Graphic Novel Review – Monstress Volume 1 (Awakening)

I picked this graphic novel up at New York Comic-Con last year (2017) and only got around to reading it now. Fortunately, I was able to get the second volume at this year’s event, because this was a beautiful, albeit dark and violent, book. Monstress Volume 1 – Awakening is written by Marjorie Liu with artwork by Sana Takeda.

Monstress 1

I was first interested in this graphic novel because I loved the artwork. The mixture of Egyptian and steampunk themes on the cover and opening pages was enough to draw me in. When the book added demons, cats, and a dark and compelling protagonist, I was hooked.

Monstress tells the story of Maika Halfwolf and initially switches between glimpses of her past and her current scheme to infiltrate the stronghold of the human witches who are experimenting upon the Arcanics (her people). Maika doesn’t remember much of her past, having mysteriously survived the catacysmic end of a great battle between humans and the Arcanics.

As the plot unfolds, I was immediately sympathetic toward Maika because of her mistreatment at the hands of the humans, and the nature of their cruel experiments. When Maika discovers herself to be inhabited by a demon, she gets a pass for what she is forced to do to survive because she is not wholly in control of her actions. She both uses the demon against her enemies, and fights against it, in her journey to find revenge against the humans and relearn her past.

There are definitely some dark moments in this story, ranging from the murder of children to questions about cannibalism. However, cats feature prominently and bring some levity to the rest of the book.

While Monstress definitely isn’t for everyone, I enjoyed it and will be reading Volume 2 in the next few months.


Graphic Novel Review – The Walking Dead , Vol. 2 – Miles Behind Us

The second volume of The Walking Dead has our characters traveling more than in the first one. Resources are scarce and they believe that they can find somewhere better and safer to live, hoping that the zombies are thinning out.

Walking Dead 2 Cover

Rick leads his band as they search for supplies and safety. Of course, the illusion of safety never lasts long, and we see more people fall to the zombies. Mild spoilers to follow.

I think that the best part of Volume 2 is that it looks at how the zombies are viewed by people other than Rick’s gang. They encounter Herschel, a retired veterinarian, who has been keeping his former-son-now-zombie confined in a barn in the hopes that someone can find a cure for the zombie plague, rather than just assuming that the people who succumbed to it are truly dead.

Of course, Herschel’s plan doesn’t go well, and in the end they all find themselves fighting for their lives again Herschel’s son and his other captive zombies, a bit of an I-told-you-so moment from Rick. However, as a veterinarian myself, I can empathize with Herschel’s take on things. Are the zombies people to be remembered and healed, or are they monsters that must be killed? We want to heal or fix injuries and illness, and if it just takes time and a better understanding to get to that point, then why not study the disease and try to find a cure? On the other side of the debate, part of the job as a veterinarian is to euthanize an animal when it is suffering. I see many pet owners who delay that decision when the end is inevitable. So if I can draw a parallel between that and Herschel’s zombies, I wonder if he would have considered his son’s suffering at some point?

The ending of this volume did not have the same shocking impact as Volume 1, but I’m interested enough in the series to keep reading. I just picked up Volume 3, 4, and 5 at New York Comic-Con 2 weeks ago.

New York Comic-Con 2018

 

I’m finally recovered from my days spent attending New York Comic-Con this year, so I thought I’d write a quick recap.

Unlike last year, I only had tickets for Friday and Sunday, and ended up working on Saturday, so I missed a couple of panels and guests that I would have liked to see. I still had a great time with just two days!

Exploring on Friday

So for Friday, I only had two panels that I was interested in, and those were both late in the day. My train getting in to the city was delayed, but I wasn’t in a hurry. When I did get over to the Javits Center, I headed to the show floor first to scope out the book publishers. That didn’t take me long because they’re in the same general area every year. I found out who was going to be signing books and made decisions about which ones I’d be back for.

Then I explored the floor in a random pattern. Much of what is on display at Comic-Con is the same from year to year. In the past I had methodically walked up and down every aisle. This time, I just went in whatever direction interested me. I looked at some graphic novels from Stephen King (Gunslinger), Game of Thrones collectibles, superhero art work, porg toys, and some fun socks. In the end, I only bought three more of The Walking Dead collections on that round through the hall.

Crowd

Next up was a visit to Artist’s Alley. This location shifted again this year, and was in a much better place than last year: on the lowest level where they formerly had autographs and photo ops. This space allowed wider aisles to accommodate the crowds. I wandered through half of the aisles, met up with a friend, and then bought another comic I had had my eye on.

I headed out for a quick lunch, and for Friday, at least, the lines weren’t bad at all in the cafeteria. I even found a seat with a table! After that, I bounced back and forth between book signings, wandering, and people watching.

DragonballZ

The first book I picked up at a signing was Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel, which is the first in a series. Second for the day was The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden, also the first in a series. I made a pretty good circuit through the show floor in between these signings, and then headed to my first panel.

Day 1 of Panels

Art & Arcana: The Visual History of Dungeons & Dragons sounded interesting, but it was held in a small room where I couldn’t get a seat near the front. This was a promotion for an upcoming book, but I couldn’t see most of what they had on screen, so I was disappointed.

I ended up in another panel because I was in line early for A Discovery of Witches. This one was for Tell Me a Story, a new television show coming out soon on CBS All Access. This show takes three classic fairy tales and uses the ideas in those to weave a story set in our era in New York City. The panel consisted of a viewing of a short clip from the show, then a discussion with the cast. From the little that they were willing to reveal, this fairy tale won’t have a happy ending.

TellMeAStory

The next panel for me was for A Discovery of Witches. This is the name of the first book in the All Souls trilogy by Deborah Harkness, and also a new television series. I’ve read the first book in the series and enjoyed it, but haven’t had time to get to the rest of it. Nevertheless, I’ve had my eye on the show since I first heard about it.

This panel was a viewing of the first episode of the show, followed by a brief question and answer session with the author. I liked the characters in the show and the details of the book instantly started to come back to me as I watched. It was a little slow to get started, but I was interested enough in the series that I wanted more. The series has already premiered in the UK, and will be available in the U.S. in January on both Sundance Now and Shudder.

Day 2 – More Panels and Shopping

I made it back to the Javits Center on Sunday for the rest of my Comic-Con excursion. I planned on two panels and a bit more shopping. I looked at book signings again, but no one that I was interested in had a signing at a time I was available.

Spidey

My day started out with more time in Artist’s Alley. Then I met a friend for a photo op before heading to my first panel: America’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers. This panel was intended to feature this year’s volume of the America’s Best series for speculative fiction. Guest authors on the panel included Carmen Maria Machado, Charlie Jane Anders, and Maria Dahvana Headley. Guest editor N. K. Jemisin and series editor John Joseph Adams rounded out the group.

Moderator Matt Kressel led the panel in a discussion of the process of choosing the stories for the anthology, the specific stories by the authors in attendance, and general questions about writing. I haven’t been reading many short stories lately, but I may need to check out this book.

The last panel that I attended was the Science or Fiction panel. This was advertised as a discussion of sci-fi movies, focusing on which aspects were science-based, and which were pure fiction. The guests on the panel included the members of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast, as well as Bill Nye (the Science Guy).

I had seen Bill Nye last year, so I wasn’t desperate to get into this panel to see him specifically, but I was interested in the subject. Apparently everyone else also was, and it was a packed room. I was one of the last people to make it in!

Delorean

It turns out that the podcast regularly discusses science in popular media, and they rate movies on a system based around the film Prometheus. While many people liked this movie, I thought that it was so bad that I couldn’t even finish watching it. I agreed wholeheartedly with their system of ratings.

Several movies were mentioned in this panel: Gravity, The Martian, 2001, Interstellar, Armageddon, Star Wars, and Arrival. After the panel, I was able to pick up a copy of the panel’s new book, and had it autographed by all of them.

Overall, I felt like I was able to see most of Comic-Con this year, even though I only had tickets for two days. It helped that I was already familiar with how the even was run. I didn’t take as many cosplay photos this year, and I probably bought more books than I needed. But I’ll be back again next time.

Graphic Novel Review – The Walking Dead, Vol. 1 – Days Gone Bye

I picked this book up at New York Comic-Con last year and just had a chance to sit down to read it recently (so much to read, so little time). I had thought I was coming to this fresh, not having watched the show, and only being peripherally aware of it. However, the story at the outset seemed very familiar.

Walking Dead 1

Rick is a police officer and suffers a gunshot wound in the line of duty. He wakes up from a coma to find himself in a strangely abandoned hospital. After a bit of wandering, he discovers that everyone is either dead or undead. A-ha! This is how the film, 28 Days Later begins, so I thought that must be why the story seemed familiar.

Rick flees from the zombies and escapes the hospital. When he fails to find his family and friends at home, he heads toward nearby Atlanta. He eventually falls in with a group of survivors, and this is when I realized that I had actually watched the first episode of the television show several years ago.

I liked the artwork, and while blood and gore certainly doesn’t bother me, it wasn’t pictured beyond what you need to see to depict undead brain-eating monsters.

Soon enough, the plot continued past what I half-remembered, and the volume ends with a punch that was both surprising, and, in hindsight, followed logically from earlier character actions and conversations. It also ties into the initial premise mentioned in the introduction that was what actually made me purchase this book.

Two excerpts:

Good zombie movies show us how messed up we are, they make us question our station in society… and our society’s station in the world.

And:

With THE WALKING DEAD, I want to explore how people deal with extreme situations and how these events CHANGE them.

This idea echoes the theme of another novel that I enjoyed – Stephen King’s Under the Dome (the book, NOT the television adaptation!), and I hope to watch these characters struggle and change as they try to survive in future volumes. I already have volume 2, so look for my review on that coming soon!

NY Comic-Con 2017 Summary

Oh hey! I never managed to finish up my New York Comic-Con posts! I’ll start with some links to articles I wrote for BSCKids. After that, check out the best of my cosplay photos from the weekend.

  • Kid Brooklyn – a new comic series created and written by a kid from Brooklyn.
  • The Gifted panel – I got into the main stage for this discussion with all of the cast from this new show set in the X-Men universe.
  • The Shannara Chronicles panel – The main players were on hand for this sneak peek at season 2.

Cosplay photos:

 

Image

NYCC 2017 – Day 4 (Sunday)

Well, Comic-Con is over for another year and Sunday was a more relaxed day for me as I had already seen most of what I had come to see. However, I still found plenty to keep myself occupied.

Every time I had tried to browse Artist’s Alley, it had been too crowded to really enjoy it. But I went through on Sunday morning, and it wasn’t so bad. I was finally able to wander and see the art on display. I picked up a couple more comics as well (couldn’t help myself).

giftedpanel

The only panel I attended on Sunday was for The Gifted – a new television series on Fox, set in the X-Men universe. I had watched the first episode, so at least I was oriented to the series. Fans got to watch the beginning of the second episode and then hear from the cast. I’ll have more on this panel posted over at BSCKids later in the week.

scooby

I spent some time people-watching, taking photos, and then met up with friends for an after-party. NYCC was an amazing (but exhausting) weekend and I’m looking forward to doing it again next year.

NYCC 2017 – Day 3 (Saturday)

Whew, day 3 went fast! I felt better today, despite two previous days of riding the train, walking to the Javits Center, and exploring Comic-Con while carrying a bag of camera stuff, comics, and books.

artist alley

Today I had two must-see panels: The Shannara Chronicles and Star Trek: Discovery. I made sure to get in line in plenty of time for Shannara, which meant that I also saw the preceding panel: The Tick.

I used to watch The Tick animated show years ago, so I wasn’t unhappy to get to see that panel, even though I was not familiar with the television show. All the panels were fun and entertaining again today. I was able to get a sneak peek of the upcoming seasons/episodes for all of them.

shannara.jpg

I wish that I had had a chance to watch more of Star Trek: Discovery before attending that panel, but there are only so many hours in the day, and I just didn’t get to it. Despite that, the panel was fun, and Michelle Yeoh made a surprise appearance at the end, sneaking in as an attendee who was there to ask a question.

Of course I again spent some time wandering through the main exhibit hall and Artist’s Alley. To finish out the day, I went to The Museum of the Moon – an exhibit outside of the official Comic-Con activities. This was a promotion for Andy Weir’s new book, Artemis, but was not far from Javits. The museum features “props” from the book, such as a space suit, a collection of contraband, and Gunk – a flavored algae product that the poorer inhabitants of Artemis must eat. At the center of the exhibit was the moon. This was a 3-dimensional representation of our moon, made of high-resolution digital images of the surface, and incorporating the elevations on the surface.

the moon

There’s one more day to go, and I’m through. That’s okay though. I’m not sure my feet can handle much more.

NYCC 2017 – Day 2 (Friday)

Well day two is over, and I survived. It was another grueling day of walking, lines, panels, walking, and more lines. Although I think that moving some of the larger panels off-site has helped to reduce the crowds.

wwcar

There weren’t any must-see events for me today, so I spent some time wandering the show floor. I managed to snag a pre-release copy of Andy Weir’s new book, Artemis by using a tip from one of my friends (it involved a secret phrase).

Square Enix had a large booth, so I stopped by to investigate their offerings. I trialed some of their video games and then moved on to shop for comics. I picked up two more volumes of Saga and the first two Walking Dead comics. (I’m still working my way through Bone and recently bought Watchmen, so I have a bit of reading to do!)

robot

Finally I made my way to panels later in the day:

  • Hulu and Seth Rogen’s Future Man
  • SYFY Wire Fangrrls Presents: Badass Women of Sci-Fi

Both were good, but I was too tired to stay for more after that. Another long day awaits me on Saturday!

I have some random links for everyone today!

 

Here is an article on tor.com discussing the recent 2015 Eisner awards and how comics are becoming more diverse in many ways.

I have several book reviews that went up over on Book Spot Central in the last few months. In case you missed them over there, they are:

Yesterday’s Kin by Nancy Kress

ApocalyptiGirl: An Aria for the End Times (graphic novel) by Andrew MacLean

Shattering the Ley by Joshua Palmatier

Fool’s Assassin by Robin Hobb

Link

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