhood, but it’s really a book filled with the blank spaces that grown-ups won’t talk about, scribbled over with childhood logic. Juliana Hyrri was born in Kohtla-Järve, Estonia, and moved to Helsinki, Finland, when she was little. In addition to being a cartoonist, Juliana is a painter, illustrator and experimenter. Her work has been exhibited in Finland and internationally, and includes public artworks such as murals and spatial comics. She was awarded the Critics’ Award by the Finnish Association of Critics (SARV), given annually to just one artist of any field for the best artistic breakthrough of the year. 144pgs colour paperback.
