The plus side of sitting around for a week of vacation is that I get a lot of comics reading done! I was lucky enough to receive a lot of interesting books for the holiday. Below are some pocket reviews:
Why Is Everybody Yelling?
This is a graphic memoir about Marisabina Russo’s childhood growing up in Queens in the late 1950s and 1960s. Her Jewish mother had converted to Catholicism to marry her father before their divorce, and then moved to NYC to raise her as a single mother. Marisabina grows up devoutly Catholic, but surrounded by her Jewish Holocaust survivor family. The book is an exploration of her family history and the secrets and tension that surrounded her. It was affecting and a strong effort in terms of conveying history. It reminded me of Roz Chast’s work, so it was funny to see that Chast was the main review pull quote on the book.
Crumbs
Crumbs is a sweet and layered magical romance comic. Stirling’s art is cute and effective in getting across emotions. Ray is a seer who can only see the present, and she desperately wants to get an internship at the Council that oversees magic. She meets Laurie, an aspiring magician, at the coffee shop where he works. They fall in love and have to negotiate their relationship and the demands of their respective dreams. I thought this was well done overall and liked the emotional arc.
Messy Roots: A Graphic Memoir of a Wuhanese American
This is a powerful and raw coming of age memoir. Gao spent the first few years of her life in Wuhan being raised by her grandparents and then comes to Texas at four to be with her parents. She conveys the pressure and tension of American culture vs her parents’ expectations very well. As she grows up she feels more and more disconnected and the tension of her Chinese identity vs the pressure to fit in comes to a head when she goes to college. This is also a queer narrative, which adds another layer of tension to the relationship with their family. The overall message of complexity, nuanced family relationships, and self-exploration made this very relatable for me.
Cheer Up!: Love and Pompoms
My only issue with this book is how short it is! It’s a very thin trade, which is why I hadn’t gotten it yet — I couldn’t justify spending $15 on something I would read in 20 minutes. But now having read it, I’m glad I asked for it and did have the chance to. Annie is an anti-social, brilliant teen who is pushed to join the cheerleading squad so that she has something on her college applications other than academics. Bebe is a trans girl on the cheer squad who used to be her friend. Bebe vouches for Annie to join the squad and they rekindle their friendship. I liked the nuanced depiction of their friendship leading into their falling in love, and the portayal of Bebe’s struggle with her parents to be less overprotective and controlling. The comic felt realistic and honest, and I always love Val Wise’s art (big fan). Again, I wish this had been longer because I think there were scenes that could have been more fleshed out and the narrative overall could have used more room to breath and be less rushed. But this is a great addition to the queer YA canon!
Will Eisner Reader
A short collection of seven “graphic stories” by Will Eisner. I cannot overstate what a masterful cartoonist Eisner is, and these stories show it. These aren’t my all-time favorite stories by him (I love City People Notebook, The Building, Dropsie Avenue, etc, etc, etc), but to see his art and the way he conveys expression and emotion so easily is such a treat. The themes here are mainly around NYC, crime, and being retirement age and moving to Florida. My favorites were “The Long Hit,” about a very long attempt to complete a Mob hit, and “Winning,” a sweet story about running the marathon. I really recommend anyone to read Eisner’s work. He’s just so amazing and you can see how he’s influenced everyone who’s come after.
Master Keaton Vols. 2 and 3
I am slowly collecting these and every one of them is a treat. Naoki Urasawa is my favorite manga author and these volumes continued to confirm my feelings about him. Keaton is an insurance investigator and university adjunct lecturer in archaology, but the fun part about these books is that he’s basically James Bond and good at everything. Each volume is made up of a bunch of short stories within the overall story, so you can pick up any volume and follow them, but it does help to read from the beginning. In each story, Keaton solves some sort of mystery using a combination of his academic and former SAS skills. He speaks every language, he’s humble and sweet, he’s a master survivalist — basically he’s a self-insert character and a delight. I love him.