Graphic Novel Reviews

This great volume of New Yorker cartoons includes two amazing features over the last 80 years of publication:

1) Over 600 pages featuring over 2000 of the best New Yorker cartoons, and

2) 2 CD-ROMS including every single New Yorker cartoon ever published.

I did not like every single cartoon in here, but I found something on almost every page that split my sides or elicited a fond chuckle. There is plenty of Charles Addams here, along with Booth, Arno, Gahan Wilson, etc.

As a long time fan of cartoons, I used to read the New Yorker just for the cartoons when I was growing up.

The cartoonists change, but it's still very worthwhile and a great reference also.

I have seen criticism over the low resolution of the cartoons on the CD-ROMS, which I think is valid. There has also been criticism over the large size and heavy weight of the volume, and the price of it also. These are valid, but I love it anyway.

reviewed by DaveH

Swamp Thing Vol 4: A Murder of Crows includes issues #43-50, which includes the double-size anniversary issue.

This is some of the strongest Swamp Thing material ever in this very, very strong run, which definitely took the book to the top of the heap. Read it!

reviewed by DaveH

Maybe the most fitting title ever. Enid and Rebecca both live in a modern ghost world, where they're isolated and alone, passed over by society.

reviewed by spazkake

More DC horror stories from Cain and the House of Mystery.

Though editor Joe Orlando and his cast of writers are clearly inspired by the horror classics of EC – for whom Orlando worked as an artist back in the day – these stories simply aren’t of that caliber. Maybe the EC writers were simply better at horror, or maybe the confines of the comics code forced these writers to reign themselves in… who knows? What I do know is that many writers and artists contribute to the title, but there are very few stories that really work well. The artwork is generally not of the same quality as the previous volume, blending journeyman artists with some good-but-not-great efforts from big names like Kane, Cardy, Wood, Toth and Sekowsky. The best art comes, not surprisingly, from the guys best known for horror, chiefly Bernie Wrightson, Jack Sparling, Nestor Redondo and Tony DeZuniga. Wrightson and Michael Kaluta deliver some nice covers and there are more amusing filler pages from various gag artists, Sergio Aragones being the best. Still this isn’t amongst the better horror series out there, and it’s only because the best artists herein produce work so well suited to horror, and you get so much value for your dollar, that this can even garner an average score.

reviewed by jdp

A great anthology of stories by Jim Ottaviani with different artists. The stories are about real scientists, with some non-fiction and some probably fictional.

The art is fun and the stories are amazing; this is the perfect volume for any comic fan who likes science or scientists.

reviewed by DaveH

This website probably wouldn't exist without this book. In a word: indispensable.

reviewed by dan

The identity of the Adversary is revealed as Boy Blue tries to defeat him single-handed. Also another Jack solo story and Mowgli returns to Fabletown to undertake a secret mission.

While the identity of the Adversary was pretty obvious for those paying attention, Willingham still makes the big reveal fun to read by writing the characters involved so well. A whole new facet of Blue's character is revealed here: it's exciting to watch him in full-on warrior mode, and his fighting scenes are some of Buckingham's best artwork for the series yet. Daniel Vozzo's colors are especially good here as well. The Mowgli interlude sets up some interesting possibilities, and it's nice to see more Lan Medina artwork again. Not as good is the Jack story or its David Hahn artwork. There have been comparisons between Fables and Sandman, some warranted and some ridiculous, but the one major point that keeps Fables from attaining that level of all-time greatness are the single-issue stories. Gaiman's single issues always hit it out of the park, whereas Willingham's are often subpar fillers between his major storylines. If Willingham can sustain his usual level of quality across stories of all lengths, this can evolve into an all-time great series.

reviewed by jdp

A cadre a now elderly freedom fighters must return to action to face down a threat returned from years past.

A nice short GN by writer Pierre Christin and artist Enki Bilal. Rather than buying it individually, however, I would recommend purchasing the DC/Humanoids book "The Chaos Effect", which collects this and another excellent Christin/Bilal book, "The Hunting Party", in a single volume. At the individual price this is too expensive for a five out of five, so go with the combined volume for a much better deal.

reviewed by jdp

Armageddon comes, and only the Doom Patrol can stop it.

A bit more action-oriented and closer to conventional superheroes than much of what came before, the final act of Morrison’s Doom Patrol is still a fantastic piece of work. The artwork, mostly by Richard Case and Stan Woch, strikes just the right balance between standard superhero flavor and frenetic chaos. Morrison continues to develop amazingly odd ideas, with some elements here clearly presaging his later creation, the Invisibles. My one criticism would really be with the Doom Patrol Special, a satire of early ‘90s Image that is only tangentially tied to the series itself, and which the reprint editors included at the end of the collection. While that makes perfect sense – you don’t want to break up the flow of the story by sticking it somewhere in the middle, or even the flow between collections by putting it at the beginning – placing it at the end sends the series off on a note very different from the one established by the issue reprinted before it, Morrison’s actual last issue and his finale to the series and its characters. I’m not sure what the solution to this might have been short of simply omitting this special entirely – which wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world, since it has nothing at all really to do with the Doom Patrol anyway – but it still sticks out as an unfortunate choice. Otherwise a wonderful capper to a fantastic series, one of the best non-conventional superhero titles ever done.

reviewed by jdp

Definitely not a graphic novel, but this website wouldn't exist without it, so into the database it goes!

reviewed by dan