Blog Archives
New Comics for New Readers – January 23, 2013
Want to try reading comics? Don’t know where to start? Want to try something different?
Wednesday is New Comics Day! Each week, The Comics Observer spotlights up to three brand new releases worthy of your consideration. All of these have been carefully selected as best bets for someone who has never read comic books, graphic novels or manga before. They each highlight the variety and creativity being produced today. These are also great for those that haven’t read comics in awhile or regular readers looking to try something new.
While we can’t guarantee you’ll like what we’ve picked, we truly believe there’s a comic for everyone. If you like the images and descriptions below, click the links to see previews and learn more about them. You can often buy straight from the publishers or creators. If not, head over to your local comic book store, check out online retailers like Things From Another World and Amazon, or download a copy at comiXology, or the comics and graphic novels sections of the Kindle Store or NOOK store. 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.
(Please note these aren’t reviews. Recommendations are based on pre-release buzz, previews, and The Comics Observer‘s patented crystal ball. Product descriptions provided by publisher.)
Calling Dr. Laura: A Graphic Memoir by Nicole J. Georges
Calling Dr. Laura: A Graphic Memoir
Written and illustrated by Nicole J. Georges
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Genre: Autobiography
Ages: 13+
288 pages
$16.95
When Nicole Georges was two years old, her family told her that her father was dead. When she was twenty-three, a psychic told her he was alive. Her sister, saddled with guilt, admits that the psychic is right and that the whole family has conspired to keep him a secret. Sent into a tailspin about her identity, Nicole turns to radio talk-show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger for advice.
Packed cover-to-cover with heartfelt and disarming black-and-white illustrations, Calling Dr. Laura tells the story of what happens to you when you are raised in a family of secrets, and what happens to your brain (and heart) when you learn the truth from an unlikely source. Part coming-of-age and part coming-out story, Calling Dr. Laura marks the arrival of an exciting and winning new voice in graphic literature.
Dear Beloved Stranger by Dino Pai
Dear Beloved Stranger
Written and illustrated by Dino Pai
Published by Urban Fairy Tales / Top Shelf Publications
Genre: Autobiography
Ages: 13+
184 pages
$19.95
Clueless, naïve, full of dreams… and unemployed. Fresh out of art school, our hero Dino is ready to start a new chapter in his life, but can’t figure out how, and struggles to find his identity as an artist. With a little encouragement from a classmate, he sets out on a fantastic inner journey to wipe the dust off his teenage obsessions and reignite his passion.
Blending fact and fiction, past and present, pencil and paint, debut author Dino Pai brings a wide range of voices and influences to bear on the most intimate story in his heart, in this Xeric Award-winning graphic novel.
A.D.D. by Douglas Rushkoff and Goran Sudzuka
A.D.D.: Adolescent Demo Division
Written by Douglas Rushkoff
Illustrated by Goran Sudzuka and Jose Marzan Jr.
Published by Vertigo / DC Comics
Genre: Sci-fi
Ages: 16+
152 pages
$24.99
The Adolescent Demo Division are the world’s luckiest teen gamers. Raised from birth to test media, appear on reality TV and enjoy the fruits of corporate culture, the squad develop special abilities that make them the envy of the world – and a grave concern to their keepers.
One by one, they “graduate” to new levels that are not what they seem. But their heightened abilities can only take them so far as the ultimate search for their birth families leads to an inconceivably harrowing discovery.
Written by Douglas Rushkoff, world-renowned media theorist, Frontline TV correspondent and author (Ecstasy Club, Media Virus, Program or Be Programmed, Testament), with full color art by Goran Sudzuka and Jose Marzan Jr. (Y: The Last Man).
3 New Comics for New Readers – May 16, 2012
A touching and funny memoir about a strained mother/daughter relationship, an examination of the complicated history between the United States and the Middle East, and a psychologically twisted dark comedy about young love – if you’re looking to experience the human condition, both intimate and global, you’ve got three great options this week.
Wednesday is New Comics Day! Each week, The Comics Observer picks three brand new releases worth checking out that should be suitable for someone who has never read comic books, graphic novels or manga before.
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.
Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel
Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama
Written and illustrated by Alison Bechdel
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Genre: Autobiography/Memoir
304 pages
$22.00
From the best-selling author of Fun Home, Time magazine’s No. 1 Book of the Year, a brilliantly told graphic memoir of Alison Bechdel becoming the artist her mother wanted to be.
Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home was a pop culture and literary phenomenon. Now, a second thrilling tale of filial sleuthery, this time about her mother: voracious reader, music lover, passionate amateur actor. Also a woman, unhappily married to a closeted gay man, whose artistic aspirations simmered under the surface of Bechdel’s childhood… and who stopped touching or kissing her daughter good night, forever, when she was seven. Poignantly, hilariously, Bechdel embarks on a quest for answers concerning the mother-daughter gulf. It’s a richly layered search that leads readers from the fascinating life and work of the iconic twentieth-century psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, to one explosively illuminating Dr. Seuss illustration, to Bechdel’s own (serially monogamous) adult love life. And, finally, back to Mother—to a truce, fragile and real-time, that will move and astonish all adult children of gifted mothers.
Best of Enemies by Jean-Pierre Filiu and David B.
Best of Enemies: A History of US and Middle East Relations Part One: 1783-1953
Written by Jean-Pierre Filiu
Illustrated by David B.
Published by Selfmadehero
Genre: Non-Fiction, Political History
120 pages
$24.95
The first volume of a ground-breaking graphic novel series on US-Middle East relations.
David B. and Professor Filiu draw striking parallels between ancient and contemporary political history in this look at US-Middle East relations. The reader is transported to the pirate-choked Mediterranean sea, where Christians and Muslims continue the Crusades, only this time on water. As the centuries pass, the traditional victims of the Muslim pirates – the British, French, and Spanish – all become empire-building powers whose sights lie beyond the Mediterranean.
Jean-Pierre Filiu is a world-renowned expert on the Middle East. David B. is an Eisner Award-nominated artist.
The Flowers of Evil by Shuzo Oshimi
The Flowers of Evil
Written and illustrated by Shuzo Oshimi
Published by Vertical, Inc.
Genre: Romantic Comedy
208 pages
$10.95
One of the most popular manga series in Japan today makes its U.S. debut with The Flowers of Evil, Volume 1. In this romantic comedy featuring a teenage boy obsessed with a beautiful classmate—and with the poetry of Beaudelaire—award-winning, best-selling author Shuzo Oshimi pens a coming-of-age tale that will appeal to girls and guys alike.
The story opens as middle school student Takao Kasuga receives an F on a math test. But he doesn’t even seem to notice because he’s too engrossed in surreptitiously reading Beaudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil. And the day goes downhill from there. In a moment of weakness, he finds and takes home the gym clothes belonging to sweet, pretty Nanako Saeki on whom he has a major crush. Unfortunately for Takao, there’s a witness to the theft: Nakamura, who has a huge chip on her shoulder and a sadistic streak.
As the saga unfolds, we see Takao struggling to decide whether to confess or cover up his misdeeds at the same time that he tries to win over the girl of his dreams, and avoid the blackmail attempts of Nakamura, his new ”BFF.”
Smart, funny, and emotionally engaging, The Flowers of Evil introduces a character who’s not a hero, but just an ordinary teenager in search of true love and real friendship.
