2023 graphic novel recs!
Feb. 27th, 2024 04:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraSo, my friend heroically read, like, three dozen graphic novels this year looking for stuff she might want to nominate for the Hugos (so, SFF, adult rather than YA/middlegrade, non-superhero), and then I sat down today with the stack of her five favorites to see how much graphic novel I could read before either a) my eyes fell out of my head or b) I had to go pick up my kid. It was b, and it was three of the five. All of which I would now like to rec!
A Guest in the House, Emily Carroll. I thought this one was already on my to-read list but apparently I had failed to actually put it there despite knowing I wanted to read it? People may know Carroll from some online horror comics works like His Face All Red. Guest in the House is a Gothic set in Ontario in the 80s (or 90s? I can't remember which) - young wife comes to her new husband's lake house and discovers mystery re his first wife. Carroll is a master of giving just enough to feel like you've been told a story and leaving enough to end on a note of "oh holy shit", and this book is very much that.
Carmilla: The First Vampire, Amy Chu and Soo Lee. This one was definitely set in the 90s! I know nothing about the original Carmilla but in this one, a young Chinese-American social worker is looking into the deaths of some young women and becomes aware of both the original Carmilla book and a person of that name who may be involved. Some twists I did not expect and some solid character work - probably my least favorite of these three, but it's well done, and the end opens up some sequel/spin-off possibilities that I would definitely read if Chu and Lee decided to write more of them.
Shubeik Lubeik, Deena Mohamed. I have to admit that I skimmed some of this and read parts out of order because I was running out of time, but I absolutely loved it. A world where wishes are real, with some top-notch worldbuilding around that, and a sort-of-semi-anthology structure around a man in possession of three wishes and the people who end up using them. Funny, biting, sometimes deeply moving even despite my skimming. I have an abandoned opening-and-notes for a world-with-wishes story, so it was so exciting to see someone else doing something related (and much different and better than I was going to. I mean, mine was just USian and this is in Cairo and has a lot about how Islam might view wishes, just to start with). Does anyone else remember that Will McIntosh novel with the spheres, Burning Midnight? Highly recommended to fans of that (well, the first half of that, you know what I mean if you've read it), and fans of Sandman. Oh, and fans of great black-and-white art - there is some splash color but it's mostly black and white, and Mohamed does some interesting stuff with low-key stylistic variation that I would have needed more time to really think about but helped organize the narrative. I hope they give it the Eisner, but I can't vote for that, so I'll at least try to give it the Hugo...
A Guest in the House, Emily Carroll. I thought this one was already on my to-read list but apparently I had failed to actually put it there despite knowing I wanted to read it? People may know Carroll from some online horror comics works like His Face All Red. Guest in the House is a Gothic set in Ontario in the 80s (or 90s? I can't remember which) - young wife comes to her new husband's lake house and discovers mystery re his first wife. Carroll is a master of giving just enough to feel like you've been told a story and leaving enough to end on a note of "oh holy shit", and this book is very much that.
Carmilla: The First Vampire, Amy Chu and Soo Lee. This one was definitely set in the 90s! I know nothing about the original Carmilla but in this one, a young Chinese-American social worker is looking into the deaths of some young women and becomes aware of both the original Carmilla book and a person of that name who may be involved. Some twists I did not expect and some solid character work - probably my least favorite of these three, but it's well done, and the end opens up some sequel/spin-off possibilities that I would definitely read if Chu and Lee decided to write more of them.
Shubeik Lubeik, Deena Mohamed. I have to admit that I skimmed some of this and read parts out of order because I was running out of time, but I absolutely loved it. A world where wishes are real, with some top-notch worldbuilding around that, and a sort-of-semi-anthology structure around a man in possession of three wishes and the people who end up using them. Funny, biting, sometimes deeply moving even despite my skimming. I have an abandoned opening-and-notes for a world-with-wishes story, so it was so exciting to see someone else doing something related (and much different and better than I was going to. I mean, mine was just USian and this is in Cairo and has a lot about how Islam might view wishes, just to start with). Does anyone else remember that Will McIntosh novel with the spheres, Burning Midnight? Highly recommended to fans of that (well, the first half of that, you know what I mean if you've read it), and fans of Sandman. Oh, and fans of great black-and-white art - there is some splash color but it's mostly black and white, and Mohamed does some interesting stuff with low-key stylistic variation that I would have needed more time to really think about but helped organize the narrative. I hope they give it the Eisner, but I can't vote for that, so I'll at least try to give it the Hugo...
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Date: 2024-02-28 02:02 am (UTC)Clementine: book two, Tillie Walden: The second volume of Tillie Walden’s writing for the Walking Dead franchise. You don’t really need to read v1 to appreciate this, nor do you need to be a Walking Dead fan. Clementine, a cynical teen good at staying alive, and two friends, find an isolated town on the Magdalen Islands in Quebec, and try to decide whether it's a good place to live. There aren’t really any safe places in the zombie apocalypse, and the core of the story is Clementine and friends trying to find a place to belong while things come to a head with the danger of their world. This book is great because it’s not about zombies; it’s about community and friendship and risk and the different practical and moral decisions people make when living in hard circumstances. Everyone’s perspective makes sense, and the end leaves you unsure whether Clementine’s decisions were good ones. Also there is lots of attractive art of the Magdalen Islands.
Cosmoknights: book two, by Hannah Templer: This is my "sometimes we read books because it’s fun" nomination. The setting is an interplanetary neo-feudal empire where princesses are married off based on the winners of high-tech gladiatorial combats. In book one, our protagonist, Pan, rescued her best friend from this system when they were teenagers. As an adult, she jumps at the chance to join up with a group of escaped princesses and other opponents of the status quo, who are trying to take down the gladiator system via combat, hacking, and other strategies. In book two, the team deals with differing opinions on how to make their resistance effective, a princess who doesn’t want to be rescued, and the reappearance of Pan’s teenage best friend, who has her own new role and crew. More combat and space heists ensue. Recommended for fans of ensemble casts, well-paced action, and feel-good anti-patriarchy stories.
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Date: 2024-02-28 02:54 am (UTC)