3 New Comics for New Readers – June 20, 2012

Wednesday is New Comics Day! Each week, The Comics Observer picks brand new releases worth checking out that should be suitable for someone who has never read comic books, graphic novels or manga before.

These are out today! If you like what you see here, click the links to see previews and learn more about them. Then head to your local comic book store, or check out online retailers like Things From Another World and Amazon. Let us know what you think in the comments below or on Facebook.

For a full list of this week’s new releases, see comiXology and ComicList.com.

Earthling! by Mark Fearing

Earthling!
Written and illustrated by Mark Fearing
Published by Chronicle Books
Genre: Science-Fiction
Ages: 8-12
248 pages
$12.99

Every kid worries about making friends at a new school, but when nine-year-old Bud accidentally catches the wrong bus and finds himself launched into deep space, new friends are the least of his problems! At Cosmos Academy, Bud learns that Earthlings are the most feared creatures in the galaxy, and even Earth’s location has been hidden! With the help of his new friend, Gort, Bud goes undercover as a Tenarian exchange student. Unfortunately that means everyone thinks he’s a pro at anti-gravity Zero-Ball (even though he’s really only a pro at watching sports). And with paranoid Principal Lepton threat­ening to expel any Earthlings (into outer space) and only Gort’s hacked Blip computer to help them deter­mine Earth’s co-ordinates, will Bud ever find his way home?

Marathon by Boaz Yakin and Joe Infurnari

Marathon
Written by Boaz Yakin
Illustrated by Joe Infurnari
Published by First Second Books
Genre: Non-Fiction
Ages: 12+
192 pages
$16.99

The epic tale of the original marathon runner—just in time for the 2012 Olympic Games.

It was a turning point in ancient history.

It inspires men to greatness.

It was the foundation of one of the greatest and most prevailing global peace efforts of the 20th century.

It was the greatest feat—and the tragic death—of a man whose legacy will never be forgotten.

In 490BC, an Athenian messenger named Eucles ran 153 miles from Sparta to Athens, and in so doing preserved ancient Greek civilization from subjugation to the Persian Empire.

This is his story.

Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb by Jonathan Vetter-Form

Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb
Written and illustrated by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm
Published by Hill and Wang
Genre: Non-Fiction
Ages: 18+
160 pages
$22.00

Trinity, the debut graphic book by the gifted illustrator Jonathan Fetter-Vorm, depicts in vivid detail the dramatic history of the race to build and the decision to drop the first atomic bomb. This sweeping historical narrative traces the spark of invention from the laboratories of nineteenth-century Europe to the massive industrial and scientific efforts of the Manhattan Project. Along the way, Fetter-Vorm takes special care to explain the fundamental science of nuclear reactions. With the clarity and accessibility that only a graphic book can provide, Trinity transports the reader into the core of a nuclear reaction—into the splitting atoms themselves.

The power of the atom was harnessed in a top-secret government compound in Los Alamos, New Mexico, where some of the greatest scientific minds in the world gathered together to work on the bomb. Fetter-Vorm showcases J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, and General Leslie Groves, the fathers of the atomic bomb, whose insights unleashed the most devastating explosion known to humankind. These brilliant scientists wrestled daily with both the difficulty of building an atomic weapon and the moral implications of actually succeeding.

When the first bomb finally went off at a test site code-named Trinity, the world was irreversibly thrust into a new and terrifying age. With powerful renderings of the catastrophic events at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Fetter-Vorm unflinchingly chronicles the far-reaching political, environmental, and ethical effects of this new discovery. Richly illustrated and deeply researched, Trinity is a dramatic, informative, and thought-provoking book on one of the most significant and harrowing events in history.