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Cataloged in the young adult/teen section, I would describe the genre as contemporary dreamscape low key horror if that makes any sense.

Content notes for teen runaway, being hunted, and cat in danger.

Keywords that came to mind reading this comic were Texas, vehicle, sunset colour scheme, escape, highways, pit stops, breakdowns, found family, loss, and menace.

Not dissimilar to other Walden books I've read the art sucks you right in and the vibes carry you through, but by the end you are left scratching your head a little bit about what exactly happened. But in an ok way.

Unlike the two other fiction graphic novels I've read by Walden, Are You Listening had the strongest sense of place. Both literally, but also thematically. I've never been to Texas, but it did feel heavily tied to Walden's experience growing up there.

That said, it still felt like Walden pushed at the walls of what we expect to happen IRL. Very dreamlike, particularly in the horror elements, but also in the way it sometimes felt like something was skipped just a little bit. Particularly in the way we transition from scene to scene. Simlar to some of my dreams, where I suddenly I find myself in different places and while dream logic says this makes sense - something in the back of my mind is like but how did I get here?

Of course this also didn't feel completely dissimilar to my first read through of the low low woods. Another great queer horror read.

Representation similarly felt rather unnamed and ambiguous on pretty much all counts of sexuality, gender, and ability/disability. Race perhaps felt like the least touched on aspect of life, and class I suppose plays a fairly key role in that Bea and Lou clearly have to get creative and try to hold together because of not having all that much.

Overall, thinking about reviewing this graphic novel, I would say I enjoyed it but I could also sympathies a lot with the very confused reviews over on the goodreads. There is a lot to recommend this particular graphic novel and definitly pick it up if you think it sounds or looks interesting, but I will probably join the seeming consensus and rate this a good three out of five stars.

Content notes for a military dictatorship and all the the horrible things that obviously involves.

A book that almost no one has read, it was also kind of hard to track down author information. But according to his entry in the 2020 MCBA Prize "Camilo Aguirre is a Colombian artist whose practice shifts between comics and fine arts.

In his comics Camilo uses the elements of documentary format to tell non-fictional stories, implementing anecdotes and interviews from his immediate context, addressing the asking how his own subjectivity is constructed from the Colombian context, and reflecting on this context towards the ideas of globalization and belonging. Camilo has been the author of graphic novels such as Ciervos de Bronce (Bronze Deers, 2014), Calidez Aislada (Isolated Warmth, 2012) and has been coauthor of graphic novels such as Caminos Condenados (Condemned Paths, 2016) and La Palizua (2018). During his career in comics Camilo has been able to implement social research while working with communities in Colombia, in projects that involve addressing dispossession, violent conflict, historic memory and symbolic reparation.

In the fine arts field Camilo approaches drawing as a series of strategies more than a medium, including the association of ideas and the relationships between material, formalization and context as drawing tools. In his long term project Ciervos de Bronce (2011–), Camilo has developed a personal archive of letters, photography, interviews, paintings, comics, animations and photocopies documenting his father’s participation in the union activism during the nineties and addressing the state violent persecution towards union activists in Colombia. In his project In Blood (2014,2016) Camilo addresses the political implications in his family history by highlighting chapters of Colombia’s history through his great grandmother (Toni y la hacienda, 2014) and inserting his great grand uncle’s reimagined history in Colombia’s independence Museum: Casa del Florero (Radical, 2016)."

What kinds of keywords came to mind reading What Remains? Autobiography, journalism, social history, community, war and peace, resistance, and the military.

An interesting read, the start was my least favourite part. A series of short vignettes, it wasn't until we had jumped back and forth between the personal and the national a couple of times before I felt like I had a handle on what was going on.

Visually I thought What Remains was really strong and engaging.

As someone who is not terribly knowledgeable about Columbia, both historically and presently, I can't really commentate at all on Aguirre's perspective. That said, this book does obviously fall on the not afraid to be personal side of things, which I do appreciate. We get a pretty clear idea of who Aguirre is as a person, and there's no false notions of neutral objectivity going on. Aguirre also goes out of his way to pull in other people's stories as well, so it was far from one note.

Perhaps most interested in the economic and party politics of Columbia, we get a sprinkling of gender diversity and Aguirre tells a story about his brief time as a street artist, where a trans sex worker probably saved his ass from paramilitary forces. An iota of representation but more then I expected.

And this is the risk I run into when I don't write these reviews immediately after reading, but I don't recall any discussion of ability/disability. Which is the status quo, but at the same time violent conflict is an intrinsically disabling event so it would certainly not have been difficult to touch on in some way. You would think.

Concluding thoughts. I hope more people pick up this book, and tell me what they think about it. Would rate four out of five stars.

Published by Vancouver publisher Arsenal Pulp Press in 2020.Content notes for cancer and nudity.

Flipping to the back of the book, this creative duo describes themselves as

"Keet Geniza is an illustrator and comic artist. Born and raised in Manila, she moved to Toronto in 2006 and has since immersed herself in zines and comics as a way to document her struggles as a queer immigrant woman of colour. Kimiko Does Cancer is her first book."

And Kimiko Tobimatsu "is an an employment and human rights lawyer by day. Kimiko Does Cancer is her first book."

What keywords came to mind reading this beautifully concise work? Illness, family, relationships, queerness, age, medicine, gender, work and survival.

A book with a clear mission, and not a centimeter of room was wasted. This is a potent and very personal story.

The art felt a bit reminiscent of Fun Home but different enough it didn't feel like a knock off. Plus it really does really seem to fit with Kimiko's personality.

And for such a highly focused and personal narrative, Kimiko Does Cancer manages to pack quite the diverse punch.

Kimiko is unafraid to examine her experience of cancer through the lenses of gender, sexuality, class and age.

A lawyer in canada, Kimiko does not lack access to treatment, but is honest about the ignorance she has run into with how heteronormative medicine is and all.

Being a bi-racial woman in a place like Toronto I'm not surprised at how much racial diversity was present, but it's important.

And there is of course some discussion of Kimiko's struggle of being a young working professional who is also undergoing major medical treatment.

I also appreciated Kimiko's insight into and commentary on the mainstream cancer narrative as compared to her own, as well as the way she highlighted her experience with menopause and the question of fertility.

To conclude, I found this book extremely informative and engrossing. So short it's hard not to just universally recommend, five stars!

Content notes for school shooting, police killing/brutality, armed robbery, and SA.

Looking at the nature of the violence that is one of the things that perhaps most impressed me about this book. Because with some of these young adult DC titles issues of violence and poverty have sometimes felt insultingly cartoonified, even considering they are supposed to be for younger readers. That's not to say that I have no critical thoughts about the depiction of violence... It would literally make no sense for the robbers to kill anyone in this or any story as that would up the consequences for all of them exponentially. Not to say that sort of thing never happens, and people make mistakes. But I do feel like, the media's depiction of armed robbery makes it seem much more likely to happen then it actually does in real life. Flipping back to the positive side though, I did feel that Nubia was more honest about many other kinds of dangers and violence that face the kids these days. Not that I'm the final judge on what feels authentic to kids these days... 

Flipping to the back of the book, let's look at the creator bios.

First off we have "Leatrice "Elle" McKinney, writing as L.L. McKinney, is an advocate for equality and inclusion in publishing, and the creator of the hashtags #PublishingPaidMe and #WhatWoCWritersHear. A gamer and Blerd, her works include the Nightmare-Verse books, Nubia: Real One through DC, Marvels Black Window: Bad Blood, and more."

Then artist Robyn Smith "is a Jamaican cartoonist, currently based in New York City. She has an MFA from the center for Cartoon Studies and has worked in comics for the Seven Days newspaper, CollegeHumor, and the Nib. She's best known for her minicomic The Saddest Angriest Black Girl in Town and for illustrating Jamila Rowser's comic Wash Day. [another comic high on my TBR] Besides comics, she spends most of her time watching American sitcoms and holding on to dreams of returning home, to the ocean."

Looking at their portfolio website, Ariana Maher describes themselves as "I’m currently the letterer of Detective Comics for DC Comics. I also work on numerous Marvel Comics titles as a part of the Virtual Calligraphy team. Notable work at Marvel includes Hellions, Demon Days, Excalibur, and Silk. In addition to that, I work on the Critical Role franchise published by Dark Horse." They also have a helpful blog post about what kinds of information to provide when you're looking to hire a letterer.

And while I try to profile everyone involved in a project, I am sufficiently confused by the number of artistic Brie Hendersons on the web that we will just put that one off for another time.

And last but certainly not least we have Bex Glendining, whose portfolio website describes themselves as "a biracial queer, UK based illustrator, comic artist and colourist. Bex has worked as a cover artist, colourist and interior artist on projects such as Seen: Edmonia Lewis, Penultimate Quest, Rolled & Told, Lupina, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and When Life Gives You Mangoes."

What kinds of keywords came to mind reading this book? family, strength, coming of age, pinks and purples, friends, love, threat and self discovery.

And the summary was "Nubia has always been a little bit...different. As a baby she showcased Amazonian-like strength by pushing over a tree to rescue her neighbor’s cat. But, despite having similar abilities, the world has no problem telling her that she’s no Wonder Woman. And even if she was, they wouldn’t want her. Every time she comes to the rescue, she’s reminded of how people see her; as a threat. Her Moms do their best to keep her safe, but Nubia can’t deny the fire within her, even if she’s a little awkward about it sometimes. Even if it means people assume the worst. When Nubia’s best friend, Quisha, is threatened by a boy who thinks he owns the town, Nubia will risk it all—her safety, her home, and her crush on that cute kid in English class—to become the hero society tells her she isn’t. From the witty and powerful voice behind A Blade So Black, L.L. McKinney, and with endearing and expressive art by Robyn Smith, comes a vital story for today about equality, identity and kicking it with your squad."

Having already touched a bit on the writing, let's jump into the art first. TLDR I loved it. I think the limited colour pallet was used to great effect and the character designs felt really relaxed and casual. Particularly when it came to gender expression. There was also a lot of very rich detail in particular when it came to the depiction of Black women.

Certainly not the first book to look at what it would mean to be a Black superhero in so called america. It is a question I think is very much worth returning to, particularly as the discourse continues to grow and develop. Nubia is not only one of the more recent additions to this discourse, I also feel like it also takes the baton that much further through the way that Nubia's feelings are explored as well as visual clues that hint at all the very worst things that could happen.

Looking at gender and sexuality, as I already mentioned this felt very diverse and relaxed. None of the characters sits down and discusses the nature of their gender or sexuality, but the combination of gender presentation and Nubias Moms gave it the chill queer feel that is so nice.

Race was obviously the main focus of the comic. But again it didn't feel like a PSA or very special episode. It was just a really great story that might help some of us deal with some of the harshest parts of reality.

Class, as usual, was completely washed out.

Ideas of ability and disability felt like they went a bit further then your average super hero comic, but still avoided a lot of real world repercussions that some of our characters might have had to face otherwise. By which I mean Nubia could be hurt and was hurt, but everyone is set to recover at the end with no discussion of how much medical care costs in so called america - to say the least.

That said, the part of the book that really made me roll my eyes was was the use of a Molotov cocktail at the peaceful protest... Like really?

To conclude, a really great super hero read in my opinion. I'm definitely interested in picking up more from these creators and am rating it 5 stars.

What keywords came to mind reading this book? culture, heritage, community, language, teaching, learning, colonization, the land, art, and sovereignty.

The summary is as follows "Indigenous Voices Award winner Cole Pauls returns with a robust collection of stories that celebrate the cultural practices and experiences of Dene and Arctic peoples Gathering Pauls’s comics from magazines, comic festivals and zine making workshops, these comics are his most personal work yet. You’ll learn stories about the author’s family, racism and identity, Yukon history, winter activities, Southern Tutchone language lessons and cultural practices. Have you ever wanted to learn how to Knuckle Hop? or to acknowledge and respect the Indigenous land you’re on? Or how to be an ally to Indigenous people? Well, gather around and hear this Kwändǖr!"

Much like the rest of his work that has been published so far, rather then being a straight forward graphic novel Kwändǖr is a collection of previously published material. Which isn't always my favourite thing, but is sometimes necessary to make sure that material continues to be available and perhaps even more widely so. I also felt like once I closed the book I wasn't left with any strong feeling that anything was missing. Although that is a pretty personal judgement. 

It is definitely a window into what makes Cole Pauls Cole Pauls. Which he can certainly describe better then I can, so pulling a bit from his afterword "I grew up in a communite where skidoos, moose meeat, and driving up the highway were a normal thing. I never realized how special my childhood was until I moved to Vancouver and discovered how different my upbringing was from everyone else. I hope this book Reflects that.

Even though I drew these stories, I know they are not mine. They are my community's stories, they are my family and friend's stories, they are my collaborator's stories, and they are stories for you to tell each other."

Looking at representation. Obviously this is a very personal work, which often limits the amount of diversity that ends up being included.

That said, the issue of race and the colonialist idea of blood quantum are explored through Pauls own experience with people assuming he is appropriating the culture he participates in.

Gender did see some diversity, although none explicitly labeled as outside the binary. 

And while none heterosexualness didn't come up, neither really did heterosexuality really. So it all seemed to even out in the end.

Class felt a bit less highlighted, although it continues to be impossible to ignore Pauls' grungey punk roots - in the best way of course.

Thoughts on disability and ability were the most lacking, although not unusually so.

To conclude, a collection that goes beyond the 101 and in a way that is highly personal. I look forward to picking up even more of Pauls work in the future. Five stars!

Content note for adoption.

Looking at the mangaka, Kiyohiko Azuma he is apparently best known for his much shorter work Azumanga Daoih. Otherwise, I guess their main work is not publishing manga so publication of Yotsuba has been on the slower side. I certainly assumed that the series was long over, but apparently not. Comparing my local comic shop and goodreads it does appear as if all 15 volumes currently available are also translated; so that's nice. Currently my plan is to try and read these volumes by the end of the year and do another review once I've caught up? Because I've had bad experiences reading these sort of slice of life volumes one after another after another, but who knows when this series will be over. Knowing my luck, I'll do all this then Azuma will announce in 2024 that they are finishing up the series after one or two more volumes or something else that will render final series thoughts truncated and or awkward.

Keywords that came to mind with this first volume: family, new neighbourhood, naïve, learning, and failing.

As I've already mentioned a few times, I did try and pick this book up before and ended up putting it down pretty fast. Revisiting this series now, I initially thought it was because I was too serious at the time. And while I feel like that was probably a bit of it, now having read the whole first volume I also feel like it was related to how many times Yotsuba does the wrong thing. Which is an issue I've run into a couple of times with stories about young niave children. But instead of being an immediate DNF, I guess this time around I'm kind of intrigued by this discomfort with imperfection and would like to lean into it and figure out what's up. I kind of suspect it has to do with masking and rejection sensitivity or something like it.

Looking at the art, it's certainly very skilled and detailed - which does come up in a lot of positive reviews I saw. I also feel like Azuma hits a good balance of setting the scene with detail but also not being afraid to simplify things to draw attention to what is important; sometimes it feels like, when it comes to detail, creators are either all or nothing, so this was really nice.

Writing wise, I also felt like Azuma hit a similar good balance when it comes to wordiness. A+

Looking at gender and sexuality, I thought this first volume introduced us to an interesting cast of characters, none of them super gendered, and who all happen to find themselves outside of heterosexual monogomy. Especially when it comes up at the end that Yotsuba is sort of unofficially adopted and not the father's biological spawn. Of course none of them are actually queer either... and we shall see how this plays out going forward. In the negative column there's a very awkward point where family friend Jumbo refers to one of the sisters who live next door as jailbait.

Race is so far not really explored to any depth. That said, there does seem to be some racial diversity at play in that at the very end of this volume we are told that Yotsuba was kind of unofficially adopted by the father character when he was oversees? Which gives off very odd vibes as well, but I'm assuming is mostly to set up how different and generally ignorant Yotsuba is without feeling a need to go into too much detail. Although it could also be setting Yotsuba ends up to be an alien or something. Anything is possible.

Class and ability vs disability were not things that seemed to be explored in this volume.

To conclude, this continues to be a bit of an odd read for me but I am intrigued and will certainly be picking up more soon. I think I'll be rating this volume three out of five stars.

According to wikipedia Tatsuya Endo came from a single parent household, enjoys skiing and basketball, as well as performances by bruce lee and meg ryan. Previously Endo has worked on the series Tista, about a villain killing serial killer sniper, and Gekka Bijin/The Moon Sword.
But circling back to Spy X Family, a comedy action spy story, the premise is that a male spy must quickly fabricate a family in order to infiltrate an elite school. "Master spy Twilight is the best at what he does when it comes to going undercover on dangerous missions in the name of a better world... What he doesn’t know is that the wife he’s chosen is an assassin and the child he’s adopted is a telepath!" Reading other reviews, this volume appears to be set in a fictionalized east west Germany situation.
While the art felt pretty typical, that doesn't stop it from being very top notch and on point. With a very keen eye to detail.
Gender and sexuality are an interesting sub text. While none of the characters are necessarily labeled in the story as queer, the premise feels like it relates very well to how queer people have been forced to live through history. The single apparently cis female character is in danger precisely because she is not part of a heterosexual procreating unit and this chosen family is up against an elite school that won't stop talking about "family values".
And while the main characters are not necessarily blue color icons, the high class nature of the elite school is repeatedly highlighted.
Similarly, disability isn't really portrayed in any way, with everyone being somewhere on the spectrum between able bodied and super able bodied.
Whiteness is fairly central to the story, like most European set manga.
A real sucker for comedy premises in 2020, for obvious reasons, I ended up rating this first volume four out of five stars.

Previously best known to me for their adult webcomic Sunstone (which I'm totally going to review soon) Stjepan Sejic is a Croatian comic book writer and artist married to fellow creative Linda Šejić. He has also worked on Witchblade, Aphrodite IX, The Darkness, my favourite volume of Rat Queens, and part of a recent DC group title Harley Quinn: Black + White + Red.
As far as content warnings go, it's a DC Black label title, it stars Harley Quinn and the Joker, and is set in Arkham Asylum. Fictional mental health is extensively discussed and depicted and a psychiatrist becomes romantically involved with her patient.
But let's take a moment to discuss the use, or lack there of, of "mature comic" tropes. As a millennial who really got into comics as an adult, many of the first titles I picked up were under DC's old Vertigo label. One of these titles was the very popular Preacher series, and while I did enjoy some things to do with this series and should probably go back and re package my thoughts from before the great reset, it was constantly trying to be the most shocking thing ever. Sandman also did this to a certain extent (particularly in earlier volumes if my memory is to be trusted at all), among others. There always had to be the most shocking sex, the most shocking violence, and/or the "worst" drug use etc. And this always struck me as a bit stupid. Because even if I enjoyed other elements of the story, "shocking content" doesn't age very well and it generally lacks nuance. Whatever shocked people a decade ago is generally not shocking now and it comes across as a very silly kind of needy.
Circling back to Harleen however, while I was and remain not the biggest Harley Quinn fan in the world, I feel like the way that Šejić (who does make real erotic content) writes this mature DC title is much better. Not only because it is not trying to shock you with the biggest bloodiest most depraved scenario and will therefore age much better, but also because it's more (la shock) respectful. But I'll dig into more detail as we go along.
Moving on to the art section of my review, his style is one of the things I have found very interesting about Šejić, who has a great range of style that goes from very minimalist to very very detailed in a way that is very story driven. Well, I'm sure that some of it is due to being rushed for time, but the way its done always feels very intentional and this contrast is often used to draw attention to the focus of a scene. The cover design for this volume is also pretty on point - I mean who can resist this cover? Page layouts are highly varied and often expressive, but still easy to follow. And the colour scheme was perfect. I wish I had this strong a sense of style. Gees.
Clicking over to goodreads, the official synopsis is as follows: "A young psychiatrist with a potential cure for the madness that haunts Gotham City, Dr. Harleen Quinzel must prove her revolutionary theory to a skeptical establishment by delving into the disturbed minds of Arkham Asylum's deadliest inmates. But the more time she spends with her criminally insane subjects, the closer she is drawn to one patient in particular--and the further she falls away from reality. The birth of legendary antihero Harley Quinn and the shocking origins of her twisted romance with the Joker are revealed in Harleen, a stunning new tale of love and obsession."
Mental health, while not the worst representation in the world, is bound tightly by the restraints of popular consciousness in this book. And while I feel like Harleen herself has the best take of everyone in the story, we still have a lot of other people's much more black and white and stigmatizing thinking being talked about throughout. Plus, I'm not sure if having Dr. Quinzel becoming Harley Quinn sheds the most positive light on her her opinions. That said, I do feel like it could be argued that the callousness of the people around her drove her to becoming Harley more then anything she believed. Although don't romance your patient is a watch word to live by.
As far as gender and sexuality goes, this is a pretty CIS binary heterosexual romance. Not terribly surprising, since this is a classic pairing as it were. As I said already, I'm not a particular fan of either Harley Quinn or pairing her with the joker. I do tend to think it's more then a little toxic and not IRL goals. That said, I think it's widely enough discussed at this point that I don't need to spend any amount of time really digging into it and raining on people's parades. We all have at least problematic ship.
Visually, neither the Joker or Harley is ever very particularly sexualized. We see Harleen a couple of times in her underwear/pajamas, but its never in those f' me dear reader poses I've previously discussed.
Race is not really discussed at all. Class is perhaps touched on slightly but only in the way that any depiction of Gotham is this hyper exaggerated bad take on crime. Which particularly when you have a super wealthy vigilanty bouncing around your city relatively unscathed, is definitely about class.
To conclude, while I'm happy to have read it, and it is beautiful. Something about this comic just didn't spark with me so I'll be rating it three out of five stars. A perfectly good rating from me in general and "I liked it" according to Goodreads.