graphic novels

I had a conversation with my husband about this book last night after I finished it. Mostly, we have no idea WHY we like this series. It's about the really, truly mundane activities of a bunch of emo-goth-punk college kids who are trying to figure out relationships (gay, straight and bi), friendships, life in general... It's really teen-angsty and, other than the GORGEOUS artwork, I have absolutely no idea why I like it. But I do. In this, the 3rd volume of Wet Moon, we learn a bit more about Mara, who has mostly been clingy and angry and annoying in the first two books, but we understand her a lot better in this book. I started cheering for her to go out and find some new people to hang out with because her friends clearly don't give a shit about her. We also see the progression of a relationship between Cleo and Myrtle (and some scary tendencies Myrtle has that Cleo doesn't know about yet). Penny struggles with some personal issues (and possibly betrays her sister tremendously), and Fern appears to have fallen in love with someone but is having a hard time expressing it. Trilby is just as big a dork as ever and I totally love her for it. I liked it just as much as - and maybe more than - the first two books, and as always, it's a lot of fun to look at!

I am not feeling much better about this second one. The first two arcs, I thought, were alright. They even seemed to have something interesting to say. Then we got to the diarrhea. Yeah. I didn't need that. Nor many of the things that followed it. There was one more arc that I thought was interesting, but again ... with so much shit (pun TOTALLY intended) I can't imagine that the glimmerings I got from those arcs were purposeful. I have to step back for a moment, because I can't say these comics are "bad." They are definitely not my taste. To me, the humor seems very haphazard. There is no reason for any of the events happening in the story. I dunno ... five more issues left. Let's see what insanity awaits. Read more commentary and add your own here: http://www.rjspindle.com/content/john...

I enjoyed this book more than I expected to. Serenity Rose takes a page from cute Goth-y characters such as Ruby Gloom, Emily Strange, and Invader Zim. The artwork is heavily influenced by Japanese cartoon styles. However, the surprisingly intelligent dialogue adds a more adult angle to these sources.There were times when I felt as if I were walking in on someone else’s inside joke. However, the majority of the comic is accessible to even those who don’t count themselves part of the subcultures depicted. I quite liked the juxtaposition of cute and scary.

It's here! The book nobody asked for. The book everyone hoped would never see the light of day. Yes, the book that, in public appearances, swore it would never follow through on its drunken threats to violate reality by ever coming to be, which is just weird if you think about it since for it to swear anything in public it would have to exist already. Fillerbunny returns almost twice as long, and possibly ten times as horrible, with new adventures to test the tolerance levels of even the most monstrous of comic reading goblins out there. Delicately handcrafted by delicate, critically reviled master artist Jhonen Vasquez, this book will take you on a soaring trip through the ecstasies of an unbridled imagination (a filth-caked rabbit who cries a lot). Featuring two pages of color!

Meet Nemi Montoya, the vegetarian, cynical/romantic, hilariously honest twenty-something goth, in this brand new collection from artist Lise Myhre!Hang out in the pub with Nemi and her friends, including her flatmate, the blue-haired Cyan; hear her opinions on romance and dating; watch her watch TV in her untidy flat; learn how she feels about birch trees, spiders and blondes; and generally experience the highs and lows of being Nemi in the modern world!A superstar in her native Norway thanks to the immense success of Nemi — also reprinted in the 1.12 million-circulation UK Metro newspaper — you too can enter Lise Myhre’s witty, wonderful world!

Odd, creepy illustrations for poems for children. Dirge, who also wrote Lenore: The Cute Little Dead Girl (which I still haven’t yet read) says “This is a collection of children's tales for disturbed children.” Ha! Nice.This guy is working in the same macabre territory and seems to be inspired by Edward Gorey, but this work seems definitely younger. It actually feels more like Tim Burton territory. The drawings are cute and strange, and the poems are pretty good, often worth a few smiles. I liked it!Here’s an example of his art, which has also made its way into animation in various places:https://www.google.com/search?q=roman...

This collection is a game changer for Lenore: the cute little dead girl. To celebrate her 20th anniversary, Roman Dirge embarked on an epic, new chapter in the life of the cute little dead girl! Featuring a slow-burning, four-issue story-arc that not only reveals the untold origins of the ultra-sinister and deadly-mysterious Taxidermy, but also pitches him into a titanic fight to the death with Lenore's best buddy, Ragamuffin. Whatever happens one of them is going on an all-expenses paid vacation into the afterlife! Packed with the usual irreverent and gothically surreal humour and hi-jinx, Roman Dirge once again proves why he's been called the Michelangelo of the macabre…

A collection of the first four issues of the popular Lenore comic book series. Lenore: Noogies is a romp into the dark, surreal world of a little dead girl. Featuring stories about limbless cannibals, clock monsters, cursed vampire dolls, taxidermied friends and obssesed would be lover and more fuzzy animal mutilations than should be legal. Lenore is one of the funniest, darkest comic books on the marketplace today.

I can’t help it … even when I don’t like Mark Ryden, I love Mark Ryden. That is, even when I don’t like him as much. I miss the riotous circus of his previous work. Yet, it’s okay. All of his early work is still there, in book form, for me to turn back to whenever the mood strikes me, so I accept the evolution of his style to a new simplicity. It is certainly a pleasure to follow him wherever he goes.Ryden has explored quite a few moods in recent years. From his macabre Blood Show, with children bleeding from their eyes, to the seeming environmentalist-activist Tree Show and now to the zen harmony of The Snow Yak Show. This new series finds him with a pared down color palette and scenic structure. All whites and creams and pale greys and hints of blue and rose. And in almost all the paintings in this series, the scenes are focused on only one or two characters with many of the backgrounds nearly abstracted, which is quite unusual given his compulsive detailing of tableaux in the past.The tone in The Snow Yak Show is almost entirely peaceful. Most of the paintings find toy-like shaggy yaks (each yak looking quite different in nature to the others) forming friendships with young girls who are far too centered and knowing to be real girls, rather they are spirits (one painting entitled Sophia’s Bubbles, gives us a clue that the girls may represent “wisdom” as Sophia is an ancient Greek word used throughout Greek philosophy and Christian mysticism to represent God’s wisdom). Admittedly, I do get a little uncomfortable with the nudity of young girls that Ryden often paints, however, fortunately, the girls do not seem sexualized so much as representations of the feminine spirit, and they are painted rather reverentially and with power.Every Ryden painting has a glow and a resonance to it, a mythic quality that points to mysteries one can never quite identify. There is always a beauty in his work, and that beauty to me goes beyond his vivid detail; it is the beauty created by triggering a deep sense of imagination in the viewer. I know his paintings inspire me creatively.Perhaps it was because of the limited content of the scenes in these paintings, but I was left with a little bit of cotton candy in my mouth compared to Ryden’s last show, which I reviewed here. I had a less visceral reaction to this work than I did to The Tree Show. Even so, Ryden’s work stands head and shoulders above most contemporary artists. A true master.From The Snow Yak Show:\ \

this is a lovely little series, and it would be too easy to miss it. it's so understated it could come off as aimless, but it's not. it captures the awkwardness and angst of that period between childhood and adulthood, when you have to find the courage to explore everyone and everything you meet, change your look daily, agonize over all kinds of things, until you find out who you are and what you want. cleo's alternately naive and knowing journey through her everyday turns up all kind of fears and consequences, and she's agonizingly uncomfortable with herself. she hasn't noticed yet that she has friends and goals and destinations, much less that people care about her, but it's clear that's what she's got and she will trust that someday. all the many characters seem sketchy at first but are well differentiated and finely drawn, even the ones with no speaking parts, and because we look through cleo's eyes we care about them, even the prickly ones. and we know why cleo can be prickly too. the naive and casual style of this series does a wonderful job of evoking a whole world, in the period of leaving home to enter into college life.

On one side, Dita Von Teese shares the beauty of the burlesque world, with bubblegum dreams and show tunes to strip to. Flip over for fantasies in fetish with dramatic costumes and the allure of submission.Burlesque and the Art of the Teese"I advocate glamour. Every day. Every minute."I'm a good dancer and a nice girl, but I'm a great showgirl. I sell, in a word, magic. Burlesque is a world of illusion and dreams and of course, the striptease. Whether I am bathing in my martini glass, riding my sparkling carousel horse, or emerging from my giant gold powder compact, I live out my most glamorous fantasies by bringing nostalgic imagery to life.Let me show you my world of gorgeous pin-ups, tantalizing stripteases, and femmes fatales. I'll give you a glimpse into my life, but a lady never reveals all.Fetish and the Art of the TeeseYou may have come for the fetish. Or you may just be sneaking a peek at this mysterious and peculiar other side. No matter what you've come for, there is something for you to indulge in.My world of fetish may not be the one that you would expect. As a burlesque performer, I entice my audience, bringing their minds closer and closer to sex and then -- as good temptress must -- snatching it away. As a fetish star, I apply the same techniques. . . .An opera-length kid leather glove, a strict wasp waist, an impossibly high patent leather heel, a severely painted red lip. . . . Come with me into my world of decadent fetishism.

Note: I'll be reviewing both issues.Synopsis: In Jhonen Vasquez's second spinoff series from his magnum opus Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Devi deals with the same demented supernatural forces that drove Johnny to lunacy.My thoughts: I wish to start off my critique with the positives. The color palette was vibrant and colorful, much like in Vasquez's most well-known work Invader Zim. Furthermore, the gothic humor emblematic of his previous works were there. As for the negatives, I Feel Sick lacks the filler comics which were spread out throughout JTHM and Squee. While a few readers might have found filler stories such as Happy Noodle Boy and Wobbly-Headed Bob obnoxious, I thought they were great because of the eccentric, nonsensical dialogue and situations which provider a short but sufficient breather from the frenetic, psychological insanity in the main comic. Also, from my recollection when I first read I Feel Sick two years ago, the gallows humor was somewhat toned down.In summary, despite being weaker than his first two series, I Feel Sick is still worth the read for any Jhonen Vasquez fan.

An unusually usual day-to-day story in the Deep South, set in the gothic, swampy southern town of Wet Moon, a place fraught with lousy love lives, teen angst, and shadowy rednecks. As Cleo Lovedrop heads off for college at the local art school, she's haunted by her melancholic past: a lost love, a lost child. Friends and enemies live their lives around her, as trouble and dissent brews amongst them: an unseen social assailant spreads slander about Cleo, she is forced to deal with her two brusque roommates, and discovers unsolved mysteries about the girl who lived in her room previously. Elsewhere, Trilby deals with unsettled emotional and sexual issues, and keeping her secret habits hidden from everyone. And Audrey comes to the realization that, despite all her efforts, she always causes her friends distress, while Fern, a peculiar, deformed girl who lives in an isolated mansion in the bayous, begins to notice Cleo and her friends. As the moon grows full and lunar rays shine down, lunacy and moon-calves run free. Goths, friendship, romance, sex, betrayal, gossip, cats, murder, guilt, a squirrel monkey, and all the terrible and wonderful things people do to each other.

You'd think this would be right up my alley but I just found the whole thing to be incredibly boring and childish ...not to mention confusing. It's set up like a manga and each chapter [6 total] have between 2 and 4 short stories in it. They all kind of loosely connect and I could see them coming together a bit towards the end, but mostly it just seemed like random out of order snippets and AUs and I was not sure what was going on or why I should care. Also the whole thing has that stuck up late 90s / early 2000s ~we're better than those fucking preps~ vibe that I just find so exhausting. Like ...grow up?

I'm not sure if I like the artwork. I don't hate it, but sometimes a few panels, in particular with the first two stories, would be slightly confusing.This collection of 1-6 in the series presents two stories about vampires, a retelling of Snow White, a retelling of Cinderella, and the story of Gwen. The conceit that holds the stories together is a rag doll named Annabelle, who feels she must be cursed. The stories are very dark. It's like the Twilight Zone meets Dahl meets Tales from the Darkside with Muppets. Yes, it shoulds like it shouldn't work, but it does. It works very well.While none of the stories are bad, "Gwen's Story" and "Cinderella" are the best two. The Cinderella is one of the best versions I've read in a long time.While the artwork is confusing, it does match the stories. Using color or a slighly more cuddly style would not work.

This is the classic fairy tale turned on its head. In Cinderalla, Dad and the stepsisters are zombies, the family runs a yakitori restaurant, and the prince is so sick he’s on a permanent IV support system. Junko Mizuno’s work possesses a postfeminist consciousness, and the book’s psychedelic tone is enhanced by the artist’s playful, “grotesque-cute” color illustrations.

"Big talent gives off thermonuclear vibes. I can feel them . . . this is the voice we're going to be hearing for a long time."--Harlan Ellison In an old car rocking down a North Carolina highway with the radio on so loud you can't hear the music. . . Behind a dusty Georgia carny show. . . In a mausoleum in Baton Rouge, or in an alley in Calcutta. . . Here wanderers come to rest, the lost and lonely press their bodies up against each other, the heat rises, flesh yields, bones are bared, blood spills. This is the landscape of today's most brilliant young horror writer, Poppy Z. Brite.Now, in a collection that sings like cutting edge rock 'n' roll and shows the deft touch of a master storyteller, Poppy Z. Brite weaves her unique spell of the sensual, the frightening, and the forbidden. . ."Every page of Brite's work stresses the beautiful and heartbreaking strangeness of the world."--Fangoria