Graceling by Kristin Cashore - Graphic Novel

Rating: WORTHY!

This review is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I already reviewed the print novel of Graceling back in June of 2013 (https://ianwoodnovellum.blogspot.com/2013/06/graceling-by-kristin-cashore.html), but I was very curious to see what they did with the graphic novel version, so when I saw this on Net Galley I asked to review it and the publisher kindly granted my request.

I was not disappointed. This is my last Net Galley review before I retire from reviewing altogether, to concentrate on my own writing, so I was very glad to find one that I could end my career of some five thousand total reviews on a positive note for my last Net Galley.

The story is no different from the original print version I reviewed almost a decade ago, but it's been so long, that I had forgot a lot of it, so this was a nice refresher and it had some enjoyable and nicely-worked art to go with it. I ended-up liking the original so much that I went on to read two other novels set in the same world: Fire and Bitterblue.

This one tells the story of Katsa, who is an enforcer for King Randa of the Midluns, but she isn't happy in her career. When she discovers another one like herself - a person who has a 'grace' or special skill - her life begins to change in ways she had not foreseen. Katsa ends up on a quest of sorts. It is long and demanding, and during it, she makes some fascinating and unexpected discoveries, about herself, about her companion, Prince Po, and about the two of them as companions. She learns that she's prone to misunderstanding what a 'grace' actually is, at least with regard to herself and Po!

As I mentioned in my original review, I initially had no interest in reading Graceling because I mistakenly assumed from the title that it was about fairies and I wasn't tempted by it. It was only when I saw Fire and realized that it wasn't a fairy-tale (so to speak!) that I also picked up Graceling at the same time, and read that one followed by the other. Fire precedes Graceling, but the author recommends reading them in the order they were published, so I did! Perhaps if this graphic novel does well, as it ought to, we can expect that there will be two more following it as there was with the original publication. I commend this as a worthy read.

Boris the Cat by Erwin Moser

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Subtitled, "The Little Cat with Big Ideas." this book was well-illustrated and in color, and the stories I read were amusing, but why it was issued in a Kindle format is utterly beyond me. I've said it repeatedly: unless your text is plain vanilla (with not even dropcaps!), then nine times out of ten, or worse, Amazon's crappy Kindle coversion process will turn your book into kindling - especially if it has images. This one was totally mangled with text and images out of place and mismatched. In other formats the book was considerably better, but even then there was a problem.

The book had almost seventy stories and they're collected into groups by the four seasons, but my copy had only ten stories from 'the spring collection'. The rest of the stories were missing even though they were listed in the content list. And there was no way to tap from the content list to any of the stories, nor was there any way to get back to the contents by, say, tapping on the story title, so this was a serious problem. One reason I'm quitting reviewing books at the end of this year is because of this shabby treatment of reviewers by publishers and Net Galley. I don't expect to get a nice pristine print copy to review by any means, but I do expect to be treated decently, and reviewers deserve better than this.

Since this was an ARC, I checked back on the Net Galley website to see if I'd been sent a sample only, and there was nothing there to indicate any such thing, so I can only assume something got monumentally cocked-up along the way. Anyway this review is of only those ten stories, all of which are about animals and Boris's interaction with them. This is the kind of story where nearly all of the animals walk around on two legs and are all the same size, regardless of species! There are no speech balloons, just descriptive text and equally descriptive and amusing imagery, and each story consists of six such images. Why that is, I do not know!

That said, the stories were amusing to me. I'm not sure why Boris is credited so much with big ideas, but the ones we saw, from a variety of sources, were inventive in a Heath Robinson sort of a way, and were in fact reminiscent of the Mr Bean TV show, so if you've seen that and enjoyed it, you may well find this amusing. I loved the absurdist and off-the-wall humor. These were wacky enough to make me chuckle, so on that basis, and keeping in mind that I was able to read barely more than 10% of this book, I commend it as a worthy read.

Misty Presents: The Jaume Rumeu Collection by Bill Harrington, Jaume Rumeu

Rating: WARTY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I didn't realize when I selected this to review that it's an antique, and I was not impressed with it. If you like old film noire type stories, or cheesy fifties horror movies, then this might resonate, but to me it was out of date, overly melodramatic, lackluster, and asinine in parts. Aimed at a female audience, it was originally published in 1978, in a comic book named Misty, which was short-lived, but quite ground-breaking for its time. I would have been more impressed if instead of recycling the old stories, they had written new ones that had the same focus.

The story I read, which I DNF'd about 50% through, consisted of a woman with the uninventive name of Black Widow - and she wasn't even black. Her real name is, of course, Webb, so it was like watching an episode of that corny sixties Batman TV show - but the story is set in Britain. The idea is that she's taken this title because her husband died in a "military scientific" experiment, and she's out for revenge against those people who were responsible, by concocting lame and labyrinthine schemes. Her widowhood explains the 'widow' part of the title, but there's no explanation at all for the 'black' portion of it.

She's apparently obsessed with spiders and has a bunch of them that are venomous (not poisonous as the text has it) and deadly. They aren't black widow spiders, so again this makes nonsense of the title. To do her bidding, she recruits two students from a local school (why? Who knows?!). One of these two she hypnotizes, the other she does not. The hypnotized one does whatever she's bidden to do when the phrase 'you creep' is included in the instructions - even if accidentally. Yeah, the language is that antiquated.

Black Widow is supposed to have the ability to determine where each of her little spiders is at any time so it makes no sense when for two issues, she spends an awfully large portion of her time bemoaning the fact that 'one of our spiders is missing'! It was amusing to me because it was so ridiculous - about as amusing, in fact, as having a guy named Roach writing an introduction to a comic book about spiders!

The comic is subtitled "The Jaume Rumeu Collection" but he's the artist. The guy who gets top billing, Bill Harrington, is the writer. Normally I'd rail at this because the artist has by far the greater portion of the work to do. In this 'collection' though, the artwork was poor to middling, and consisted entirely of black and white line drawings, so I didn't have any problem with Rumeu taking second place in the billing, but in that case, why was it not called the Bill Harrington collection? None of this made any sense to me.

But for the reasons listed, I cannot commend this as a worthy read. It was disappointing and unintentionally amusing in parts, and the art wasn't really worth the trouble.

Hooky by Míriam Bonastre Tur

Rating: WARTY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This was a comic book for younger readers written and illustrated by talented Spanish artist Tur. It's rooted in a 'webcomic' from 'webtoon' with which I am not familiar, but which seems to have been a success.

This version evidently has new material, but without knowing the original I can't speak to that. While I thought the artwork was bright, colorful, and well done, for me the story failed to live up to the illustrations. It was choppy and made no sense, and while I realize that I am not the intended audience, and that a less critical audience might well go for this, I can only review it from my own perspective and for me it failed for a variety of reasons. I will say that one wonderful thing about it is that this story did not have JK Rowling's sexist distinction that boys were glorious wizards, but girls were 'only' witches with all the negative baggage that appellation entails. No, these guys were both witches!

I have a problem with magic stories where the actual magic takes a back seat and the story ends up being just a regular story with a patina of magic dusted over it for flair, and that's what seems to have happened here. There were so many places where magic would have been useful, but obviously if you're in a world where you can 'magic' anything, you really need to work on the story to make it entertaining. It's a fine line the author walks between going full throttle magical, which risks making everything too easy for the protagonists, and being a magical miser, which to me makes the magical elements worthless by failing to use them when they make logical sense.

The author seems to attempt to get around this by having these kids be so poorly-educated (magically speaking) that they swing right into that 'magical miser' territory and for me this spoils the story. It seems to me that the kids ought to have had at least a basic grounding in magic from their parents or from their elementary magic school, but none of this is even discussed, much less explored, so there's this huge plot hole whereby the kids are rank amateurs, but we're offered no reason why.

The story here is that witch twins Dani and Dorian miss the school bus that would deliver them to their magical academy. Instead of telling their parents of this, or taking out their brooms and flying, they give up completely and end up wandering aimlessly around, quite lost as to what to do. Through a series of accidental events they end up with an advanced professor of magic, and somehow irresponsibly fail to tell their parents of their change of plans.

The story deteriorates after this as they fall in with a random group of misfits - a princess and a trouble-maker - and just have a chaotic series of adventures seemingly unconnected to anything. Meanwhile we're getting hints of a magical conspiracy, but that seems like a separate and entirely unconnected story. I was pretty much lost by this time because I had no clear idea of what the author was trying to do, or where this story was going, if anywhere. It just seemed to meander at the author's fleeting whim without having a purpose or a plan, and I DNF'd it because it was not entertaining me at all. I was looking for a coherent story, and there wasn't one to be had here. It felt more like a disconnected series of Sunday newspaper cartoons, which is what, I'm guessing, the web series was. So while I loved the art, I can't commend it based on the story - or lack thereof.

Living With Viola by Rosena Fung

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I loved this graphic novel. Having dealt very recently with an anxiety situation which did not end well, it really spoke to me with all its messy art and confused panels, but it told a real story of problems and issues that can overwhelm a person so easily and without warning.

Based on the author's personal experience, we meet Livy, who is dealing with a new school, parental expectations, making friends, and growing into a young woman of color all at the same time. She does not expect Viola to show up - Livy's highly critical and judgmental alter-ego who only she can see, and who is a constant presence, delighting in her every failure. Making friends seems to provide some escape, but even that starts going sideways and Viola never lets up.

Fortunately in Livy's case, there is help; she's smart enough and strong enough to avail herself of it, and the outcome is good. I wish it could be that way for everyone. This book scorched some raw nerve-endings for me, but it told an honest and revealing story in graphic in enlightening terms, with inventive and provocative graphics and a sincere heart, and I commend it as a worthy read.

Black Heroes of the Wild West by James Otis Smith

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This is a nicely-drawn and -colored graphic novel which I read in ebook format. It tells briefly the stories of "Stagecoach" Mary Fields, Bass Reeves, and Bob Lemmons. Prior to this book I'd heard of only one of these three.

The first story is of Mary Fields, a slave who gains her freedom after the civil war, and works hard to make her own way in life - and it is very much her own way. When she was in her early fifties, she traveled from Toledo, Ohio to Montana Territory where she helped found a convent school for Native American girls, but she was ordered to leave the convent after getting into a gunfight - or a near gunfight at least.

She didn't go postal then. That happened in her sixties, when she was hired as the first African American woman to work for the US Postal Service as a mail carrier because she was faster at hitching a team of horses than any other applicant. Her story makes for an inspiring read - she makes John Henry look like an under-achiever.

Bass Reeves was equally trailblazing. He was the first African-American deputy US Marshal west of the Mississippi. He was recruited because he knew Indian Territory and spoke more than one Indian language. He worked three decades as a peace officer in Indian territory. Just like Fields, he was still working well into his sixties. There's no rest for the wicked good!

Last but not least was Bob Lemmons, who was apparently the first horse whisperer, so good was he at bringing wild horses into the ranch for domestication. He would effectively become part of the wild herd, showing almost infinite patience and taking his sweet time, he would bring himself and his own horse closer and closer to the herd until he became a part of it, and then he would start slowly maneuvering into a leadership position, until he could lead it right into a corral!

This made for a fascinating and entertaining set of stories - all too brief, but enough to satisfy - and I commend it as a worthy read.

Ever After by Olivia Vieweg

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher. Strictly speaking we're not supposed to post reviews until 30 days before publication, but since this book has well over a hundred reviews up on that execrable monopolizing review site-killing Amazon-owned Goodreads venue already, I don't see that my modest one is going to make any difference.

I have to say up front that I'm not a fan of zombie stories, particularly movies and TV shows, although the movie World War Z actually wasn't bad. That's about the only one I can say I liked though. Zombie stories make absolutely no sense, and even were I to give that a free pass (as I have been known to do with other genres from time to time), the ridiculous levels of violence inherent in these stories and the endless hordes of oncoming zombies are completely and utterly boring to me. There is no story there to be had. So why on Earth would I want to read a graphic novel about this very subject? Well I have a good answer to that: it wasn't about the zombies at all. I was willing to put up with the zombie story though, for the sake of enjoying a story about female friendship and bonding, and I was not at all disappointed.

The author is German (her last name is pronounced like vee-vague, with a very soft 'v', almost like an 'f') and she originally wrote this comic as part of her diploma at university (I want to go to a university where I can do a graphic novel and graduate! LOL!). Later it was expanded and changed a little bit and this is the English version. In it, Vivi is not your most capable survivor. She lives in one of the last two cities that have not been overrun. At one point early in the story, her incompetence causes her to run away and hide, and as it happens, she's hidden on the supply train, which she only fully realizes when it starts in motion, rolling along its tracks to the other city. There's no one onboard - so she believes, until she meets Eva - another stowaway.

The story really begins though when the train breaks down and their rescue team fails to materialize, throwing them upon their own skills, of which Vivi possesses few. Eva seems quite endowed with smarts and skills and the two, despite rough patches, start to bond and become loyal to one another over the course of the story. There was some zombie-killing action, of which I am not a fan at all, but it's par for the course, and in this book it's kept to a minimum, although it increases more as they journey.

In addition to the relationship between the two girls, I enjoyed the nuanced approach to zombie transformation, so even that wasn't as painful as it might have been. Overall, I really enjoyed the story. There's already a movie out about this and it's apparently being rendered into animated form (maybe?), and no doubt when Netflix gets their hands on it, I shall watch it. So why not see other zombie stories as bonding relationships? Well others that I've had any exposure to are almost unanimously ridiculous and pointless. The same story can typically be told without any zombies at all. In fact this one could have also, by having a plague (Coronavirus would be a starting point for example, but good luck getting Barnes and Noble to publish that one! LOL!), or some other apocalyptic catalyst. Zombies aren't required, but in this case they were tolerable. The real story though was Vivi and Eva and I commend this as a worthy read.

Mister Invincible Local Hero by Pascal Jousselin

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This graphic novel was great! It featured a superhero named Mr Invincible, and it was amusing because the creator of it had 'cheated' on the way such stories are typically told, and I loved it. Written and illustrated by a Belgian creator, and published natively as Imbattable: Justice et Legumes Frais ("Unbeatable: Justice and Fresh Vegetables<"), this book will be available in English come September.

In small ways it reminded me of the time in one of my rat books that Louise and Thelma saw themselves performing on stage in a presentation they were doing. There is also a running story that I have yet to finish where these letters escape from a speech balloon and were running around in a couple of books. I think in the next one I do in alphabetical order, I'll bring that story to a conclusion. It's always fun though, to see others exploiting this kind of out of the box - or out of the panel - thinking.

Normally a graphic novel proceeds sequentially in a series of small panels filling each page, but Mr Invincible's power was that he could move from one panel to another out of sequence, and use things in later panels to help himself in an earlier one. In one story, for example, there was a cat stuck in a tree, so he reaches down from one row of panels into the row below and easily plucks the cat from the top of the tree; then he it hands back to its owner. Of course, the owner now has two cats and must surely ponder whether a cat in the hand is worth a second in the bush, but there's a solution to that!

I don't want to spoil the joy of reading this, so let me confine myself to revealing that there are stories where speech balloons are in play, where comic book colors are exploited, and where even the page itself cannot stop the action! And not all of his stories end well. Of course you can only play these tricks in so many different ways before you run out of truly original ideas, so I have to say it was a credit to the writer that he was able to think up engaging ways to exploit this. I'm not sure how you could sustain a series like this indefinitely, but maybe that's not his plan. I definitely became hooked though, so maybe there is a great future for such storytelling.

It's also a credit to the writer that he could figure out what were rather complex and inventive story executions in some of these stories. I had access only to the e-version of the book which took away from the power of some of the stories. I imagine it would work better in a print comic than it did in the ebook, but still it made for a fun read, and it was definitely different! I commend this fully as a very worthy read.

Gringo Love by Marie-Eve Carrier-Moisan, William Flynn, Débora Santos

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Subtitled "Stories of Sex Tourism in Brazil" this was written by William Flynn and illustrated by Débora Santos, and based on the research of Marie-Eve Carrier-Moisan. Published by the University of Toronto Press, this was a look at the delicate politics of 'women of the night' in city of Natal in northeast Brazil, who interact with European tourists in interesting ways that lie all around the blurry line of outright prostitution.

The book was based on real people and interviews the researcher had done with them, and although it was a graphic novel it actually wasn't graphic in a sexual sense; it merely depicted the kind of lives these women led and their aims and dreams. Is it worth noting that this did not pass the Bechdel-Wallace test when the aim of the book was expressly to discuss sex tourism? It's hardly a surprise that it failed, but I have to say that it would have been nice to have learned more about what these women aimed to get out of these relationships. It was touched on but only, it seemed, in passing.

The story is supported by extensive notes and references and contained a glossary of the Brazilian terms used by people in this life. The author of the story visited twice, one in the mid-oughts, and then more recently about six years ago, and the changes were marked. She couldn't even find many of the women who she'd talked to originally since they'd moved on or moved away.

The relationship between the sex tourists and the local women was an intricate dance and not all women viewed it in the same way or pursued it with the same steps and rhythms. There is a constant beat though, and that is the desire and need to escape the poverty trap far too many of these women are born into. Selling sex, or more reservedly, entering into a mutually profitable relationship with the male visitors wherein the guys get sex with able and attractive women and the women receive money or gifts in return, is a way these women have of raising themselves up.

Some of them look toward marrying a visitor, others look to saving money and getting a college education, and changing their life that way. But constantly in the background was the desire of some locals - mostly the ones who live in the alto district as opposed to the girls, who live in the Ville ghettos - to stamp out the sex tourism. The problem is that the protestors seemed to pursue this not only hypocritically, but mindlessly. They had no plan as to how to help the impoverished women once their rewards from their own enterprising endeavors petered out. This is why these protests are ultimately doomed to fail in my opinion.

This was a fascinating study and a novel representation of the results, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, even while feeling depressed that once again, we're seeing economic disparity causing serious problems that are not being intelligently addressed. I commend this as a worthy read.

Scullion by Jarad Greene

Rating: WARTY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I guess me and writers named Greene with first initial J, are not destined to get along. I quit reading this about four fifths the way through because it wasn't entertaining me at all. I kept hoping something would happen or that it would get better, but it never did, and I felt resentful of the time I'd spent reading it when I could have been doing something more fulfilling. When I picked the thing to review I'd thought the two characters on the cover were women who worked in the scullery of a castle, but only one of them is.

He gets kidnapped by trolls who mistake him for the other person on the cover who is actually a female warrior. Apparently trolls are really stupid mistaking an accidental headscarf for real purple hair, but the trolls are not consistent in their stupidity which made the device rather flimsy.

There were half-hearted attempts at humor. Despite this being set in medieval times, they have modern amenities and outlooks - but these fell flat on me. The story felt confused, with far too many characters coming in like Keystone Cops and filling up the panels without much of an introduction to set the stage. I lost track repeatedly as to what was supposed to be happening or why people were doing certain things (and not doing other things that seemed far more logical in the circumstances), and I decided this was not for me. I can't commend it at all.

A Quick & Easy Guide to Consent by Isabella Rotman

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I enjoyed this graphic novel aimed at advising people about consent. This would be a great book to have lying around when you bring your date home, assuming we ever get back to normalcy in life after COVID. It's smart, comprehensive, inclusive, and educational, and if I had one complaint it would be the language level. This might well get the message across to avid comic book readers, but the language in use here seemed rather 'hi-falutin' - rather more at intellectual end of the scale than perhaps where it needs to be, and as such, it might well be over the head of many people who are the audience this comic truly needs to reach.

That said, it covered a huge swathe of consent - what consent is, how it can be given, what it means and more importantly, what it doesn't mean, how it's given, what's behind it all, how to approach what might be a difficult conversation, and on and on. It's all done in a friendly chatty manner. It truly is well-written, with the above-mentioned caveat, and the art is wonderful. I commend this as a worthy read. Some millionaire ought to buy the entire print run of this and give them away at appropriate venues! Not that there are any such venues at the moment, but you know what I mean.

Wave, Listen to Me! Vol 1 by Hiroaki Samura

Rating: WARTY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Me and this graphic novel ebook did not get along at all. There were several reasons for it. The first is the fiction that "This book belongs to:" with my name and email address, when the book never has or ever will belong to me! It's set up as one of those so-called 'social DRM PDF' books, but it's never actually a download, so if you close your browser before having read all of it, it's gone, and you have to go back to Net Galley to get it back again. It's not social at all. It's anti-social and falsely criminalizes reviewers who do not get paid for this, but do it out of the goodness of their hearts. I've never shared a review book, and have no intention of doing so, and personally I'm going to to quit requesting for review any book that employs this system in future.

Another issue is that the book is almost 200 pages long, but this format offers no way to navigate it quickly. If you want to get to page 196, you have to continually swipe the screen bottom to top since this vertically scrolls. It's a nightmare when writing a review and trying to find a specific page to verify something. It won't allow any fast scrolling, so if you stop swiping, the pages stop scrolling.

When you get there, you're greeted by this: "The success of this book depends on influencers like you..." Good luck with that after my experience! Once at the end, the fastest way to get back to the beginning is not to swipe again, but to close the entire thing and re-download it from Net Galley. The fact that it is faster that way is the very definition of insanity gone wild.

The next issue is that this is a manga, but it doesn't start from the back and read to the front as these typically do. It starts from the front, but then the pages are backwards, as compared with the western way of reading, so instead of starting at top left, you have to start at top right and read right to left. Not being an avid reader of manga this is a chore I have to keep reminding myself of, but it's manageable. What really irked me though was the rampant racism of the illustrations.

When Scarlett Johansson was picked for the role of Motoko Kusanagi in the live-action Ghost in the Shell there was an outrage because the character was perceived as Japanese. I agreed with that outrage. I was also outraged that because she gained notoriety for her role as Back Widow, she became the go-to girl for a host of other action movies, leaving other, capable actors of assorted ethnic backgrounds locked-out of those roles. On the one hand I can't blame an actor for wanting to ensure their financial security, but Johansson has a net worth of well over $150 million and she had a steady movie career long before Iron Man 2 came along, so I have to wonder about someone who repeatedly takes roles that other, less financially comfortable actors could admirably fill.

But I digress. The point is that here in this comic book we have every single Asian portrayed with western features. I have to ask: where is the outrage? I'm quite used to the huge-eyed and pointy-chinned representations of manga characters, but these were drawn realistically, and with some skill, yet not a single one of them was Asian despite all of them having Asian names and the entire comic book being set in Sapporo, which is the capital city of Hokkaido, an island which is part of the State of Japan. For me this is wrong. What are they afraid of - that readers might be turned off a book because it has fur'ners in it? That might apply some forty percent of the people in the USA who support a clearly racist, bigoted, and divisive president, but it doesn't apply to people like me who enjoy and welcome diversity in our reading.

The content page of this comic was rotated ninety degrees for reasons unknown. It was in landscape mode even though the entire comic other than that was in portrait format. So anyway, the comic is about a woman named Minare who is pissed-off with some guy, and vents about him to a stranger in a bar. Rather than give her a look and move carefully away from her, the stranger invites her to his radio station and records her venting on air, and she becomes a celebrity. This is a tired plot that has been done many times before and this version brought nothing new to the story. In fact, for me, it was confused, rambling, and incoherent, and I lost interest in it very quickly. I can't commend it based on the third or so of it that I could stand to read. Sadly, there far too many loudmouthed jerks who become celebrities in real life without having to read about them in fiction. I can not commend this as a worthy read.

Titan by François Vigneault

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This was a graphic novel in limited colors by a Canadian artist and writer. While the art isn't completely to my taste, I didn't think it was awful, but I didn't get the warm colors. Titan is almost a billion miles from the sun, and it ain't warm out there. I felt the color palette ought to have been blues, not the warm colors used here, but that's just me. Once I got used to it, I didn't really pay it any attention. I focused on the story, which after all is the most important part, otherwise it's just a picture book. While that can sometimes work, I prefer a good written story to an implied one. I have to say up front that this is a very graphic novel with sex scenes, so be warned!

The story begins with "MNGR" (everyone who has a title has it capitalized and with no vowels in it in this story!) João da Silva landing on Titan to get the mining operations back up to speed since they're been falling off lately. The atmosphere - among the living inhabitants that is - is stressed and full of fomenting revolution. The moon, the largest one orbiting Saturn and the second-largest satellite in the Solar System is populated by genetically-amped-up WRKRs who are significantly larger and tougher than humans. They mine hydrocarbons, although exactly why is rather glossed over as is why they have genetically adjusted miners as opposed to robots.

The atmosphere of Titan itself wasn't well-represented. It was shown as rocky whereas it's really an ice moon - and the ice isn't water, but methane. In short, it's really nasty out there. Everyone is wearing a space suit and helmet so it's not until they get indoors that João finally gets a look at Phoebe Mackintosh, who will be his liaison during his work to reorganize and ramp up the efficiency of the Titan operation.

Rebecca is kind of sexy despite dwarfing João in size, and she speaks a sort of patois which is fortunately quite intelligible (I don't know if this originated in English or French, Vigneault being Québécois). Anyway, they bond together and survive a revolution, but they don't remain together at the end which I found rather sad, especially since they discussed it during their encounters, one of which is quite graphic and very sexual. I loved their coy talk afterwards!

I applaud the author for telling an interesting story and for showing a rather asymmetrical relationship without any fuss or judgment. It was entertaining and a fun read. I was sorry the translation went the road most traveled and referred to Earth dwellers as 'Terran'. I have no idea where that began, but it's always struck me as stupid. No one has ever referred to humans as 'Terrans' except in sci-fi and to me it sounds ridiculous - like we're all a bunch of tortoises or something. But that's just a pet peeve of mine. I don't know if the original did this or if this was just the translated version.

Overall I found this to be entertaining and engrossing, and I commend it as a worthy read.

Ghost World by Daniel Clowes

Rating: WARTY!

I came to this via a movie called Ghost World, which I really enjoyed. Once I discovered that had been derived from a graphic novel, I requested that from the library along with one other work by this same author. I am sorry to report I was disappointed in both. The sad truth is that I often am disappointed by the written version of something I first encountered via TV or movies. I'm always hopeful but the hopes are too often dashed!

Ghost World, the movie, told an amusing and entertaining story about two disaffected high school grads who seemed to have neither volition nor ambition. These girls were drifting through life without goal or direction. One of them, Rebecca, was the more motivated of the two and was slowly moving toward living in her own apartment. These girls had been friends forever and the apparent aim was that they would share the apartment, but the other girl, Enid, was a complete slacker and rather unpleasant at times. The thing is though, that the movie made them seem like friends - even like sisters in that they were always there for each other even as sometimes, they fought or even screwed each other over.

The graphic novel wasn't like that at all. The artwork was unpleasant, and the meanness of Enid, the main character of the two leading characters, was a turn-off. She wasn't likeable at all and the ending was perfect in that she disappeared. In the movie the ending was amusing in that she disappeared. She was prickly in the movie, but you could at least see where she was coming from, and feel some sympathy for her. The comic made no mention of the two having any idea of moving into an apartment together.

There was no relationship in the graphic novel with the character played by Steve Buscemi in the movie. There was no ongoing relationship with the guy who sat at the bus stop on the route that had long since been closed. All of these things made the movie human and enjoyable, but all were glaringly absent from the graphic novel. In short, the movie was almost a different story, only tangentially connected with the novel. The move was the better for it. I'm done with Daniel Clowes.

Witch by Elisabetta Gnone, Alessandro Barbucci, Barbara Canepa

Rating: WARTY!

Written by Gnone, with art by Barbucci and Canepa, this series is about a group of girls who find out they're the guardians of the tediously trope elements of Air, Earth, Energy, Fire, and Water. Had I realized this was a Disney series and that the creators had been denied ownership by the Disney Dictatorship, I would never have picked it up. As it goes, I was pleased that I had paid nowhere near full price for this. This volume was misleading, because although it says Volume 1 on the cover, reading more closely, which like an idiot I did not do, this volume 1 is part two! Then why not call it volume 2? Or episode 2 or something?

Well, it turns out that would breech the comic code whereby you're not allowed to know where the fuck you are in a series if you come into it as an ongoing concern. For some reason publishers are determined to make it as hard as possible to figure out exactly where you should start and in what order you should proceed. Endless rebooting of a series, reinventing it, retconning it, rebooting previously dead characters, endless returns of long-beaten villains, and all that crap are some of the reasons why I'm seriously losing interest graphic novels unless they really are one-off, stand-alone stories.

Nevertheless, this one did look interesting and was on close out, so I figured I had little to lose beyond a couple of bucks. I started in on it hopefully, but now I wish I'd spent the money on ice cream instead! So I was misled by seeing 'Volume 1' and overlooking 'Part 2 of Nerissa's Revenge'. That was my bad, and so this was not the first volume, but somewhere in the series. Despite that it wasn't hard to get into; it's just that it wasn't interesting. Instead of getting into the main story about the magic and all that, this volume wandered off into girlish drama, moodiness, and bitchiness, and it was tedious to read. I can see that crap in real life if I want to. I don't need to read about it in a graphic novel.

I have to add a note here about how disappointed I am with Canepa's art. Not in this book, but I've seen other examples and for a female artist to draw sexualized and exploitative images of young females like she does in some of her work is inexcusable.

But back to this book. I should have guessed with Disney that it would not be anything worth taking seriously, but you live and learn and the more I learn about Disney the less I like about Disney. Obviously this novel isn't aimed at me, but I don't think this kind of thing shoudl be aimed at anyone. It's possible to write a story that, while directed at a certain segment, is interesting enough to appeal to a wider audience, and also plays tot he strengths of the core audience, not to it's weakness, tropes, and clichés.

Authors who don't recognize this, risk becoming a niche item. Not that Disney cares. They can spit authors out and bring in new ones on a whim, and they have the legal power to kill lawsuits brought by those same authors without even losing their stride toward another ten billion dollar year, so why on Earth would they care? This graphic novel sucked.

The Coldest Winter by Antony Johnston, Steven Perkins

Rating: WARTY!

I got this because it's purportedly related to the movie Atomic Blonde which is a really good movie. The problem is that this book, despite having Charlize Theron's image on the front, has nothing whatsoever to do with the movie, which is based on The Coldest City not The Coldest Winter. This is why I have nothing to do with Big Publishing because they're so shamelessly dishonest, it's disgraceful.

Nevertheless, I tried to give this a read and it was boring. The art is thick, ugly, smudgy black and white, and the book was unappealing in every way except that I could close it and return it to the library and pretend I never had it in my hands. That was the best part about it by far.

Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson

Rating: WORTHY!

This was a graphic novel, apparently based on personal experience, about a twelve-year old girl going through typical 12-year-old experiences, except that in this case, she becomes fascinated by the so-called sport of roller derby. I say so-called because one thing which isn't covered here - or even mentioned - is the risk of concusion from a sport like this. Worse, concussion has been show to disproportionately affect women more than it does men, with women taking some fifty percent longer to recover from it than men do, so that's worth keeping in mind for this or any sport where the head is at risk of violence being done to it.

Main character Astrid has been best friends with Nicole for what seems like forever, but comes the summer of their twelfth year, and they each want different things. Nicole wants to go to Ballet camp. Astrid, overwhelmed by her first trip to a roller derby, wants to go to derby camp. Her blithe assumption that Nicole will fall in with her plans means Astrid is in for a rude and unnerving awakening.

I'm not a fan of so-called sports that encourage violence and conflict, but this story was amusing enough that even while I disapprove of the sport, I'm willing to consider this graphic novel a worthy read. Astrid has to learn to stand on her own two feet with Nicole gone, and that's not easy on skates! Plus, she lies to her mother about the fact that Nicole isn't going to derby camp with her. The derby work is hard and Astrid is brand new to it, so it's a long learning curve for her, but eventually she picks up the rhythms and skills, and she finds her place.

The story, the second I have liked by this author, had humor and heart, and the art was pretty decent, so I consider this a worthy read.

Raven the Irate Princess Book 1 or something by Jeremy Whitley, Rose Higgins, Ted Brandt

Rating: WARTY!

Normally I would steer clear of a book, even a graphic novel, with a title like this, but I had come to this via its predecessor, the Princeless graphic stories about a feisty young princess whose self-appointed mission is to rescue all of her sisters who are distributed in various towers throughout the kingdom, the aim of which is to inspire princes to come and rescue them so the king can get them married off. I've given up on this entire series now not so much because it was so bad, although the stories were becoming rather monotonous, but because it was impossible to figure out in which order they should be read and my normally useful local library had the titling so messed up that it didn't help!

Take this one for example: it's listed as Book 1 Captain Raven and the All-Girl Pirate Crew, but it's not the first in the Raven story. You have to read the Princeless series to get her backstory. For me this was the biggest problem with this - that the arrangement of these volumes felt like a disorderly mess. But this one would do, I guess if you were only interested in reading the Raven stories. I just think the author and publisher could have done better. But why would they care?

In this story, Raven has a ship already (from a story prior to book one - go figure!), and now needs a crew, so she sets off into town to hire one, and promptly gets robbed by another woman. After a chase that goes on a bit too long, she ends up running into the cook from her father's pirate ship - when he was the pirate king and before her brothers screwed her over. She ends up predictably hiring the woman who robbed her and then a bunch of other women because she doesn't like the available men. That's about it.

It was entertaining as far as it went, but as I said in my review of the other volume I read along with this, it wasn't entertaining enough to make me want to read any more beyond this. This one, like the other one, barely enters into worthy read territory, and I found I was growing somewhat bored with this series as I was with the companion series: Princeless. I decided to quit while I was ahead and give this a negative and the other a positive to indicate mixed feelings! I won't be reading any more in either series.

Princeless Raven the Pirate Princess by Jeremy Whitley, Rose Higgins, Ted Brandt

Rating: WORTHY!

Normally I would steer clear of a book, even a graphic novel, with a title like this, but I had come to this via its predecessor, the Princeless graphic stories about a feisty young princess whose self-appointed mission is to rescue all of her sisters who are distributed in various towers throughout the kingdom, the aim of which is to inspire princes to come and rescue them so the king can get them married off. I've given up on this entire series now not so much because it was so bad, although the stories were becoming rather monotonous, but because it was impossible to figure out in which order they should be read.

Take this one for example: it's listed as 'Book 2 Free Women', but it's not the second in the pirate Princess series. It's the first. I don't think it's even the second in the Princeless series, although at this point I'm not sure. For me this was the biggest problem with this - that the arrangement of these volumes is a total disorderly mess. I can't find a definitive listing, although I admit I did not search exhaustively because I was so tired of looking by then and my local library did not help because there was no consistent naming strategy for the volumes! Thanks librarians!

Anyway this volume, wherever it comes, deals with Raven and her crew of women setting sail to go after Raven's evil brothers. I read this a while back and only just realized I never reviewed it, so while I did want to say I found it a worthy read, it only just fell into that category, and my review will be a bit vague since I recall only the gist of it. Higgins and Brandt did the heavy lifting with the art which was pretty decent, while Whitley did a bit with the writing.

Raven has to deal with all manner of villains on this island they arrive at, and that's pretty much it! I do recall it was entertaining, but I started running into the law of diminishing returns, which is inevitable in any series, and which is why I tend not to read very many of them. It's rare for one to truly engage me because there's typically too much sameness, too much repetitiveness, and very little innovation once a writer has locked their self into a series. This is why I'll never write one! While this was okay, I read this and a companion volume, but didn't feel any urge to continue reading because it wasn't that great!

Princeless Vol 6 Make Yourself by Jeremy Whitley, Emily Martin, Brett Grunig

Rating: WORTHY!

This was billed as 'Part Two' and I was unaware of there being a part one. This is when I decided to quit reading this series because it's far too hard to try and keep track of which volume comes where. If there are two parts, isn't that two separate volumes? I mean all of this is the same story, so it's completely arbitrary as to where it's split! Just list them numerically in the order they should be read, and don't inexplicably branch off into a completely separate story that retains the same name. It's not rocket science.

Why publishers have such an issue with issues is beyond me. Do they not want people to have a good reading experience? It would be perfectly simple to label these quite clearly an unambiguously according to the order in which they should be read - but that would actually benefit people so why in the name of all that righteous would Big Publishing™ ever do such a thing? They're not interested in helping people. They're interested in profiting and that's it.

So this will be the last of this series I read, but it was not because this particular (half-)volume was a bad one. It was entertaining enough, but as I mentioned in a previous review, the sameness doesn't go away, and by this point this showing-up in an obscure local to rescue a sister, running into problems, then emerging victorious has become a ritual. It's not thatentertaining! It's certainly not original at this point. Plus for the first time I did not like the 'sister' (in this case endlessly-arguing twins) being rescued. So while I consider this a worthy read, I do not have the patience or time to continue with this when so much else begs to be read. Again writing was by Whitley, and art by Martin and Grunig.