Graphic Novels

Good ole American pretty girls in comics predate shojo manga heroines by decades. The charming Gibson Girls won hearts in the 1890s, and then Nell Brinkley's gorgeous flappers (see review) took pretty girldom into serial stories, harbingers for 1940s icons Brenda Starr, Wonder Woman, Torchy Brown, and that yin-yang duo, Betty and Veronica.

While comics veered toward guys post-1950s, shojo manga has lately reopened the feminine market. DC Comics's Minx line for girls may not have lived up to sales expectations, but some of the current titles aimed at female readerships offer more bling.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer graphic novels routinely make the top-sellers lists, with the most recent, the girl-friendly Wolves at the Gate, a YALSA nominee. In Models Inc., Marvel revived former star Millie the Model to combine high fashion with superpowers and murder. Also from Marvel comes Nancy Butler's deft adaptation of Pride & Prejudice. The lovely covers of all three series, unfortunately, surpass the interiors.

The best-selling Anita Blake and Lords of Avalon series, also from Marvel, have more appealing, edgy art. DC's amusing Bad Girls marries teen superpowers with pleasingly retro art. Madame Xanadu features stunning art if a rather disjointed plot. A winner both plot- and art-wise is Lora Innes's The Dreamer (IDW).

Meanwhile, Archie Comics is reviving another oldie in Katy Keene: Model Behavior, while Graphic Classics issued a Louisa May Alcott anthology (see review, p. 53). Del Rey has the latest hottie, a new Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson shapeshifter story in ominous painted art. The real breakthrough for American girl comics may be Yen Press' forthcoming adaptation of the wildly popular Twilight novels.

For a longer read, check out Love on the Rocks, Michelle Nolan's detailed history of romance comics; Mike Madrid's The Supergirls: Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy, and the History of Comic Book Heroines; and the 2010 update of Trina Robbins's classic, The Great Women Superheroes.—M.C.

When her absent father, an award-winning composer, and her cruel mother, a beautiful actress, announced their impending divorce, shy 17-year-old Yura surprised everyone by telling the media that her parents could go to hell. But when even that fails to dent her much-admired mother's reputation, Yura decides to beat her mother at her own game and pursues an acting career. She is helped by two estranged twin brothers: kind songwriter Q-ta, whom she falls for, and blunt pop idol Haruka, who falls for her. Faced with multiple betrayals, catty costars, and her own confusion and uncertainty, Yura develops the resourcefulness and strength to keep her resolve. VERDICT There are some plot issues: it makes no sense, for example, that though Yura wants to keep her parentage a secret while beginning a career, she doesn't change her look or even her name. Regardless, the series' soap-opera drama—given edge by mean behavior, the amorality of show business, and Yura's questionable choices—is, like Aihara's earlier Hot Gimmick, addicting. So far, only one sexual situation (involving adults) justifies the "older teen" rating.—S.R.

The "Graphic Classics" series is known for artful if concise adaptations of the great Anglo-American action/adventure writers like Poe, Doyle, Stevenson, and Twain. This appears to be the first on a woman writer, and high time, too. Alcott is best remembered for the 1868–69 Little Women, but she also wrote florid gothic tales. Somewhat sappy by modern tastes, her work gains verve through these lively, full-color renderings. Certainly in Trina Robbins's skillful version, Little Women's pretty Jo March comes through as a modern gal ahead of her time, seeking a writing career and choosing an older, scholarly man instead of the lad Laurie. Of the gothics, the standout is "A Whisper in the Dark." Saucy, young heiress Sybil hovers between a father and a son, both courting her, until her desire to control her destiny—and the son's desire to control his—sweep them both under the control of the father, with a near tragic outcome. Here, Arnold Arre's art shines with style and coloring. VERDICT Graphic treatment modernizes Alcott well, showing off her early feminist sensibilities. This attractive anthology is recommended for teens and up.—M.C.

Way before CLAMP's shojo beauties, Nell Brinkley's fabulous flappers flirted their way into romance and readers' hearts. Not a cartoonist in the usual sense, Brinkley created gloriously rococo illustrations to accompany her own serialized sagas as well as rhyming stories written by others for Hearst newspapers. Brinkley's exquisite and gorgeously colored line art introduced fun-loving, energetic gals ready to rescue their men from the enemy, climb mountains, or parachute out of airplanes. The Brinkley Girls went beyond the limited independence of the Gibson Girls, paving the way for modern American action heroines like Brenda Starr and Wonder Woman. VERDICT Comics herstorian Robbins (The Great Women Superheroes) has produced a wonderful tribute to Brinkley, reprinting in full three serials and numerous shorter works with ample biographical background. With their swoon-worthy hair and wardrobes, the Brinkley Girls could kick off a whole new cosplay aesthetic. Recommended for public and academic libraries. See also Robbins's Nell Brinkley and the New Woman in the Early 20th Century.—M.C.

This Edinburghian transplanted to Australia is best known for bringing to life From Hell, Alan Moore's Jack the Ripper masterwork. Also responsible for the well-regarded The Fate of the Artist and The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard, Campbell published numerous autobiographical improvisations in small press publications, starring his Alec persona. Pants collects most of these, plus new material, in one wry and monumental 30-year opus. The detailed depiction of daily life in Campbell's work invites comparison to the American Harvey Pekar, but their characters are very different and Campbell stands out for his exquisite skill at depicting the Gordian knots of human relationships. Alec shares endless and congenial glasses with friends and acquaintances, philosophizes in quirky and perceptive nuggets, and manages his life in an endearingly ad hoc fashion from factory hand to full-time comikker while confronting his own inner killjoy (After the Snooter). VERDICT Campbell's sketchy, fluent black-and-white chronicle is highly recommended for all sizable and serious adult graphic novel collections and everywhere autobiographical stories are popular. [See Martha's Q&A with Campbell in BookSmack! 11/5/09.]—M.C.

Here, kawaii meets chemistry in microbial melodramas. Like Yuki Urushibara's well-known but fictional Mushishi, Moyasimon tells of amazing, invisible creatures around us, but Ishikawa's are real. We call them bacteria, molds, and fungi, and in Tales, agricultural university freshman Tadayasu can see and talk to them. To him, they look like cute, tiny plushies, 42 different types of which turn up in Volume 1. Classmate Kei's family uses molds in their sake brewery, so Kei thinks it's fine that Tadayasu can parlay with the microbe world. But Professor Itsuki wants to harness Tadayasu's talent for his own research, and graduate assistant Haruka is incredulous of Tadayasu's talent. Add two debt-ridden sophomore bootleggers, and Tadayasu is in for a rocky university life with a high yuck factor owing to Itsuki's gustatorily gross experiments with fermenting food. VERDICT This goofy and engaging manga packs a wealth of artfully drawn scientific content about microbes and food technology. Up to eight volumes in Japan, Moyasimon has won several awards and inspired an anime series. For ages 16 up.—M.C.

Highly regarded in Korea, where his "Color" trilogy was first serialized in 1992, Kim has cross-cultural appeal. In this lyrical coming-of-age manhwa set a century ago in rural Korea, young Ehwa grows up under the fond eye of her widowed tavern-keeper mother. The increasingly pretty girl attracts the randy village boys, but she is drawn to less attainable and more sensitive lads: a local apprentice monk, a farmer's son schooled elsewhere, and a handsome worker from a different village. Intercut with Ehwa's tentative steps toward love is her mother's intermittent and achingly sweet liaison with a traveling painter, helping to deepen their complex mother-daughter relationship. Although the art, plot, and dialog have poetic beauty and charm, Kim still incorporates earthy and disturbing elements: male customers verbally harass Ehwa's mother, while Ehwa shows her distaste for her girlfriend's sexual explorations. VERDICT Kim's elegant trilogy will have strong appeal for its literary quality and offers key historical and cultural information, with a reading group guide included in the last two volumes. Sexual content and nudity, presented discreetly. For older teens and up.—M.C.

With sung tales of criminals and broken-hearted lovers that cut as deep as his bass-baritone voice, Johnny Cash transcended the label "country singer" and became an American icon. Taking his title from a song on Cash's 2000 album, American III: Solitary Man, German cartoonist Kleist presents a biography (with seemingly invented dialog that stays true to the facts) focusing on Cash's turning points: from his poor family's 1935 relocation to a New Deal-created cotton farming community, through his troubled first marriage, endless touring, the amphetamine abuse of his early musical career, and climaxing with a famous, highly charged 1968 concert at California's Folsom Prison. Kleist also dramatizes several of Cash's songs and relates the tragic story of Glen Sherley, a Folsom inmate who sent Cash a song he had written hoping Cash would play it in the show. The ruggedness of Kleist's black-and-white illustrations suits their subject, as the stark portrayal of Cash's withdrawal from drugs is inventive and harrowing. VERDICT An award winner in Europe, this thoughtful and compelling portrait of a towering talent with a tortured soul is recommended for all teen and adult music fans.—S.R.

Shooter began writing Legion of Super-Heroes (DC's 31st-century teenage superteam) at the unprecedented age of 14 and went on to pen many of the series' best-remembered stories. In 2008, 31 years after leaving the title, he returned for an exciting two-volume stint that began with Enemy Rising and concludes here with Legion. When a giant alien planet materializes inside Saturn's orbit, the Legion must prevent its gravity from tearing the solar system apart and investigate its possible links with monstrous destroyers that have been appearing throughout the United Planets and seem bent on eliminating all organic life. Shooter, aided by Manapul's solid but sometimes rough art, fills the story with the superscience, action, and interteam conflict and romance that are the hallmarks of great Legion tales, adding doses of humor and intrigue as well. VERDICT Shooter's involvement in the series was unfortunately limited to just two volumes, and this resulted in a rushed ending. But his work here, an improvement over recent volumes of the Legion written by Mark Waid and Tony Bedard, is recommended for all teen and adult superhero fans.—S.R.

A close cousin to James Bond, Largo Winch emerges as an impossibly capable hunk perpetually embroiled in international skulduggery and romantic dalliances. A formerly footloose adventurer, Winch begins his saga while avenging the assassination of his adoptive father, Nerio, whose death makes him a billionaire when he inherits the position as CEO of Nerio's Group W corporate empire. In this fourth story of the Largo Winch series, two highly placed coconspirators in Myanmar set up an elaborate ruse to arrest Winch's friend Simon on a false accusation of murder. The game is to lure in Winch and get him out of the way, wipe out a rebel alliance, and then seize national power and a fat purse of opium profits. But unfortunately for them, Winch has dangerous liaisons up his sleeve. VERDICT With a tight, twisting script and excellent semirealistic art, this makes a fine and manly picaresque adventure for high school and up. With eight bande dessinée stories so far, the series has sold millions of copies in Europe and led to a TV series, a film, and a video game.—M.C.

Widely beloved in his adopted country of Canada, the British cartoonist created a pair of lovable hairless scamps who bedeviled their parents for more than 30 years. It was on a whim that Wright tossed off his first wordless gag strip about a rambunctious youngster. But he had drawn his way right into the postwar baby boom, and Nipper—later Doug Wright's Family—made him a national celebrity comparable with Charles "Peanuts" Schulz, Hank "Dennis the Menace" Ketcham, and Bill "The Family Circus" Keane. Wright kept sentimentality to a judicious minimum, letting the sometimes-violent anarchy of childhood burst forth in invariably hilarious excess. Eventually fathering three boys, he came to draw from his own life for material, similar to Kyle Baker (The Bakers). This oversized volume serves up Nipper and company with panache and daunting heft (a second, companion volume is in preparation). VERDICT Wright's considerable skill at depicting physical comedy holds up well. Boomer readers may even reflect that it is their own childhoods and devilments he depicts. For cartoon history collections and where Schulz, Ketcham, and Keane are popular.—M.C.

Re-envisioning Japan's Tokugawa past, Yoshinaga uses a premise we've seen in Y: The Last Man and James Tiptree Jr.'s sf short story, "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" As a mysterious disease kills off 80 percent of the males, women have taken control of society, "preserving" men as sperm donors. Only rich women can afford to marry. Poor women wanting children are forced to purchase sex. And only the now-female shogun can dally in the Ooku—secluded quarters where elite male concubines await their liege's pleasure. Because he is too low class to marry his beloved Nobu, handsome swordsman Yunoshin enters the Ooku, where he meets the eighth and newest shogun, Yoshimune. Yoshimune's sexual appetite is exceeded only by her wisdom, a conflation of traits apparently new to the shogunate, and instead of exploiting him, she unexpectedly and expertly solves Yunoshin's dilemma. VERDICT Yoshinaga (Antique Bakery) clearly enjoys ringing the changes on gender tropes while exercising her considerable plotting skills. With four volumes published in Japan and a projected ten more on the way, this beautifully drawn series has won several Japanese awards and an Eisner nomination. Recommended for adult collections.—M.C.