CBR15 Book 103: "Heartstopper, vol 5" by Alice Oseman

Page count: 336 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Nick and Charlie are closer than ever, but despite what their friends think, they still haven't done THAT. Lately, it's probably all either can think about, but it's a big step and neither wants to pressure the other.

Nick is also a year older than Charlie, and is having to consider which Universities he's going to apply to next year. His first inclination is living at home and going to his local Uni, so he'll be close to Charlie, but he goes on a road trip with Elle and Tara, and discovers that there are very appealing places elsewhere in the country too. Elle finds her dream University, and it will mean a long distance relationship with Tao. Can Nick and Charlie manage the same?

Mr. Farouk is encouraging Charlie to apply for Head Boy in his final year, saying that a lot of students at the school could use a role model like him. He also wants to have the occasional sleepover at Nick's, but his mother is feeling overprotective and her reluctance causes tension between them. In the end, she agrees that he can stay over at Nick's once he's done with exams.

Charlie, not exactly the most extroverted or confident, thanks to all the bullying, also agrees to play drums for a queer band during the end-of-year summer féte. It's a much more public role than he's ever been in before, and he's both nervous and excited about the opportunity.

I hadn't realised that there was going to be a volume of Heartstopper out this year, so finding out that this was coming out in December was a pleasant surprise (even more that I found the book at half price at a shop in the UK while visiting my parents-in-law for Christmas). As it turns out, I had already read a lot of the issues collected in this book online on Tapas. The only reason I hadn't read all of them is that I took a break so more issues of the webcomic could be collected (one issue a week is too short). Oseman has announced that volume 6 will be the final one, and I'm now thinking that I may just stop reading the webcomic, so as not to be spoiled for the ending. 

I love this comic. It's so heartwarming and cute and the issues in this book are very low angst, even with questions of long-distance relationships being discussed. Nick and Charlie and their friends are such great characters and I'm glad queer youth have some nice examples of LGBTQIA fiction to comfort them. 

Judging a book by its cover: All the other covers have shown Nick and Charlie from the back, getting a bit closer with each volume. This is the first one where they are actually fully embracing, and I think the image is adorable. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Books 87-91: "Spy x Family, vol 1-5" by Tatsuya Endo

Total page count: 1040 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Agent Twilight is the best spy in the business and he's willing to do absolutely anything to protect his country. For his latest mission, Operation Strix, he needs to get close to high-ranking politician Desmond Donovan. To do this, he needs to be married and have a child and said child needs to be admitted to the prestigious Eden Academy, where Desmond Donovan's son Damien is a pupil. Agent Twilight creates the alias Loid Forger, a clinical psychiatrist, to complete the mission. Since he has to have a child, he adopts a young girl from an orphanage. The adorable Anya turns out to be a telepath and can read minds. She desperately wants a family and reads Twilight's mind to try to be the perfect daughter to him. Twilight/Loid also requires a wife, and so enters into a marriage of convenience to Yor Briar, seemingly a timid office clerk. Unbeknownst to Twilight, Yor is also a skilled assassin, working under the code name "Thorn Princess". Only Anya knows about the secret identities of her adoptive parents, and neither of them knows she can read their minds. 

In the first volume, Twilight needs to create his Loid Forger persona and acquire the family necessary to pull off his mission. He adopts Anya, who he needs to tutor well enough to pass the entrance exam to Eden Academy. He marries Yor Briar, to have a suitable wife and stepmother to his "daughter". After a lot of shenanigans, they get through the family interview at Eden Academy, but it's unclear whether Anya will actually get accepted.

In volume 2, it becomes clear that Anya has in fact got a spot at the Academy. Twilight/Loid wants her to befriend Damien Desmond, the son of his target, but that really doesn't work out too well. The children pretty much become antagonists, but Anya befriends the wealthy Becky instead. Twilight/Loid is a bit despondent, but being a master spy, doesn't let small obstacles hinder him from achieving success. Yor's younger brother Yuri comes to visit the family and is deeply jealous of anyone taking away his sister's attention from him. Twilight/Loid discovers that Yuri works for the Secret Police.

At the beginning of volume 3, Yor and Twilight/Loid have to work together to convince Yor's brother Yuri that they are a happy couple, and have in fact been married for over a year. Yor asks her co-workers for help to be a better wife, and Twilight/Loid is reassured that despite her brother working for the Secret Police, his wife is not a threat to his mission. Anya manages to earn a Stella star, an important academic achievement at school and tells Twilight/Loid that she wants a dog as a reward.

In volume 4, the Forger family acquires a dog for Anya, the fluffy and courageous Bond, who can occasionally see the future. Bond is part of a gang of dogs trained by terrorists (who also kidnap Anya for a while), but Bond and Anya work together to foil the terrorists, with some assistance from both of Anya's parents.

In volume 5, Yor tries to become a better cook, since her cooking efforts hitherto have been dreadful. Anya manages to help Damian win an art prize at school but is terrified when she realises she will have to sit the midterm during the dark of the moon, the one time of the month when her telepathic powers don't work. Yuri, trying to impress his sister, offers to tutor Anya. Twilight/Loid is prepared to break into the school to alter her results, making sure she passes, but instead runs into another (much more inept spy) who is trying to alter the exam results of the Desmond brothers, making it seem that they would fail. Anya passes her exams, and Twilight/Loid makes sure that the Desmond brothers' results remain unaltered. In the final chapter of the story, we are introduced to Fiona Frost, one of Twilight/Loid's fellow spies. She secretly loves Twilight and wants to scare Yor away, so she (Fiona) can take her place in the mission as Twilight's wife. 

These manga adventures are ridiculously entertaining, and I've had a lot of fun reading them since I started this summer. I know there is also an anime series, but since it's a right faff making my VPN work properly so I can watch them, I haven't yet gotten around to watching the show (my BFF Lydia loves it, though). I would love for there to be more actual romance between Twilight/Loid and Yor (everyone knows that marriages of convenience eventually lead to actual love, right?), but these stories are so much fun and I can't wait to see where the story goes next. 

Judging the books by their covers: I really like the art style of this manga, and each volume features one of the characters on the cover. Volume 1 has Agent Twilight/Loid Forger on the cover, volume 2 has Anya, volume 3 has Lor (dressed in her elegant assassin costume), volume 4 has Bond (best doggo!) and volume 5 has Lor's extremely unhealthily attached brother Yuri. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Book 61: "Class Act" by Jerry Craft

Page count: 249 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Drew Ellis goes to the prestigious Riverdale Academy Day School, but unlike a lot of his more privileged classmates, he feels like he has to work way harder and he still might not get the same opportunities that they do. While a lot of his fellow students live in enormous mansions, Drew lives alone with his grandmother (who has to work almost constantly to provide for him). He also knows that no matter how good his grades are or which school he attends, most people are only going to see the colour of his skin. Of course, his friends Jordan and Liam have their own problems to deal with.

This is a companion novel to New Kid, which I haven't read. The good news is that you don't need to have read that book to enjoy this one, but I suspect I would have gotten even more out of this if I'd also read the first book in the series.

For our Cannonball Book Club in October, we continued last year's success of banned books, this time focusing on graphic novels. I had already read the other two we selected, This One Summer by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki and Gender Queer by Maia Kokabe, so this was the only one left for me to read. Thankfully the Oslo public library had a copy, so I was able to read it before our online discussion and Zoom meeting.

This is very highly rated on Goodreads, and I liked it a lot. I'm very much not the intended target audience, and had I been younger, I might have rated it even higher. As always when we read banned books, I am utterly baffled as to why anyone would think this was a bad thing for young people to read. This shows a very nuanced portrayal of several young individuals from very different family backgrounds and how they all, even when they might seem to have no worries, might not have perfect lives. What a terrible thing for tweens to read, apparently.

Judging a book by its cover: Craft is an excellent artist, and shows inside the comic that he's capable of drawing in a number of styles. I really like the playful cover, with some of the characters being juggled, along with the demands and responsibilities Drew faces daily. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR14 Book 34: "Mooncakes" by Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu

Page count: 256 pages

Rating: 4 stars

CBR14 Bingo: Cozy (this is a super-sweet YA comic. While there are some dark themes, the main vibe here is absolutely cozy.) 

Nova Huang (she/her) is an orphaned young witch, although she sees the ghosts of her parents during each major holiday, and sometimes just when they feel she might need advice or a good talking to. She lives with her two grandmothers, who sell books of both the mundane and magical varieties. 

Tam (they/them)  on the other hand, seems to have been on their own for a long time. They had to run away from home once things got too bad there, and now they're back in the town they were happy as a child, but there is sinister magic threatening the place, and Tam knows they need to use their werewolf magic somehow in order to banish it. 

Nova's grandmothers are very powerful witches and used to dealing with supernatural threats, but even they find the demon presence in the woods impossible to vanquish. The best they can do is try to empower Nova and Tam to manage the task instead. 

This book has been on my shelf for far too long (at some point, it also appears to have sustained some pretty bad water damage to the latter half of the book. Neither my husband nor I can remember it happening, and it kind of sucks, because it meant the last few pages were stuck together and difficult to separate). It's a super sweet book aimed at young adults, which possibly hits every square on the diversity bingo card. Nova is a person of colour, cis-gendered, bisexual, and uses hearing aids in both of her ears to hear properly (her grandmothers have had to adapt her magic so that the technology and magic don't interfere with each other). Nova is raised by a lesbian couple, who seem perfectly accepted and loved in their little society. Tam is a non-binary lesbian werewolf. Both of the young protagonists have coming-of-age challenges to deal with on top of their growing feelings for one another. 

The story is relatively fast-paced and while there is danger lurking, it never feels too perilous. The art is gorgeous and the romance between the main characters is very sweet. Nova has a large, diverse and very supportive family (several members are of the supernatural persuasion). I loved that although her parents are dead, they are still an active part of her life as ghosts, she just doesn't see them all the time. 

My original intention was to use this for the "dough" square of the bingo card, because of the title. Sadly baking and baked goods play such a small part in the story that I decided it probably fit better for "cozy". I don't think I've ever spent as much time changing and rearranging my original plan for the book bingo as I have this year. It's a good thing I have such a big book collection, usually, there is more than one book that works for each of the squares.

Judging a book by its cover: Look at the cuteness of this cover! You can see why I thought baking was going to play a bigger part in the story. The cover gives you an idea of Wendy Xu's art style, which really enhanced the story for me. 

 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR14 Book 29: "Ti kniver i hjertet" (Ten knives in the heart) av Nora Dåsnes

Page count: 250 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

Tuva is about to start seventh grade (age 11-12 here in Norway) and is very much looking forward to seeing her best friends Linnea and Bao and catching up after a long summer apart. She shares all of her hopes and fears writing and drawing in her diary. 

When she gets back to school, however, nothing is as she was expecting. Linnea has a boyfriend now, and doesn't really want to hang out, playing in their secret treehouse in the woods. She just wants to talk about boys, and lipgloss and tries to make Tuva figure out who her type is. Bao wants nothing to do with all the talk about boys and girly stuff, and soon Tuva is torn between her two best friends.

Tuva isn't all that interested in boys or makeup, she still likes listening to music and playing in the woods and spending time with Bao. But she's also rather dazzled by Linnea's pretty older sister, who has an Instagram account and wants to be an influencer. In the really rather difficult phase between being a child and a young adult, Tuva is easily swayed by ideas of how a girl should behave, who and what she should like. She doesn't want to have to pick sides when her two friends seem to have diametrically opposite viewpoints. Then a new girl starts in her class, and Tuva begins to feel some of the stuff Linnea has been going on about - but can a girl really be "her type"?

While there is a hint of queer romance in this story, the main themes are the difficult friendships between girls and the very confusing process of coming of age, when you're no longer exactly a carefree child, when hormones make you confused and you're not quite old enough to be a teenager either. This is Nora Dåsnes' debut graphic novel, aimed at at a younger audience than her YA graphic novel Ubesvart Anrop. The themes here are less heavy than the collective grief of a nation, survivor guilt and depression, but they are still important for young readers to face head-on. 

As a teacher in secondary school, I teach kids in 8th to 10th grade. They come to our school when they are 12 or 13 years old, and many are still very immature and rather childish. By the time they graduate at the end of 10th grade, they are 15 or 16 and have gone through massive changes, both physically and emotionally. It's both a fascinating and deeply frustrating age to be responsible for their learning. While these girls are a year younger than the kids I teach, it's really not just a myth that a lot of girls mature faster than boys (by no means all, but in many cases). So it seems realistic that this sort of identity crisis between who one is and who one is going to become might happen earlier for a lot of girls. 

I thought this was a stand-alone story, but it turns out that Dåsnes had been working on a sequel for a while now, showing the further adventures of the three girls. In the new book, which was released only a few weeks ago, Bao gets involved in school politics to save the river and woods behind the school, so it sounds like one of the major themes is environmentalism. It's nice to know that someone is making engaging and well-told stories for middle graders. I hope that Dåsnes has a long and successful career ahead of her.

Judging a book by its cover: I like Dåsnes' art and the cover gives a good idea of what it looks like. It's a cute cover with inviting colours. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR13 Book 53: "Lumberjanes, vol 1: Beware the Kitten Holy" by Noelle Stevenson and Grace Ellis

Page count: 128 pages

Rating: 4 stars

CBR13 Bingo: The Wilds

Official book description:
FRIENDSHIP TO THE MAX!
At Miss Qiunzilla Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet’s camp for hard-core lady-types, things are not what they seem. Three-eyed foxes. Secret caves. Anagrams. Luckily, Jo, April, Mal, Molly, and Ripley are five rad, butt-kicking best pals determined to have an awesome summer together… And they’re not gonna let a magical quest or an array of supernatural critters get in their way! The mystery keeps getting bigger, and it all begins here.

I’m not outdoorsy in the slightest. Like even a little bit. I pretty much resent having to go outside into the woods, which makes me a very atypical Norwegian. So I was never in any form of Scouts. I know my husband was in the Scouts growing up in the north of England and it sounds like there was a lot of hiking and sleeping outdoors in all sorts of horrible conditions, not to mention extremely ruthless games of Capture the Flag where people may or may not have gotten limbs broken. So I can’t really relate to the five hard-core young lady types that we meet in this book, because spending a summer at a camp in the woods sounds like some sort of special hell for me. 

Nevertheless, this book, which has been on my TBR list since at least 2016 and on my physical bookshelf since mid-2018 was a wonderful portrayal of why some types of outdoorsy adventuresome persuasion (as well as the Lumberjanes, there's a camp of suspiciously friendly guys who may or may not be possessed by something) might enjoy camp life. Each issue is introduced by an excerpt from the Lumberjanes Field Guide, explaining the skills that they are meant to achieve, all at least tangentially relevant to the adventure they go on in the issue.

I wish there were more than four issues collected in this first trade. Thankfully, I have the next two in my collection and can get more volumes at my local library. It's taken me a very long time to start this comic, but I'm looking forward to reading more and getting to know the five young protagonists better.

Judging a Book by its Cover: The cover image is done by Noelle Stevenson herself, and at the back of the trade, there are a number of variant covers that were also really interesting. I like Stevenson's art and the slightly off-beat looks of all the various Lumberjanes. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR11 Books 35-36: "Ms. Marvel, vol 3: Crushed" and "Ms. Marvel, vol 4: Last Days" by G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona and others

Total page count: 240 pages

#CBR11 Bingo: Illustrated

Ms. Marvel, vol 3: Crushed - 4 stars

Kamala faces a new, terrifying threat: Excessive feelings!

Love is in the air in Jersey City as Valentine’s Day arrives! Kamala Khan may not be allowed to go to the school dance, but Ms. Marvel is! Well sort of--by crashing it in an attempt to capture Asgard’s most annoying trickster! Yup, it’s a special Valentine’s Day story featuring Marvel’s favorite charlatan, Loki! And when a mysterious stranger arrives in Jersey City, Ms. Marvel must deal with...a crush! Because this new kid is really, really cute. What are these feelings, Kamala Khan? Prepare for drama! Intrigue! Romance! Suspense! Punching things! All this and more! The fan-favorite, critically acclaimed, amazing new series continues as Kamala Khan proves why she’s the best (and most adorable) new super hero there is! Plus, see what happens when S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jemma Simmons goes undercover at Kamala’s school!

While the first two trades explained how Kamala got her superpowers and figured out her costume, and how to hide her secret identity (from nearly everyone), this trade deals more with the fact that Kamala is a teenage girl, who frequently crush on cute boys. The boy in question is the son of family friends, who Kamala is initially none too excited to meet (who wants someone your parents heartily approve of), but he turns out to have grown up hot, and Kamala is smitten. Then she discovers that there is more that meets the eye about him as well, but alas, a happy romance isn't in the cards for our heroine. Her crush is more of a supervillain in training than a fellow superhero, which isn't exactly a good thing.

There is also a minor subplot with Bruno, Kamala's best friend, with his unrequited crush on Kamala, being told that whether Kamala returns his feelings or no, her family are never going to accept him as a proper suitor for her. They are from different cultures and religions, and while Kamala is a teenage girl growing up in New Jersey, she's also a devout Muslim girl. Her parents would not want her to date a non-Muslim boy. Of course, they don't know that their suitable candidate is a villainous douchebag, but that's a different issue altogether.

We also get to see the current comics incarnation of Loki in the first issue of this trade. He's rather different from the movie version, played by the lovely Tom Hiddleston, but ever the naughty trickster god nonetheless. I also liked the little hints we got about the current power structures in Asgard, no Allfather in charge there. There was a also a pretty throwaway issue crossing over with the Agents o S.H.I.E.L.D, which might have made more of an impact on me if I a) had watched so much as an episode of the TV show (I have not) or b) read more Marvel universe comics (I have not).

Ms. Marvel, vol 4: Last Days - 4.5 stars

From the moment Kamala put on her costume, she's been challenged. But nothing has prepared her for this: the last days of the Marvel Universe. Lucky she's got the help of Carol "Captain Marvel" Danvers! Between teaming up with her personal hero to rescue her brother and trying to keep her city from falling into an all-out frenzy, Kamala has barely had time to come to terms with the fact that the world is literally collapsing around her. But the truth will catch up to her, and soon. When the world is about to end, do you still keep fighting? Kamala knows the answer. Let's do this, Jersey City.

I'm deducting half a star because while the actual Ms. Marvel issues of this were top-notch and really excellent, there is also a not-very-interesting Spider-man crossover included, which just feels entirely out of place after the fairly serious emotional stuff we've read just before.

A big alien planet has appeared in the sky and things are getting very chaotic. Kamala gets to team up with her biggest hero, Captain Marvel (it's just as adorable and heart-warming as you can imagine). As of yet, Ms. Marvel is not really one of the heavy hitters of the Marvel Universe, and therefore sticks to trying to keep her own little part of New Jersey safe (this feels much more realistic than if she'd been off with a full Avengers team or something).

The impending doom of the situation also makes it necessary for her to take stock of what really matters to her and she has some very emotional scenes with both friends and family. There's an especially moving scene involving her mother (I may have cried a bit) and it just emphasised exactly why I love this comic so much and keep reading it. G. Willow Wilson balances the big, action-packed sequences with less spectacular quiet moments, which nevertheless pack serious emotional punches so well. I'm very excited to see where the comic goes next.

Judging the books by their covers: There's one rather fun and silly cover here, and one rather dark, gloomy and serious. While the cover for Last Days is fine and very atmospheric, I still prefer the more light-hearted and comical one for Crushed. Sadly, I'm too lazy to look up the artists for each to credit them here - sorry guys.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 104: "The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, vol 1: Squirrel Power" by Ryan North and Erica Henderson - DOUBLE CANNONBALL

Page count: 128 pages
Rating: 5 stars

Meet Doreen Green, aka Squirrel Girl. She's been living in the attic of the Avengers headquarters, but now she's ready to go to move out and go to college. Accompanied by her trusty squirrel sidekick, Tippy-toe, aka Tippy, she's ready for the challenges of higher education and keeping her super-identity secret. Her new roommate Nancy Whitehead seems mostly interested in knitting and her kitten Mew. Even before she's had time to get properly settled, Doreen has to save the campus from Kraven the Hunter, and shortly after, she's alerted by her squirrel friends that Galactus is on his way towards Earth, and she has less than two hours to stop him. Luckily, by borrowing some Iron Man suit parts from her old pal Tony Stark (who doesn't seem all that happy about it) she manages to make herself a suit. Now she just needs to make Whiplash go away and persuade Galactus that he needs to take his business elsewhere. Doreen's biggest challenge at college so far, though? Talking to cute boys.

Before reading this, I vaguely knew that there was a superhero in the Marvel Universe by the name of Squirrel Girl. As mentioned in my review for Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, my husband is a much bigger classics comics fan than I am, be it Marvel or DC and he's a huge fan of the many creations of Steve Ditko. I think I'd seen pictures of the famous panel where Squirrel Girl defeats supervillain Doctor Doom by having him overrun with her squirrels, but until I read the bonus issue included at the end of this collection, I'd never really experienced the awesome confidence of this rather off-beat superheroine. The modern reinterpretations of Doreen and her squirrels is much more to my liking, but it was fun to see her "origin story", so to speak.

Seriously, this comic was utterly delightful from beginning to end. Doreen's theme-song (which heavily borrows from the Spider-Man theme), her secret powers, the running meta-commentary at the bottom of each page, the fact that Doreen's roommate loves cats and knitting (and has a gift for snark), the letters pages (which I normally like something that should just be skipped), the writing, the excellent art - I am completely won over and adore this comic. I think I love The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl more than Ms Marvel, and that's a pretty impressive feat after just one volume. My Christmas wish list this year will absolutely be featuring more of Doreen's books, because in this super bleak world we're currently in, I need all the colourful, funny and happy comics I can get. Highly recommended!

Oh yeah, I finally completed my double Cannonball! Honesty forces me to admit I finished this comic more than a month ago, I just seem to have lost the ability to make myself to do anything other than binge watch Parks and Recreation or constantly update my Twitter feed, it seems.

Judging a book by its cover: Erica Henderson's art is SO good throughout this comic, and the cover shows you a little tast of that. I adore that Doreen, aka Squirrel Girl isn't built like an emaciated supermodel, but looks like an actual person and is cutely quirky at that. Having Doreen and Tippy on the cover, with Doreen dreaming of all the adoration she'll recieve from her fellow superheroes seems extremely fitting, she's certainly extremely awesome and deserves wide-spread fame and praise.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 103: "Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, vol 1: BFF" by Amy Reeder, Brandon Montclare and Natacha Busos

Page count: 160 pages
Rating: 4 stars

From the back blurb:

Lunella Lafayette is an Inhuman preteen genius who wants to change the world! That job would be a lot easier if she wasn't living in mortal fear of her latent inhuman gene. There's no telling what she'll turn into - but Luna's got a plan. All she needs is an Omni-Wave Projector. Easy, right?

That is, until a red-scaled beast is teleported from the prehistoric past to a far flung future we call...today! Together they are the most Marvellous Team-Up of all - the Inhuman Moon Girl and time-tossed Devil Dinosaur! But will they be BFFs forever, or just until DDs dinner time?

And Lunella soon learns that there are other problems with having a titanic T. Rex as a pet in the modern-day Marvel universe. School, for one. Monster hunters are another - especially when they are the Totally Awesome Hulk! Then there's the fact that everyone's favourite dino didn't journey through time alone. Beware the prehistoric savages known as the Killer Folk - New York City's deadliest tourists! Can Lunella handle all this turmoil...and keep herself from transforming into an Inhuman monster?

To begin this review, I think it's helpful background to say that my husband is a HUGE fan of everything Jack Kirby. This is not all that unusual, Jack Kirby is an undisputed genius when it comes to comics creating, and while Stan Lee is still alive and gets to gurn his way through obligatory cameos in every single Marvel movie, Kirby's legacy isn't always addressed in the same way. Of all the Marvel movies put to screen so far, it's probably the Thor movies that have incorporated the most of the Kirby aesthetic, and brilliant New Zealand directer Taika Waititi has gone the furthest to fully embrace both the design and sometimes full on nutty plot shenanigans of Kirby on screen, with Thor: Ragnarok. My husband was beyond delighted, that's for sure.

Now, I don't really like Kirby's stuff as much as my husband, possibly because I'm really just not that big a fan of the grand Silver Age of comics (and all the DC stuff with the Fourth World just mainly bores me - although I acknowledge that DC's Darkseid is a much cooler villain than his obvious Marvel rip-off Thanos, and Big Barda kicks ass, no matter how boring her husband is). One comic of his that just delights me no end, however is the original Devil Dinosaur. The plot is so so, I am just completely taken with the big red dinosaur and his adventures with the clever Moon Boy. That I'm a fan of Devil Dinosaur should not be a surprise to anyone who has seen my avatar in a number of places - it's that fierce lizard stomping in a very memorable fashion.

So I was always going to want to read this re imagining of Devil Dinosaur, pairing him not with another male side-kick (because Moon Boy is most certainly the side-kick), but with a fiercely intelligent girl of colour. Marvel has been kicking ass all over the place in terms of representation for various minorities for years now (Miles Morales as Spider-Man, Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel, Sam Wilson as the current Captain America, Black Panther, the newest Iron Man being Riri Williams, a teenage girl of colour, to name but a few). As Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur seems clearly geared towards a slightly younger audience than some of their other comics, making the heroine both a budding super scientist (with a secret lab deep under her school) and black is a big deal. For a lot of young women of colour, that sort of representation matters a lot (this reviewer says sagely from her extremely privileged middle aged white cis-gendered perspective).

For all that this is a comic possibly aimed at more middle grade readers, there was some surprising violence within the pages. Devil Dinosaur's original sidekick, ol' Moon Boy is disposed of in a rather gruesome fashion (RIP Moon Boy - long live Lunella, the Moon Girl), which seemed almost needlessly harsh to me. There's a lot of themes that should be recognisable to teens - overbearing and overprotective parents, teachers who just don't understand, classmates who are prone to bullying - Lunella has a lot to deal with, even before she gets a rampaging T. Rex to take care of.

Now, I really know little to nothing about Marvel's Inhumans (and the dire reviews of the current TV-series has not in any way made me tempted to use that as a way to find out more). I know that some of them have appeared briefly in the pages of Ms Marvel (who is also Inhuman, I think?), but I honestly am not sure why Lunella lives in such constant terror of having her latent gene activated. Some of them go bad or monstrous, I guess? If Kamala Khan is in fact one of the Inhumans, they seem pretty cool to me, but Lunella's driving force throughout this whole first collection of comics is to figure out a way to stop herself from becoming Inhuman, while also befriending the time displaced Devil Dinosaur, and eventually taking on the equally displaced prehistoric bullies The Killer Folk (who adapt from the Stone Age to modern day New York admirably quickly).

This was a fun comic, and I am absolutely going to want to read more, especially to get my fix of my favourite big red lizard. I love that guy.

Judging a book by its cover: The cover is fairly minimalistic, as comics covers go. Just super cute Lunella in her school gear, and Devil's giant head. Now, some might say that Lunella is bending forward to give Devil Dinosaur a kiss, but that seems very unlikely with our unsentimental scientist heroine. Most likely, she's just trying to observe something on his nose up close.
  Crossposted on Cannonball Read

#CBR8 Book 84: "Red Sonja, vol 1: Queen of Plagues" by Gail Simone and Walter Geovani

Page count: 160 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Red Sonja, the legendary She-Devil with a Sword, returns to Corinthia, to repay the blood-debt she owes to its ruler. Facing a battle against impossible odds, Sonja nonetheless agrees to lead what remains of Corinthia's fighting forces against its enemies, and comes face to face with Dark Annisia, a woman from her past. Having to face crushing defeat on the battlefield, unable to keep her promises to a man who once saved her life, Sonja is exiled and doomed to die. Always a fighter, even the plague cannot stop Red Sonja, who returns from the wilderness to wreak her vengeance.

Red Sonja, created by Robert E. Howard in the 1930s, is pretty much the archetypal barbarian warrior woman now. Known for her mane of red hair, her chainmail bikini and her prowess on the battlefield, Red Sonja has been a pulp heroine in books, a really bad movie and several comic books. In this, Gail Simone's reboot of the character, we get her origin story, several blood-soaked battles and more than enough sword and sorcery. Simone's Sonja is a cranky loner with a serious drinking habit, who despite her ridiculous fashion choices is able to take down seasoned warriors with ease. The book balances several dark storylines with a fair amount of comic relief and while Sonja's costume may be exploitative, this is a feminist comic book with a lot of themes of female empowerment throughout.

The book is fun enough, and the art is absolutely gorgeous, but I never really emotionally connected with the characters and even when the story was at its darkest and tensest, I wasn't all that bothered with how things were going to play out. Of the many Gail Simone comics I have read, this was one of the more forgettable. Maybe pulpy sword and sorcery wasn't exactly what I wanted at the specific time I read it? Who knows? If my budget allows, I may keep reading it, but it's not going to be lower down on my list of comics purchases in the future.

Judging a book by its cover: All the covers in the trade are done by Jenny Frison, who strikes an interesting balance between functional and exploitative. While she is wearing her trademark chainmail bikini (seriously, the chafing, why would you choose to fight in this?), she is also portrayed as decisive, strong and capable. On the red cross-piece, the readers get a glimpse of the two principal female characters in the book in a more action-packed part of the story.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.
 

#CBR8 Book 79: "Hawkeye: My Life as a Weapon" by Matt Fraction, David Aja and Javier Pulido

Page count: 136 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

I didn't know a whole lot about Hawkeye outside of the Marvel comic book movies, where he's clearly an excellent bowman and reclusive family man, but also Black Widow's wise-quipping sidekick. I've heard good things about Matt Fraction's run on this comic for years, and since it was on our shelf, this summer seemed like the right time to finally check it out. I'm so glad I did.

In the comic, Hawkeye, or Clint Barton as he's known when he's not a part of the Avengers, is not a family man. In the first issue of this trade (the first five issues and a special of Young Avengers, showing how Kate Bishop and Hawkeye first met), he gets a dog, but he appears to live alone and be quite content with that. The closest thing he has to a family is Kate Bishop, his young protegee, who may be the only one in the world as good as (or even better with) arrows than he is.

In my review of the first volume of Captain Marvel, I complained that I didn't really find out much about who she was as a person, or what the exact nature of her powers were (I found out later that apparently while it is labelled as volume 1, it's strictly speaking more like volume 4 in the ongoing Kelly Sue DeConnick-written adventures of Captain Marvel, which would probably explain why it felt like I was missing a LOT - bad marketing move there, guys). This is more what I expected from the first trade about a superhero (albeit a human one with no actual superpowers, just a dedicated training regime and amazing archery skills).

Matt Fraction writes a very likable Hawkeye, who will risk his own safety to rescue a dog in traffic, spend a lot of his own money to save the people in his neighbourhood from being evicted, who will team up with his teenage sidekick to outsmart a circus full of bad guys, can easily escape car chase with his quiver full of seemingly useless novelty arrows, is quite the ladies man, and occasionally a very decent secret agent and decoy. I loved the action and humour, the easy-going relationship between Clint and Kate (although the Young Avengers story at the end was my least favourite of the issues in the trade) and seeing some of the stuff Barton might get up to when he's not one of the more physically vulnerable of the Avengers. The writing is clever and fun and the art was also very well done. With a colour palette of mostly dark colours, the comic gets a noir aesthetic which adds to my enjoyment.

Sadly, because the Oslo public library system seems to mainly prioritise NORWEGIAN books (strange that) and not really American superhero comics of any kind, the husband and I have to buy all the comics and graphic novels we read. So while I really want more of this, I suspect I'm going to have to wait a while (as we've spent well over our summer budget already while in New York).

Judging a book by its cover: I think the mostly black and white, rather stark cover, with the purple (Hawkeye's signature colour) details in the form of bullseyes (cause he's an archer, see what they did there?) is really eye-catching and cool. The art style mirrors that inside the comic really well and while the use of arrows in the font can be a bit seen as a bit hokey, I like it.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR8 Book 77-78: "Chew, vol 2: International Flavor" and "Chew, vol 3: Just Desserts" by John Layman and Rob Guillory

Total page count: 256 pages
Chew, vol 2: 4 stars
Chew, vol 3: 3 stars

Chew is a truly strange comic book where a lot of the characters have abilities out of the ordinary with regards to food and drink. Tony Chu, our hero, is cibopathic. This means that he gets a psychic impression from everything he ingests. This can mean that he can picture the tree an apple came from or see the field a vegetable was grown in and how it came to be harvested, or he can experience the last moments of a pig before it's slaughtered and turned into sausage. The only thing that doesn't give off a psychic impression? Beets. Tony eats a LOT of beets.

Because of his unusual powers, Tony is a detective with the Special Crimes Division of the FDA, which is the most powerful law enforcement agency in the world in this comics universe. He can get psychic impressions by taking a bite of anything left at the crime scene (very often dead bodies). A few years ago (in this world) a bird flu pandemic swept the world, meaning that chicken has been totally banned for human consumption. As a result, people do the craziest things to get some. There are chicken smugglers, underground chicken restaurants and all sorts of shenanigans.

I read the first volume of Chew, Taster's Choice back in December 2012 (it was a Christmas present from the husband). In that book, Chu is recruited into the FDA and paired up with a cibopathic partner. After a lot of bad (and occasionally disgusting) stuff goes down, Tony's partner reveals himself to be rather unstable, and goes rogue. Tony's former partner from the Philadelphia PD, John Colby, is hit in the face with a large meat cleaver. At the start of book 2, International Flavor, we discover that John didn't die, but instead had state of the art surgery and thanks to several bionic upgrades is not only still alive, but now also works for the FDA. He is, in fact, Tony's new partner!

Tony's boss, Captain Appelbee, hates him (I suspect the reasons for this are made obvious in book 1, but I can't remember). He keeps trying to send him on any assignment that involves Tony having to ingest something truly disgusting. At the beginning of book 2, Colby saves Chu from having to taste a sample from a very large pile of poo found at a crime scene, by insisting on using good old-fashioned detective work (and his new bionic upgrades) to solve the case. This also leads to their discovery of a new fruit, which tastes just like chicken when cooked.

Tony takes a holiday and travels to the island paradise of Yamapalu to find out more about this mysterious new product. Also on the island is his brother, Chow Chu, a five star gourmet chef, recently hired by a new resort hotel. Once on Yamapalu, Tony meets a rival cop, from the USDA. She is investigating the disappearance of several world class chefs and Tony starts getting worried about his brother's safety. The USDA agent thinks the missing chefs are somehow connected to the recent discovery of the fruit, called Gallus Sapadillo or 'galsberry', on the island. Since it was found, the governor of the island has banned chicken of all kinds, in his attempts to make the fruit a viable chicken substitute. The USDA agent suspects foul play of some sort.

Then she turns up dead, and Tony was seen very publicly fighting her shortly before her death. Chu is arrested, but once his name is cleared, he teams up with police chief Raymond Kulolo. While imprisoned, Tony (after biting one of his fellow cell mates in self defence when said goon tried to beat the crap out of him) discovers that several of the recent deaths on the formerly peaceful island are because of people trying to locate a very special fighting rooster, Poyo, used in an underground cock fighting ring on the island. Chu and Kulolo team up to track down the mighty Poyo, while Tony also tries to prevent something sinister happening to his brother.

Book 3, Just Desserts, is a lot more episodic and therefore read as a lot more disjointed. Tony Chu is now dating Amelia Mintz, a food writer who is a Saboscrivner. She can write about food so accurately that people get an actual sensation of taste when reading about the meals she describes. For Tony, who is overwhelmed by psychic sensations every time he eats or drinks anything that isn't beets, Amelia's writing is his only way to experience food like normal people. The first issue is them going on their first date, undercover at an exclusive dining club, where the members try to eat as many endangered species as possible. The book also sees the return of former police chief of Yamapalu, Raymond Kulolo, although this time, he's dead. We also meet Poyo the battle rooster again. Finally, in this book, we get to meet more of Tony's family. We discover that he's a twin, whose sister is known as Toni (I loved this) and that there are a whole host of different family members, not all too happy with Tony's job. His rogue former partner also makes an appearance, setting up for things to come in later books, I suspect.

I really like the strange and oddball characters and the really unusual world building in this comic. Tony Chu is a really nice protagonist and his special power is both cool and a bit depressing. Being able to eat nothing but beets seems pretty dreary, even if it gives him a unique edge at work. He can identify a murderer easily enough, but it means resorting to actual cannibalism. The writing is witty and fun, and the art by Rob Guillory is absolutely excellent. While things can get a bit disgusting at times (seriously, some of the stuff Chu has to eat), the stories are mostly very entertaining and I can't wait to see what comes next for Tony, John, Amelia and the others.

Judging a book by its cover: The covers of these two trades will give you some impression of the artwork inside. Book 2 shows Tony and his new partly bionic partner, John, while also showing us the island of Yamapalu, depicted in exactly the same shape as the pile of dung that Tony's boss hopes he'll be forced to take a bite of to solve the first crime of the book. The third book shows Amelia and Tony at dinner in the first story, with Tony's first cibopathic partner looming ominously over them behind the table. I really like these covers, just as I love the in-comic art.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR8 Book 76: "Captain Marvel, vol 1: Higher, Further, Faster, More" by Kelly Sue DeConnick and David Lopez

Page count: 136 pages
Rating: 3 stars

Carol Danvers, who is apparently a hot-shot pilot and one of the Avengers, lives in the crown of the Statue of Liberty (you can do that?) with her sister and niece. When the Avengers find an escape pod from a spaceship with an alien refugee inside it, they decide that Carol be the one to return the girl to her homeworld, as well as take up a more permanent presence in space as a representative for the Avengers Initiative. As she returns the girl to her home planet, she discovers that they are in dire need of help, as much of the populace (already relocated from another planet) is sick and dying. Now the aliens are fighting another forced resettlement and Carol decides to help them.

Considering this is the first trade of a new Captain Marvel run, extremely little was done to explain who Carol Danvers is or what her powers are. At the end of the first issue, there is a brief one page explanation of how she ended up where she is (rendered as a child's drawing), but I really didn't think I learned enough to really feel like I got to know the character. She's brave, she can fly, she's apparently part alien. She likes Star Wars, she has a cat called Chewie (who may or may not be some sort of alien beastie that Rocket Raccoon really wants to murder) and she's a very good pilot. She was possibly in a relationship with Rhodey, the Iron Patriot, but decided to go off and live in space for an unspecified amount of time instead. I just don't think I was given enough to decide whether I even like this character or not.

This trade collects the first five issues of the run and I sadly found the story a bit too disjointed and confusing to entirely engage me. It starts with a dramatic action set-piece and then flashes back to several weeks previous. There is a guest appearance by the Guardians of the Galaxy (who I now care a lot more about because of the movie). I had trouble caring about what happened, even if there were quite a few quips and the art was well done throughout. I wasn't expecting a full and drawn-out origin story just because this was the first trade in an ongoing series, but a bit more back story would have been appreciated. As it is, I'm not sure I care enough about Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel to seek out further issues of this. I have enough ongoing comic books to follow as it is.

Judging a book by its cover: Fairly dynamic cover pose. Carol Danvers with a bit of a Natalie Dormer smirk pulling on gloves and looking bad-ass. I very much appreciate that unlike so many female superhero costumes, there is nothing gratuitous or exploitative about Captain Marvel's costume. It's functional and practical.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

#CBR8 Book 73: "Bone" by Jeff Smith

Page count: 1341 pages
Rating: 4 stars

The three Bone cousins Fone Bone (renamed Hero Bone in my head), Smiley Bone (Comic Relief Bone) and Phoney Bone (Greedy, or frequently Insufferable, Bone) have been driven out of their home town of Boneville because Phoney Bone had some sort of get rich quick scheme and scammed the entire town, and now an angry mob has driven them off. They are wandering in the wilderness when they are attacked by a huge swarm of locusts and end up in a mysterious forest in a valley, separated for quite some time.

Fone Bone befriends a small leaf-like bug called Ted and meets a large red dragon, before he is introduced to a pretty girl, Thorn, and her grandma Rose. He also encounters furry, sharp-toothed, pointy-eared rat creatures, who would very much like to eat him. He is eventually re-united with his cousins, who are working in the local tavern at Barrelhaven. As Phoney tries to make himself rich by fixing the betting for the annual cow race, Thorn keeps having strange dreams about her past. It also seems like there are strange and sinister things afoot with the rat creatures, their leader Kingdok, and a mysterious hooded individual, all looking for the Phoney Bone, who wears a star on his shirt.

As Thorn is alerted to the fact that dragons are in fact real, her dreams start coming all the more frequently, and she remembers more about her past, before she ended up in the remote valley with her grandma. She discovers that her grandmother has been lying to her all her life and that there is a reason the rat creatures and the Hooded One are after both Phoney Bone and her for a reason. Can Fone Bone and his cousins help Thorn achieve her destiny? Can they stop the sinister Lord of the Locusts from rising and destroying the world? Will Phoney ever stop trying super annoying Get Rich Quick schemes and making himself unpopular with everyone around him?

I bought my mammoth collected edition of Bone so many years ago I don't even remember not owning it. Have I ever read it before now? That would be a resounding no. Collecting the 55 issues (and nine different books) of the fantasy adventure comic, my edition is a whopping 1341 pages and that makes for quite the unwieldy reading experience. Every time I've considered starting it, I've looked at the size of the book and reconsidered. So in the great comics read of 2016, it was imperative that I finally read this huge book, which I think has moved house with me at least twice.

For the first third or so of the book, I was not impressed. The book starts slow and spends way too long with the Bones just plodding around doing nothing in some remote village. I think Phoney convincing Smiley to dress up like a cow so they can rig the cow race, or Fone Bone wandering around, moonstruck and infatuated with Thorn, writing atrocious love poetry are things that are supposed to be funny, but to me it was just annoying and puerile. It was painfully obvious from the very beginning, even before it was revealed that Thorn had mysterious dreams, what her actual origin was and I would have like the comic so much more if the main focus had been on her and the power struggle with the Lord of the Locusts, instead of countless digressions featuring hapless bald gnome-like beings making me want to tear my hair out.

Once the quest to restore Thorn to her rightful place in the world begins, and there's war brewing and an army of rat creatures and soforth, and Fone Bone stops believing that he could EVER have a chance with a human girl (I have no idea what sort of creatures the Bones are supposed to be, but an inter-species romance between them and humans seems pretty far-fetched, and this is coming from someone who has read any number of shifter romances) and just gets with the helping her program, the book gets a lot better. That Phoney Bone is off-screen for literally hundreds of pages and I don't have to read about his greedy schemes to defraud others was also a plus.

The art is absolutely spectacular. The main fantasy adventure story, when it actually kicks off, is really fun. This book once again reminded me how much I absolutely loathe the trope of early fantasy (thanks Tolkien!) of spending hundreds and hundreds of pages of set-up where nothing much of any importance happens before we get to the good stuff. I am way happier now that most fantasy no longer utilises this trope.

Thorn is quite an engaging heroine and it's not her fault that anyone who's read more than two fantasy narratives ever can tell what her story is from the page she first appears. When Smiley Bone was separated from Phoney and stopped being just idiotic Comic Relief, he was actually very sweet. Even Phoney Bone wasn't a complete waste of space. He clearly actually cares for his cousins and it is explained further into the story that the three are orphans, with Phoney being the eldest, always trying to protect the other two. When he's not actively trying to scam someone to make himself rich (something like 90% of all his appearances in the book), he's not too bad. Grandma Rose was a pretty cool lady, although she appears to have supernatural strength, speed and healing ability, considering the feats she achieves over the course of the story.

I was seriously unsure of what rating to give this collection. If I was only rating the first third, I would probably have ended up on 2 stars. But as the story gets going, it really is very engaging and there are some cool twists and turns. I did come to really like the two cowardly sentry rat creatures, and Bartleby was a darling. I also developed a strange affection for Kingdok, the giant, toothy-grinned leader of the rat creatures, even though he's clearly one of the villains. The art really is so beautiful throughout and if I'd read this as a young teenager, when I had a lot more patience for slow set-ups, I would probably have loved the whole thing. There is a lot of humour (even though I personally found a lot of it annoying rather than funny. According to my husband, I am crazy for not liking the stupid cow race), which is nice, especially because so much fantasy nowadays is all grim and dark. As I can't start with quarter stars (that way madness lies), and the book is better than 3.5, a full four stars it is.

Judging a book by its cover: Sadly, having seen some of the other covers for the collected edition of Bone, I think my edition has one of the most boring and plain covers of the various editions. Fone Bone sitting alone on a rock in the forest. On the back cover, there are little colourized pictures of Phoney, Thorn, Smiley, the Red Dragon and Kingdok, and on the spine, you can see one of the rat creatures attacking Fone Bone in the woods (that's the picture that seems to be the actual cover image on several editions). I wish my book had looked a bit more exciting.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR8 Book 71: "Bitch Planet, vol 1: Extraordinary Machine" by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine DeLandro

Page count: 156 pages
Rating: 4 stars

"In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth. Mother Earth, we used to say, before we understood. Space is the mother who receives us, you see? Earth is the father. And your father has cast you out. For your trespasses, your gluttony, your pride, your weakness, and your wickedness are such that you are beyond correction and castigation. Like a cancer you must be excised from the world that bore you. For the well-being of us all, lest your sickness spread. You will live out your lives in penitence and service here..."

These are the words, read by a woman, that the women sent to the Auxilliary Compliance Outpost, an off-world prison colony, more colloquially known as "Bitch Planet". Who is deemed non-compliant? It could be as the back cover of the trade paperback says anyone who doesn't fit in their patriarchally-assigned box, be they too fat, too thin, too loud, too shy, too religious, too secular, too prudish, too sexual, too queer, too black, too brown, or too whatever-it-is-they'll-judge-you-for-today. Compliant women all seem to be thin, demure, white and blond.

The world is controlled by the "Fathers" and anyone who doesn't fit into their ever-changing images of what a good, submissive and compliant little female should be, is sent away to prison. It is a world that wouldn't work if many women didn't also conform to these crazy standards, helping the men police their sisters, mothers, daughters, supporting the internalized patriarchy.

In the first five issues, collected in Extraordinary Machine, we meet a number of women sent to Bitch Planet, and get some glimpses into what some of them did to be deemed non-compliant enough to be imprisoned. Some of the women are offered a flimsy chance at freedom, offered to form a team and compete in the hugely popular, much betted-on, universally televised sport Megaton. Kamau Kogo, a former athlete, now accused of a murder she didn't commit, is asked to assemble a team. She initially refuses, but is persuaded to change her mind by other women in the prison, who want to grasp at the tender straw of hope the proposal brings.

So many Cannonballers have already written excellent and much-more eloquent reviews of this book than I can manage. El Cicco, SavageCat, Narfna, Emmalita, Yesknopemaybe, Jenny S, Alwaysanswerb and Bonnie. It's difficult to come up with anything clever and insightful that one (or several of them) hasn't already said. This is an important, angry and deeply feminist comic. It has many important messages about the way toxic patriarchy brings women down and how it brain-washes ladies into buying into the lies, so many of them in turn help oppress fellow women. The writing is good, the art is deliberately pulpy. The "adverts" at the end of each issue are subversive and great, but also provide terrifying facts about domestic abuse and violence against women in the US today.

I don't know when the next trade is out, but I shall keep my eyes open.

Judging a Book by its cover: Each of the issues of Bitch Planet have stylised and pulpy covers, reminiscent, as Emmalita points out in her review, of the cheap pop art of “girls, girls, girls” comics. There is the silhouette of a full-figured lady who is clearly non-compliant, giving both middle fingers to the world. The pink background shows some of the prisoners on the right side of the silhouette, with the  prison guards and their terrifying busty, and leggy Confessor Nun in a chair with her legs crossed. Above the silhouette's head, naked women wearing helmets, fighting. "Are you woman enough to survive?" "Girl Gangs...Caged and Enraged" printed at various places across the cover, again, calling to mind pulpy exploitation comics. It's a good cover, for a very good book.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 146: "Ms Marvel, vol 1: No Normal" by G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona

Page count: 120 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Kamala Khan is a pretty ordinary geeky teenager from Jersey City, until she's suddenly given the extraordinary powers of the superhero Ms. Marvel. She's both excited and confused. Can a Muslim girl even be a superhero? She certainly feels that the outfit could be a bit less revealing. How is she going to combine the responsibilities of fighting crime, rescuing people and righting wrongs if she also has to worry about obeying her parents and keeping cerfew?

Before she's even entirely aware what she's doing, she uses her powers to save a class mate. The press catches wind of it, and soon everyone is wondering about the identity of the new Ms. Marvel. After trying to rescue her friend Bruno from a botched convenience store robbery, he discovers her new secret identity and promises to help her in any way he can. There's some hints about a sinister new villain, but as this trade only collects the first five volumes, it's mainly an origin story.

I really liked Kamala and while I've seen a lot of people claim that all the other characters are stereotypes, I'm not sure I agree. I would assume that since G. Willow Wilson herself is a Muslim, she's a bit more sensitive to the cultural stereotypes than some other authors might be. I work with teenagers from many religions, and thought most of the teen characters rang true. Stereotypes are built on generalities, but a lot of girls of Pakistani descent DO have protective parents. Their brothers are traditionally allowed a lot more freedom and it can be a tricky thing to have a foot in two cultures.

The comic is fun, but not perfect. I'm still not entirely sure how or why Kamala actually got her superpowers, that bit was a bit vague. I am assuming that the supporting cast will be fleshed out as necessary in future issues and that readers will also discover the motivations of the villain. I don't know a whole lot about the Marvel comics universe, having only really watched the films, but am unsure if this is the comic that will really make me more familiar with the whole of it. I supect it will mainly focus on Kamala's adventures in Jersey City. The series certainly seems more diverse in its representation than a lot of comics, and is clearly aimed more at a middle grade to YA audience. It's still refreshing to see a comic about a young woman that doesn't play up the physical aspect or overly sexualise her. I liked the writing and the art, and will be looking for the next volume soon.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR5 Book 95. "How to Tell if Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You" by The Oatmeal

Page count: 136 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Everyone who's ever owned a cat, or who knows someone who owns a cat, knows that cats are, deep down, pure evil. They're beautiful animals, but they are selfish, cruel and, if it weren't for the fact that you are the one providing their food, they would totally kill you in a heartbeat.

Matthew Inman is the creator of The Oatmeal, a wonderful website with web comics/blog updates. In this book, he collects a number of his most popular comics about the joys and challenges of cat ownership, which reads as both hilarious and deeply recognisable to anyone who's shared their home with one or more cats.

As I am not a regular reader of the web comic, many of these strips and stories were new to me. If you read the Oatmeal as a devoted fan, then it's probably quite disappointing to get the same comics you've already read, reprinted in a book with just a minimal amount of additional new stuff. If you've not read a lot of The Oatmeal before though, and especially if you love (or fear) cats, this is a very good and really very funny introduction to Inman's work.