Sneha Jaiswal's Blog, page 219

Night of the Ghoul Issue 1 & 2 Review

Issue 1 of ‘Night of the Ghoul’ by Scott Snyder is so short, there’s no way you wouldn’t want to grab the next one immediately. The first comic in the series barely sets the plot up – a man called Forest Innman and his son Orson are visiting a sanatorium to track down a film director they believe made the ‘greatest horror film’ ever, only problem – it never made it to the screen.

The film director is called T.F Merrit, who is quite ghastly to look at and gets an entire page to himself during his first appearance. Readers get some glimpses of this horror film called “Night of the Ghoul”, which starts off during World War II and is about an ancient creature that grows stronger by feeding on the dead. The artwork is in dark tones, bringing a very classic horror vibe, with some stark tones of red standing out against black and yellow shades. In contrast, the World War II panels are in black-and-white, offering an interesting break and a clear demarcation between the past and the present, so readers aren’t confused.

While it’s hard to say anything about where the story is heading in the first issue, however the next issue (which is even shorter) builds up a little more story to this mysterious/ominous ‘ghoul’. There are two father-son plots running in this comic, one of Innman and his son trying to crack the mystery of an old lost horror film, the other is that of T.F Merrit and his father. The director claims his father was a victim of the ghoul and continues to narrate his tale, with dire warnings to Innman. So this exploration of father-son bond add a certain humane touch to what’s supposed to be a sinister story.

It’s the artwork that keeps things intriguing, because plot-wise, Snyder uses usual old horror tropes and there’s nothing too shocking or novel, at least not in the first two issues. Some of the more disturbing events to have happened in the past are simply narrated by T.F Merrit; it would’ve probably been more horrifying if Snyder had chosen to illustrate them instead. Regardless, for horror fans, it’s a comic-series worth reading. I am enjoying it so far.

It’s a 4/5 from me. The series is available on Kindle Unlimited.

The Boys 3 on Watchlist? Read this before you start

By Akshay Prabhakaran

Are you ready for ‘The Boys’ season 3? Here’s a ready reference to recap or start anew THE BOYS

There are a lot of superheroes out there in many universes even multiple universes within some of them. If you are overloaded with all the superheroes out there and are peer pressured into watching THE BOYS season 3 but haven’t watched the first 2 seasons (and don’t intend to) or just need a palate cleanser to catchup with the new universe Amazon “created”, here we go:

Season 1 starts off by playing into the hands of the audience this show has been curated for. If you go, “here’s another studio milking a superhero series/ everyone wants to do Avengers now!”, you will be right. This world is used to celebrity superheroes with the most popular being “The Seven”. While the characters are obviously “inspired” from existing comic book superheroes (Homelander = Superman + Ozymandias, A-train = Flash, Queen Maeve = Wonder Woman, Deep = Aquaman, The translucent = Invisible Woman, Black Noir = Kinda like Black Panther, Lamplighter = combo of green lantern and human torch), the story however turns away from the Justice League and the Avengers towards a combination of: “if Hydra were successful meets The Watchmen”. Basically, superheroes are the bad guys because they enjoy power and fame too much to do questionable things to keep and abuse their power. Being a superhero is like being a drug dealer, there are so many heroes, so the bottom of the chain is bleh, at the top of the chain are your crime bosses who control everything. If you weren’t already overwhelmed there are humans wanting to keep superheroes in check. Mostly motivated by their personal vendetta of losing someone close to them in a superhero accident.

Enter the loveable scared docile nobody caught in the middle of this universe – Hughie Campbell who loses his girlfriend when a drugged-up A-Train accidentally runs through her. Nothing happens to A-Train and Hughie gets upset when the don’t-give-a-damn veteran Billy Butcher(motivated by losing his wife to Homelander) shows up to give him a chance at getting back at the 7 by joining THE BOYS a la SUICIDE SQUAD (without any superpowers). In their quest for revenge THE BOYS apprehend and kill a member of the Seven, Translucent. They learn about a drug called Compound V and recruit a tortured superhero in their anti-superhero squad.

In a perpendicular storyline that will join tracks very soon. Lamplighter is out of The Seven and we find out about Vought, the company behind the famous superheroes who include a new member Annie (Starlight) into their cast. The goody two shoes goes through a girl out of Kansas scenario and is sexually assaulted by The Deep. Through the eyes of Annie, we learn to form the perception of superheroes = bad.

Somewhere in between the two storylines collide with a meet-cute between Annie and Hughie, both members of the opposing entities a la Romeo and Juliet. They encourage each other to do the right thing. Tired of Vought’s control over her outfit and public image, she reveals to the public the perverted actions of The Deep. Compound V seems to be more widespread than previously imagined with The Boys finding out that Vought has been injecting babies with it in hope they will produce superpowers only to later reveal (in season 2) all superheroes in the world are babies who had been injected with Compound V.

The series moves into a more complex storyline with Homelander who has a questionable relationship with Vought executive Madelyn Stillwell, which Billy uses to trap and kill Homelander. We learn that Billy’s wife previously thought to be dead is alive and has a child. Homelander finds out along with us that he is the father. Furious at the betrayal by Madelyn, Homelander enters the trap Billy has set up and kills Madelyn himself while taking Billy to his wife and their 8-year-old son Ryan (who has Homelander’s powers).

The stretched and headless season 2 tries to tie up all open story lines in Season 1 while introducing supposedly powerful new characters. In true Hydra/Captain America format Vought has its origin from Nazi era. The Nazi scientist Fredrick Vought developed compound V made it into a company, used it on his wife (Stormfront = Storm, earlier Liberty). Stormfront takes the modern Nazi format: white supremacist and teams up with Homelander. Vought CEO Stan Edgar replaces Madlyn Stillwell as authoritative evil person, and a new organization Church of the Collective shows up to help. The Seven rejects Deep and now A-train (because of his Compound V addiction).

The boys keep themselves relevant by trying to go up against Vought and The Seven by going to the press, to courts and many gory fight scenes in between. A new mysterious assassin comes up, whose superpower is to blow people’s heads up right when they are about to help The Boys. Parental squabble ensues on raising Ryan as Becca Butcher wants to keep her son isolated and becomes the culmination point of the second season. In a fight between the boys and Vought, Becca Butcher and Stormfront die at the hands of Ryan. Everyone else is alive and well and The Boys are no more fugitives/ vigilantes. The cruel and villainous Homelander who has been fighting for his son Ryan, gives him up to Billy Butcher as he is threatened by Maeve with a cell phone video exposing his ways. To tie up all lose ends an AOC inspired congresswoman who has been helping the boys against Vought is revealed to be the superhero who blows people’s heads up. Hughie unbeknownst to her powers ends up joining her political campaign at the end of season 2.

Stranger Things 4 Vol 1 Review – Bigger Not Stranger, But Hellah Fun

By Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)

The Duffer Brothers are back with ‘Stranger Things 4’ and how! Episode 1 begins with a grisly flashback to 1979, when protagonist Eleven was a little lab-rat for her scientist ‘papa’. She is at the center of a terrible bloodbath before her eventual escape. The mood completely shifts after the opening credit score, we are back to the present, the bright and colorful 1980s, with upbeat synth-pop music in the background and the gang dealing with high-school stuff.

Season three ended with the main friend group of breaking up (geographically) after saving the world. While most of the gang remains at Hawkins, the ‘cursed’ town where evil resides, Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) moves out with her sons Will, Jonathan and Eleven. So it’s not just Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) who is in a long-distance relationship. All personal troubles however take a backseat, because there’s a new eerie demon in town, who is killing teens – the gang dubs him ‘Vecna’.

Episode one does a fantastic job of setting the pace for the rest of the season and is hands down the most entertaining and fun chapter in volume 1. Things continue to be interesting from there-on, but you can’t help be feel the new villain is just not big enough, and some of the stuff the kids do is silly (like looking for Venca without the aid of any game-plan/superhero/or even weapons), but hey, this is fantasy horror, so viewers can keep logic on the backseat and just enjoy this ride.

There are 4 sub-plots simultaneously unfolding, without causing any sort of confusing or dampening of pace. Like the trailer suggests – Hopper (David Harbour) is still alive, but imprisoned in a Soviet prison, so Joyce and Murray (Brett Gelman is a hilarious cameo) head out to rescue him. Eleven is approached by scientists with a proposition to help get her lost powers back so she could fight the new monster, so she leave with them. The Byers brothers along with Will find themselves in danger and set out to find Eleven. Meanwhile, the kids in Hawkins work towards solving the Vecna mystery and how to stop him.

Unfortunately, despite a lot of blood and gore, the spook factor in ‘Stranger Things 4’ is quite low. ‘Vecna’ just doesn’t seem as gross or intimidating as the ‘Mind Flayer’ from Season 3, and killing a bunch of random vulnerable kids in devious ways only makes him seem eccentric and tame. It’s the familiar comfortable friendships and shenanigans of the popular cast that keeps things fun. Steve’s (Joe Keery) growing platonic friendship with Robin (Maya Hawke) is endearing, and the lgbt representation in a 80s series is refreshing.

Millie Bobby Brown continues to be the stand-out star of the series as Eleven. From being a formidable superhero, to becoming a vulnerable new girl without powers who is being bullied at school, Millie captures the myriad of emotions with ease. Some of the laboratory flashbacks to explain Eleven’s origin story however are too stretched out and could’ve been slightly shorter. A few of the nail-biting scenes are in David Harbour’s Soviet story-line, which is rife with human violence and feels like a completely different film altogether. Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp don’t get much screen-time, and are almost forgotten in the last two episodes. In fact, new cast member Eduardo Franco as Jonathan’s (Charlie Heaton) pothead friend Argyle leaves more of an impression than Will and Noah in this season. Eduardo and Charlie as incredibly believable and funny as two lost dudes on grass.

Filled with 80s pop-culture references, the most intriguing bit was how the Duffer Brothers cleverly weave in the ‘moral panic’ that swept through America over ‘Dungeons & Dragons’. People blamed the role-playing game over inexplicable events and branded its fans as satanists and murderers. Similarly, while Dustin and gang work to stop ‘Vecna’, a bunch of students believe it’s his D&D group that’s behind the brutal killings of teens. While some of the episodes in between feel like they meander too much, the last episode titled ‘Chapter 7: The Massacre At Hawkins Lab’ manages to tie up all the questions viewers may have about the new murders and Vecna.

Overall, fans should find this installment of Stranger Things engaging and largely satisfactory. It will be interesting to see if the Duffer Brothers will amp up the violence and horror in Volume 2!

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Listen to – Heartstopper, The Netflix Series Is As Adorable As The Comics

Gender Queer – Graphic Memoir Review

By Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)

Okay, first things first, I learnt about the Spivak pronouns – ‘e, em, eir’ like ‘she/he, her/him, hers/his’ – only after reading the graphic novel memoir ‘Gender Queer’ by Maia Kobabe. This declaration is important because Maia uses the Spivak pronouns and I will inevitably end up referring to em and don’t want you to be confused.

Maia’s book is deeply personal, as e sets out to explain how confusing growing up was, because Maia was never comfortable with identifying either as a girl or a boy. So obviously, it’s not going to be relatable to those who haven’t had similar experiences, but the beautiful artwork does make it easier to empathize and understand Maia’s struggle with gender identity. In a weird co-incidence, I was reading this book on a bad cramp day, and menstruation is something Maia strongly complains about. “Nobody likes to get their period” I thought to myself and turned out there was a page in the latter half of the book, where an aunt admonishes the author by saying the same thing when Maia tries to explain why a woman’s body feels alien to em.

“I have a hard time seeing this trend of FTM trans and genderqueer young people as something other than a kind of misogyny. A deeply internalized hatred of women”, says the same aunt in one of the most hard-hitting lines of the novel, and she happens to be a lesbian. But truth be told, which woman has NEVER had penis envy? Haven’t we all envied men at least more than once in our lives for not having to suffer the monthly pangs of our uterus making a bloody mess of things? Haven’t we all at some point felt alien in our bodies? All the body positivity messaging aside, to feel absolutely comfortable in your skin all the time isn’t as easy as bright ad campaigns make it out to be. Maia has no strong counter-argument to the aunt, because even if nobody wants to admit it, there is perhaps some truth to the fact that not being happy with the gender assigned to you at birth does have something to do with the fact that each gender comes with an absurd ‘behavioral manual’ dictated by the society. If nobody batted an eyelid when men wore shiny sequined tops, loud make-up and played with pretty dolls, or if women walked around beaches topless in hot summers with un-shaved legs…. basically, if there were no rules as to who one should sleep with or how one should behave because they are of a certain gender… would anybody want to be a different sex? Yes, maybe still, but not as many as otherwise.

But well, let’s get back to Maia Kobabe’s graphic novel, because it’s eir story, and not about our personal take on things… The best bit about the novel is definitely the artwork. The art’s bright, colorful and keeps you hooked till the last page. Maia doesn’t shy away from sharing intimate moments, so there are a lot of graphic panels and nudity, but they are important to carry the story forward. For example, when Maia was in the third grade, e went on a field trip to the beach from school, without a thought, Maia removes em shirt likes the boys and happily wades into the water, but someone points this out and a teacher makes em cover-up. Maia doesn’t understand what the big deal was, and that was very relatable. If girls hadn’t been shamed over centuries over ‘public decency’, wouldn’t we all want to take off our shirts on a bloody hot summer day too? Without caring if there was a swarm of people around. In thought, I know I would like to, but decades of both direct and sub-conscious social/moral training have made it impossible for me to be comfortable with baring too much skin in public. If perhaps everybody started doing it, I would too. There’s comfort in herd behavior after all.

‘Gender Queer’ is an interesting study in just how deeply (and maybe unnecessarily) human interactions are entwined with gender roles. At different points of er life, Maia feels like e is a lesbian, a bisexual, an asexual… constantly trying to read more to understand how to define eir identity. Luckily for Maia, e had a supportive family, that never imposed gender roles on em (which some might argue could have been the cause of eir confusion in the first place), and were completely accepting of whatever made em happy.

Maia mentions Graphic novelist Allison Bechdel (one of my favorites) as an inspiration and the influence definitely shows in the artwork and story-telling. Just like Bechdel, Maia opens up about the angst, confusion and insecurities that come with not ‘fitting in’ with the majority. Gender Queer might not be as ground-breaking as ‘Fun Home’, but is an important work to help understand what people mean when they say they are ‘non-binary’.

I enjoyed reading this work. It’s a 4/5 from me.

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Listen To Episode 61 – Spoken Word Poetry – Gender Fluid

Ocean Likes Me Review – Not Much To Like

Random dude opens a restaurant by the beach, hits a stranger with his vehicle, the two become business partners and fall in love. Yes, that’s how random the plot for ‘Ocean Likes Me’, the 2022 Korean mini-series is. The very first episode dampens all the excitement one had for watching Holland play a lead role in a LGBT show. For the uninitiated, he is South-Korea’s first openly gay pop idol.

Directed by Lee Su ji, who hasn’t headlined production for any other show, ‘Ocean Likes Me’ does look like it’s been created by a bunch of newbies. It almost feels like maybe there isn’t an actual script, and the actors are just winging it. Actor Han Gi’Chan plays Ba Da, a chef, who tries to sell Udon at a beach one fine day and is miraculously offered to rent an empty restaurant by an unknown lady the same day. How convenient. Holland plays random stranger Tommy, who just shows up at Ba Da’s restaurant and help him with making the restaurant a hit with the locals.

Spread over 8 episodes that are 15 minutes long, ‘Ocean Likes Me’ is a quick show, but still manages to be dry and boring. By episode 6, I lost all interest in the show, and saw the last two much later, just to know what happens in the end. There isn’t much to complain about as far as the aesthetics are concerned, the sets are pleasing, some gorgeous shots of the Korean shore-line are sprinkled through the episodes. Ba Da’s little restaurant where most of the action unfolds looks super cozy and inviting. It’s like the makers much get all the ingredients right, except for the most crucial one – story. Reminds me of the time we ate a chicken dish, where the gravy was delicious, but the meat under-cooked and almost inedible.

Maybe Korean makers are beginning to get over-confident, assuming a good looking cast should be enough to draw in audience. While Han Gi’Chan is a good actor, it’s hard to make out if Holland can act, simply owing to the fact that his character is poorly written and very generic. Like the rest of the show, the climax was also random, with a forced conflict to make it seem like something is happening.

It’s a 4/10 from me.

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Yes, Heartstopper The Series Is As Adorable As The Comics

‘Love, Victor’ Season Two Review

‘Love, Victor’ season one was all about the brighter/sweeter things in life, cliched but likable, with minor hiccups. But it’s in season two where protagonist Victor Salazar faces harsh experiences, like his mother’s struggle to accept his sexuality, the unfounded prejudice of his basketball teammates and the cold-shoulder he gets from ex-girlfriend Mia, and a disconnect with his white boyfriend who doesn’t empathize with the racial/cultural differences between their upbringing. To top it all off, Mr & Mrs Salazar are getting a divorce.

Also Read: ‘Love, Victor’ Season One Review

Plot-wise, season two definitely works better than one, the protagonists and supporting characters are already familiar to viewers, so they get more space to grow. A lot of themes that were touched upon fleetingly and superficially are explored further, like the mental-health struggles of Mrs Weston – mother of Victor’s best-friend/neighbor Felix Weston; or Mia’s (Rachel Hilson) fraught relationship with her father and stepmom.

Michael Cimino continues to be charming as Victor, and is more likable since he is no longer deceiving anybody, and getting more confident, comfortable in his own skin. This is more evident in the fact that relies less and less on Simon for advice. Cimino and George Sears (who plays the hot boyfriend Benji) make a great onscreen pair and while the first few episodes captures the excitement of being a teen couple, their relationship sees a lot of growth and its fair share of troubles. Anthony Keyvan is the only new face in the main cast, he plays Rahim, a gay Muslim teen, who is friends with Victor’s sister Pilar and turns to Victor for some advice. So we have a potential new love interest, that shakes things up a little bit.

However, ‘Love, Victor’ is no longer just about him, each of his close friends and family members get substantial sub-plots, helping viewers understand their perspectives and personal struggles. Ana Ortiz who plays mom Isabel Salazar has the greyest role in the series. She does a fantastic job of portraying a woman who fails to be supportive to her son, but eventually tries to do fix things between the two. James Martinez as Mr Salazar gets to be the more empathic parent. It was actually quite nice to see the father be the ‘softer’ and more understanding during his son’s coming-out journey; because it’s usually the moms who the ‘best parent’ award in most lgbt shows and movies.

Felix (Anthony Turpel) and Lake (Bebe Wood) continue with their relationship in season two, the two are quite adorable, but things get complicated for them when Felix realizes his mother’s mental health is deteriorating rapidly. Anthony Turpel’s Felix is easily one of the likable characters on the show, despite some serious trouble at home, the boy keeps up his good spirits and tries his best to be there for his friends and girl. Maybe the friendships on this show are unrealistically nice, but Victor has some solid/reliable bunch of buddies around him.

The pace of the show is almost pitch perfect, there’s always some little twist around the corner, a few of which are fun, like an unexpected weekend getaway, and then there are others that aren’t exactly smile inducing. If you liked Season 1, you’ll definitely love Season 2, which also has 10 episodes, but they all get over before you realize. It continues to be comfort show, with slightly better representation and more fleshed out characters than the first installment.

It’s an 8/10 from me. You can stream the series on Hulu.

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Love Death + Robots Vol 3 Quick Review

‘Little Notes Of Anguish’ – ARCs For Book Review

Hello! Sneha Jaiswal here, a journalist/independent author and my 4th book comes out June 25th.

Titled ‘Little Notes of Anguish’, it is a collection of 42 poems filled with spontaneous scribbles and ruminative quibbles about the self, friends, family, lovers, myths, and maps. There’s a little bit of something for every kind of poetry reader.

If you’d like an ARC (Advance Reader Copy) in exchange for a honest review on GoodReads, drop an email at writer.jaiswal@gmail.com or just leave your email address in the comment section and I will be happy to send you the book in digital format. Digital format because the paperback version will be released later.

Thank You.

Spy X Family Episode 8 Review

Quick Recap – Top spy ‘Twilight’ is pretending to be family man Loid Forger, he needs his adopted daughter Anya to help him get close to a man called Desmond whose son studies at her school. For the mission to be a success, Anya must either befriend Desmond junior or be the topper in class, and both goals seem near impossible. Meanwhile, Loid has new trouble brewing.

(Read Spy x Family Episode 1 Review if you have no clue what the show is about)

Episode 8 starts with a hilarious little school scene, demonstrating Anya’s struggle with the curriculum at her fancy institution. However, the school sub-plot does not get any more screen space and the focus soon shifts to the non-education side of things. The audience is finally introduced to Yor’s brother Yuri Briar, a young spy himself, who works for forces that consider Twilight an enemy.

Instead of a ‘spy vs spy’ face-off, there’s a humorous relatable family dinner at the Forger house, where Yuri tries to size up his new brother-in-law. He is filled with hundreds of questions about why his sister Yor never told him about being married for a year. How the ‘couple’ handles the awkward meeting makes for an entertaining watch. The protective familial love Yuri has for his elder sister is adorable. Viewers also get some sweet but exaggerated flashbacks of how the siblings grew up watching out for each other.

‘Spy X Family’ is on a fun streak again, with funny little twists and turns. While until now, Loid and Yor were trying to remain professional even in their domestic roles as husband/wife, Yuri’s arrival on the scene sets the ball rolling for an escalation of their relationship. Episode 8 ends on an exciting cliffhanger, and will make fans want to stream the next episode immediately.

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Love Death + Robots Vol 3 Quick Review

Child of Kamiari Month Review

Little Kanna loses her zeal to run after her mother passes away, but finds herself journeying across country after a talking rabbit claims she has an important role to play in an annual gathering of Gods. Directed by Takana Shirai, the 2021 animated film ‘Child of Kamiari Month’ is an attempt at giving viewers a magical little movie, but it barely accomplishes its goal.

Despite being a little less than two hours, things don’t get more fun, or interesting and the story-telling remains flat. The main protagonist Kanna never gets likable, she’s a typical stock-like character, and the friends she makes along the way to her new adventure are very forgettable. The animation is decent, but most character designs feel like mediocre rehashes of existing stuff. The generous sprinkling of Japanese culture and shrines dedicated to different deities is the only nice thing in the film.

With talking rabbits, demons and dragons, it might be entertaining for children, but it’s really difficult to be invested in the bland tale as an adult viewer. There’s simply no spark.

It’s a 5/10 from me. You can stream it on Netflix.

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Love Death + Robots Vol 3 Quick Review

10 Book Reviews Under 10 Minutes #14th Edition

We are back with another edition of ’10 Book Reviews under 10 Minutes’ for our podcast. So if you aren’t into reading long book reviews, listen to the 14th edition, where we quickly look at some diverse titles, including graphic novels. Titles reviewed are as follows –

1. Girl A – Abigail Dean

2. Slaughter House-Five – Kurt Vonnegut (graphic novel version)

3. My Evil Mother – Margaret Atwood

4. Kim-Jiyoung, born 1982 – Cho Nam-Joo

5. Cemetery Boys – Aidan Thomas

6. Vann Nath – Painting the Khmer Rouge

7. The Visit – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

8. Banned Book Club – Kim Hyun Sook & Ryan Estrada

9. The Spire – Simon Spurrier

10. Cloud Hotel – Julian Hanshaw

Listen in and please subscribe to our channel –