Edgar Colt

Vitor Miguel

Prisma Soulstorm

Serena

Jordan

Bruna Guedes

Husain Kothari

FRNK

Uendi Prifti

Abdul Hasib

Loughlin Sullivan

Delaney Knopp

look who's back!this book was fun like the first one, although i tend to disapprove of sequels to books like these. i just bet that if you put your mind to it, you can come up with something else funny that you can extend into a short humorous book perfect for gift-giving. don't just trade in on the same joke again. impress me with your diversity! now!having said that, there are still some cute drawings in here, and some good variations on the theme.i like the manic expression on that worm, for example.but no one bought me this as a gift, so i don't get to write a blissfully happy "thank you" and call it a book review this time, like i could with the first one. i can afford to be a little sullen.all my friends are books.and book people.and now i have to go and be responsiblei will miss you all...

WINNER OF THREE EISNER AWARDSKIMONO DRAGONS brings the hunt for Ampersand—the monkey who could unlock the mystery of the male-killing plague— to its explosive climax, as the last man on Earth and his companions finally reach Japan and discover the truth behind Ampersand's abduction. Collects issues #43-48 of Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra's award-winning Vertigo series.

While I continue to enjoy this series, this volume was not quite as strong for me as the last two. It felt a bit disjointed and some of the plot twists too coincidental (I mean, it is quite an outlandish story, so I am not sure what I am expecting!) Some of that feeling may come from the last two issues compiled here having a different feel and different characters. So, to summarize, it is good, but feels slightly off.Another thing about this series as a whole is that I think the commentary on how women would survive without men must be tongue-in-cheek. If it isn't, then the author seems to be making it seem like women would struggle without men. But, I do think it is more likely a case of focusing on extreme response to more quickly get the point across in graphic novel format. Also, it may be that it is not so much that the women struggle without men, but is trying to show how important the sexes are to reach other. I am hoping that this volume is just a lull in the series, a connector volume, perhaps, and it will improve again with the next volume. 

In this final deluxe edition, Yorick and Agent 355 prepare for their ultimate quest to reunite the last man with his lost love, while the person, people or thing behind the disaster that wiped out half of humanity is revealed. Then, Yorick Brown’s long journey through an Earth populated only by women comes to a dramatic, unexpected conclusion.Collects Y: The Last Man #49-60.

"Y" is none other than unemployed escape artist Yorick Brown (his father was a Shakespeare buff), and he's seemingly the only male human left alive after a mysterious plague kills all Y-chromosome carriers on earth. But why are he and his faithful companion, the often testy male monkey Ampersand, still alive? He sets out to find the answer (and his girlfriend), while running from angry female Republicans (now running the government), Amazon wannabes that include his own sister (seemingly brainwashed), and other threats. The Vertigo team of Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, and José Marzán Jr. have given us a great read!Collects Y: The Last Man issues #01-#05

More than two years after the unexplained plague killed every other male mammal on the planet, the two exceptions - aspiring escape artist Yorick Brown and his pet monkey Ampersand - have traveled across the remains of the U.S. with biochemist Dr. Allison Mann and goverment operative Agent 355 to Dr. Mann's lab in San Francisco, where she managed to finally isolate the source of their immunity.Unfortunately, that source is within Ampersand's body, which was last seen disappearing under the arm of a mysterious Japanese mercenary. Now, accompanied by 355 and Dr. Mann, the last man on Earth has embarked on a new and even more hazardous journey - following Ampersand's trail across the Pacific, where danger threatens from below as well as above the waves. Collects issues 32-36

re-read in 2020Ow my heckin heartre-read in 2017After re-reading this series, my feelings still stand. I WANT EVERYBODY TO READ THESE BOOKS. -------------------------------------------This. Freaking. Series.Locke &amp; Key is by far the best series of graphic novels I have ever read (and I really love Saga. So that's saying a lot). The characters, the plot, the magic system, THE HISTORY, everything is so well crafted. Joe Hill is a masterpiece of a human. Also kudos to Gabriel Rodriguez for the artwork though, because it made me cry in this volume. Yeah. Do yourself a favor and read these. BUT, only if you're okay with graphic violence and the odd bit of sexual content. Mainly violence though.

Locke &amp; Key tells of Keyhouse, an unlikely New England mansion, with fantastic doors that transform all who dare to walk through them.... and home to a hate-filled and relentless creature that will not rest until it forces open the most terrible door of them all...! After the gruesome murder of their father, the Locke kids, Tyler, Kinsey and Bode move with their mother Nina to the ancestral family home, Keyhouse. They soon discover that the house is full of secrets when they start finding magical keys which hold impossible powers such as turning people into ghosts, or being able to erase someone's memories. They are not the only ones who know of the keys; a demonic creature known as Dodge is also after the keys, with the goal of opening the Black Door, which will allow the demons of hell to enter our world. The sprawling tale of the Locke family and their mastery of the 'whispering steel' thunders to new heights as the true history of the family is revealed to Tyler and Kinsey. Zack Wells assumes a new form, Tyler and Kinsey travel through time.Tyler and Kinsey Locke have no idea that their now-deceased nemesis, Lucas "Dodge" Caravaggio, has taken over the body of their younger brother, Bode. With unrestricted access to Keyhouse, Dodge's ruthless quest to find the Omega Key and open the Black Door is almost complete. But Tyler and Kinsey have a dangerous key of their own — one that can unlock all the secrets of Keyhouse by opening a gateway to the past. The time has come for the Lockes to face theri own legacy and the darkness behind the Black Door. Because if they don't learn from their family history, they may be doomed to repeat it, and time is running out!Colonel Adam Crais's minutemen are literally trapped between a rock and a hard place; in the first days of the Revolutionary War, they find themselves hiding beneath 120 feet of New England stone, with a full regiment of redcoats waiting for them in the daylight... and a door into hell in the cavern below. The black door is open, and it's up to a 16-year-old smith named Ben Locke to find a way to close it. The biggest mysteries of the Locke &amp; Key series are resolved as Clockworks opens, not with a bang, but with the thunderous crash of English cannons.Contents:Clockworks [Locke &amp; Key • 5] / graphic format novella by Joe Hill; interior artwork by Gabriel Rodriguez and Jay Fotos 1 The Locksmith's Son 2 SMASH! 3 The Tamers of the Tempest 4 The Whispering Iron 5 Grown-Ups 6 CurtainThe Known Keys (Clockworks) [Locke &amp; Key • 5.5] [Excerpts from the Diary of Benjamin Pierce Locke, 1757-1799] / shortfiction by Joe Hill; interior artwork by Gabriel Rodriguez...to be concluded in Locke &amp; Key: OMEGAStorytellers: Joe Hill, author, Gabriel Rodriguez, Illustrator. Series edited by Chris Ryall. Collection edited by Justin Eisinger..

Ugh I’m not emotionally prepared for the last two volumes————————————————THIS VOLUME WAS SO GOOD.The plot is getting seriously nuts, and I'm terrified and excited to see where things go. I only have two volumes left to read, and I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN.

The dead plot against the living, the darkness closes in on Keyhouse, and a woman is shattered beyond repair, in the third storyline of the Eisner-nominated series, Locke &amp; Key! Dodge continues his relentless quest to find the key to the black door, and raises an army of shadows to wipe out anyone who might get in his way. Surrounded and outnumbered, the Locke children find themselves fighting a desperate battle, all alone, in a world where the night itself has become their enemy.

Following a shocking death that dredges up memories of their father's murder, Kinsey and Tyler Locke are thrown into choppy emotional waters, and turn to their new friend, Zack Wells, for support, little suspecting Zack's dark secret. Meanwhile, six-year-old Bode Locke tries to puzzle out the secret of the head key, and Uncle Duncan is jarred into the past by a disturbingly familiar face. Open your mind - the head games are just getting started

2020I'm re-reading the books because we just watched the Netflix show and it made me think about how much I loved this story. This is still one of my all-time favorite graphic novels and if you haven't read it yet, I honestly can't recommend it enough. 2018I was gifted the beautiful hardback set of these a while back and just finished re-reading the first book...again. Can't believe how much I'd forgotten! The gist is that the violent murder of their father by two teens sends the three children and their mother to their dad's ancestral home. Keyhouse. Layer by layer the story of why their father was killed, what happened to them during the time the killers were in their house, and how the family is coping, starts coming together to paint a heart-wrenching tale. Then add a layer of mystery to the house itself, with its strange and magical keys that keep popping up, and you've got something amazing to read. Because there's a secret history to everything their father had long ago forgotten about the house, and the youngest child, Bode, is starting to discover it all over again.And fuck! It's creepy as hell!Locke &amp; Key easily makes my Top 10 favorite graphic novel series. It's just one of the better-written stories, horror or otherwise, out there.Highly recommended!Older reviews - (view spoiler)[ Re-read 2015Thank you Dᴀɴ 2.☢’s  for letting me read your copy of this one!For some odd reason, I only gave this 4 stars the first time around. Not sure what I was thinking? This was fantastic! All 5 stars!Have you read this series yet?If not, DO IT!Original review 2012This is the first thing I've read by Joe Hill, and I have to say that I'm very impressed. The dialogue was amazing, and the characters felt quite real, especially for a graphic novel.What seems to be a story about a family dealing with a terrible tragedy, slowly unfolds into something more. Brrrrr.The artwork perfectly complements the creeptastic storyline in this. What else can I say? The entire thing was very well done, and I've heard from several sources that it only gets better from here on out. (hide spoiler)]

Alternate Cover Edition for ISBN: 9781401219215Y: THE LAST MAN, winner of three Eisner Awards and one of the most critically acclaimed, best-selling comic books series of the last decade, is that rare example of a page-turner that is at once humorous, socially relevant and endlessly surprising.Written by Brian K. Vaughan (LOST, PRIDE OF BAGHDAD, EX MACHINA) and with art by Pia Guerra, this is the saga of Yorick Brown—the only human survivor of a planet-wide plague that instantly kills every mammal possessing a Y chromosome. Accompanied by a mysterious government agent, a brilliant young geneticist and his pet monkey, Ampersand, Yorick travels the world in search of his lost love and the answer to why he's the last man on earth.Collects Y THE LAST MAN #1-10.

This book freaked my shit out.Yeah. How's that for a blurb? "This freaked my shit out."  - Patrick RothfussThe truth is, this book is amazing. I've read a lot of great comics this last year, and out of all of them, this is the one that had the most profound emotional effect on me. It's not gory, or graphic. It's... unsettling. It's creepy. It's like the darkest of the old-school faerie tales.I read it at night before I was going to go to bed. And when I was done, I was too unnerved to go to sleep. I had to read something else to settle myself down first. Seriously. I'm 40 years old. And still this thing got to me. Highly *highly* recommended.

'In what may be Dickens's best novel, humble, orphaned Pip is apprenticed to the dirty work of the forge but dares to dream of becoming a gentleman — and one day, under sudden and enigmatic circumstances, he finds himself in possession of "great expectations." In this gripping tale of crime and guilt, revenge and reward, the compelling characters include Magwitch, the fearful and fearsome convict; Estella, whose beauty is excelled only by her haughtiness; and the embittered Miss Havisham, an eccentric jilted bride

A Tale of Two Cities is Charles Dickens’s great historical novel, set against the violent upheaval of the French Revolution. The most famous and perhaps the most popular of his works, it compresses an event of immense complexity to the scale of a family history, with a cast of characters that includes a bloodthirsty ogress and an antihero as believably flawed as any in modern fiction. Though the least typical of the author’s novels, A Tale of Two Cities still underscores many of his enduring themes—imprisonment, injustice, social anarchy, resurrection, and the renunciation that fosters renewal.

There are some terrible reviews of SH5 floating around Goodreads, but one particularly awful sentiment is that Slaughterhouse-Five isn't anti-war.This is usually based on the following quote. "It had to be done," Rumfoord told Billy, speaking of the destruction of Dresden."I know," said Billy."That's war.""I know. I'm not complaining""It must have been hell on the ground.""It was," said Billy Pilgrim."Pity the men who had to do it.""I do.""You must have had mixed feelings, there on the ground.""It was all right," said Billy. "Everything is all right, and everybody has to do exactly what he does. I learned that on Tralfamadore."For context, Mr. Rumfoord is an old military historian described as "hateful and cruel" who wants to see weaklings like Billy exterminated.On Tralfamadore, Billy was introduced to the revelation that all things happen exactly as they do, and that they will always happen that way, and that they will never happen any other way. Meaning, time is all at once. The aliens, incidentally, admit to destroying the universe in a comical accident fated far into the future, and they're very sorry, but so it goes. &lt;- passive acceptanceThe entire story up to this point has been about Billy, buffeted like a powerless pathetic leaf in a storm, pushed this way and that by forces entirely outside his tiny purview. He lays catatonically in a hospital bed after the plane crash and the death of his wife, and all the time traveling back and forth from Dresden where toddlers and families and old grannies and anti-war civilians were burned alive in a carefully organized inferno (so it goes), and Billy is about ready to agree to absolutely anything. It can't be prevented. It can't be helped.You're powerless, after a while. What hope have we, or anyone caught in the middle of a war, or even the poor soldiers who are nothing but pawns and children (hence the children's crusade), to influence these gigantic, global events? Therefore, Billy agrees with the hateful, the cruel Mr. Rumfoord, who is revising his military history of WWII, having previously forgotten to mention the Dresden bombing. Women and children, not evaporated instantly, but melted slowly by chemicals and liquid flame, their leftovers, according to Billy, lying in the street like blackened logs, or in piles of families who died together in their little homes. Incidentally, how can anything be pro-war or anti-war? Because being anti-war is a bit like being anti-conflict, anti-death, and anti-suffering. Is there a book that's pro these things? Is there a book that touches on the subject of war and is not against it?We don't support wars, though we are sometimes forced to accept them. Anyone who thinks that the bombing of Dresden was necessary is delusional.It's like saying, "yo, look how they bombed these innocents - that shit was wrong! Let's go bomb some innocents, too."That's the sad truth of it.

At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate; this far from civilization the boys can do anything they want. Anything. They attempt to forge their own society, failing, however, in the face of terror, sin and evil. And as order collapses, as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins its reign, the hope of adventure seems as far from reality as the hope of being rescued. Labeled a parable, an allegory, a myth, a morality tale, a parody, a political treatise, even a vision of the apocalypse, Lord of the Flies is perhaps our most memorable novel about “the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart.”

Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electric shock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy – the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. His struggle is seen through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a seemingly mute half-Indian patient who understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them imprisoned. Ken Kesey's extraordinary first novel is an exuberant, ribald and devastatingly honest portrayal of the boundaries between sanity and madness.

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In this remake of the classic 50s SF tale, a boy tries to stop an invasion of his town by aliens who take over the the minds of his parents, his least-liked schoolteacher and other townspeople. With the aid of the school nurse the boy enlists the aid of the U.S. Marines.

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