Chad’s Comments (group member since Oct 24, 2019)

Chad’s comments from the Edelweiss & Netgalley Reviewers group.

Last week's ARCs.

Disney Villains: Cruella De Vil ★★
It's alright. It's about what happens to Cruella after 101 Dalmatians. Cruella is struggling to hang on to her fashion empire and, of course, every dog in town is out to get her. So she teams up with another thief to go after the crown jewels. It's fine, but I think Sweeney Boo is better off doing her own thing.

Girl Rebels ★★★★★
Five true stories of young girls in the 21st century making a difference, rising up against all odds to make their voice heard. Malala, the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize to stand up against Taliban oppression of women. Greta Thunberg, the young Swede who spoke out at U.N. assemblies against climate change. Yusra Mardini, the Syrian swimmer who swam at the Olympics as a refuge. Emma Gonzalez, one of the survivors of the Parkland Massacre, who fought for gun control legislation. Melati and Isabel Wijsen, who fought to get plastic bags banned in Indonesia. They are truly inspiring tales. Ones that can hopefully inspire others to rise up and make their voices heard in what currently feels like a very ominous time.

We Are Not Strangers ★★★★★
I'm not going to lie. This story made me bawl like a baby. There's something about it that's so touching, that these immigrants from completely different parts of the world would look after one another and keep it pretty much secret. It's about a Jewish man from Turkey who immigrates to Seattle in the 1930s. Meanwhile, he also becomes friends with some people of Japanese descent who also immigrated to Seattle. World War II breaks out and everyone of Japanese ancestry is hauled off to camps. Well, I'll let you read the rest of the story from there when you're up for a case of the feels.

This is based on family stories the author heard told about his grandfather. He always wondered why his Papoo would go to downtown Seattle to go to the fish market and run his errands even though they lived in the suburbs. And everywhere they went, they all knew his Papoo and welcomed him warmly. Just a wonderful and touching story.

Silence - tome 1 ★★★
A French manga of all things. It's a dystopian future where the sun no longer shines. Snow is everywhere and resources are scarce, plus the countryside is filled with monsters. Everyone speaks in sign language so as to not attract the monsters. I didn't realize this for awhile though. The sign language is presented as regular word balloons and I just thought they were talking until I figured that out. So when they actually talk as opposed to using sign language I was typically confused because the art isn't always reflective of it. One of the group meets a woman that is able to easily defeat a monster with some kind of stew that turns her into a monster. The group decides to follow her to a monastery where they will be safe and that's where this first volume ends.

It's a solid first volume and I'll probably read the next one when it gets translated. These Kana translations are weird though. The pages read left to right. The panels though read like a typical manga, right to left. Every time I get one of these I get confused until I figure that out as there is no indication in the book of how that works. It's the most confusing scenario they could have come up with and I really wish they'd stop it.

American Cult ★★★★
A really interesting look into cults that have operated in the U.S. going back hundreds of years. Who would have thought that Louisa May Alcott grew up in a cult or that Oneida was founded by a failed cult. Then you have the heavy hitters, Jim Jones, Heaven's Gate, NXIVM, etc. This was extremely interesting. And who would have thought the founder of Cheesecake Factory was a cultists?

Last week's ARCs.

Tegan and Sara: Crush ★★★★
The second book in Tegan and Sara's fictionalized version of their childhood. If you don't know who Tegan and Sara are and like good music, go check them out. I'll wait.
This book follows the twins as they begin their burgeoning career as musicians while also attending 8th grade. It's clearly intended for middle school readers. It delves a lot into their insecurities and anxiety. It also takes place now instead of in the 90s when they actually grew up.

Wanted & Big Game ★★★★
The comic that started the Millarverse and its sequel 20 years later. Wanted is very different than the movie. It's about a universe where the villains secretly won Crisis back in 1986 and have been controlling the world ever since. Wesley is introduced to this world and takes to it quickly. You can tell it was written 20 years ago. There's all kinds of triggering language in it that is no longer used today.

The sequel, Big Game, shows how all of the comics from Millarworld are connected. Who would have thunk it. Wesley and crew are back and they are out to kill all the heroes that have sprung up in the last 20 years. There's no way this should work and yet it does very well. Kudos to Millar. I don't like all his stuff but this was a fun read.

Kinky Karrot Presents: Off The Beaten Path ★★★
A young woman goes off to the big city for college where she finds a sex shop and explores her sex life extensively. The art and her character makes her something of an x-rated Disney princess. A lot of the book seems to be educational. One of her caveats is that she overshares but everyone else is well-adjusted and so it's always OK. I know they added all this stuff about how she can't keep a job to make it more humorous, but living in a big city is ridiculously expensive and she never at all struggles even though she's buying expensive stuff for the bedroom left and right. What story there is is kind of all over the place.

Happy Endings ★★★
Three decent low-key short stories. One is about someone posing for an artist on New Years Eve. The next is about two agents stranded in the past after fixing a time paradox with a cat. The final story is about a young man who works in a cemetery and thinks he's seeing a ghost. These were originally in French so there is the occasional grammatical or spelling error.

Last week's ARCs.

Gone ★★
Jock's second foray into writing as well as drawing his own comics goes OK. It's about a really poor girl on a planet that is attempting to steal food from a space liner. She gets trapped there and due to a FTL drive, years will have passed for her while only months pass back at home. She's hiding away on the ship but so are a bunch of rebels. The captain is also her dad who left or someone who knocked up her mom. It's very unclear and that's part of the problem here and what I've seen as DSTLRY's biggest problem. These books need editors, really badly.

Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures Phase III Volume 1 ★★★
Phase III of the High Republic begins. It's a year after Starlight Beacon has fallen. Most of the Jedi are scattered or dead. The Nihil have taken over a large portion of this part of the galaxy and they are the only one who can move through it. These five issues are mainly about getting some of the Jedi back into play and finding out what happened to them over the last year.

Alley ★★
A weaker collection of Junji Ito stories. Most of these are just quirky more than scary. Even the creepier ones don't make a lot of sense like the longest story in the collection about a girl whose family starts spying on her. She decides to go to her Aunt's and for some reason the town she lives in has turned into one endless house where they have to let everyone walk through and people wear masks to hide their identity.

Naked City ★★
Almost a slice of life comic about New York City if it was more realistic. It's about 3 different people struggling to make it in New York. The main character is a girl who comes to the city with only her guitar to make it big. She makes it pretty quickly with very little struggle which is not the real NY experience. My other quibble is how much she smokes. Yes, I know it looks cool on the page but having lived here very few people smoke. It's banned everywhere. You can barely even smoke outside buildings. Not to mention that cigarettes are over $14 a pack and have been for over 20 years. Not someone who is really struggling to get by can easily afford.

Vincent: A Graphic Biography ★★★★
Not a true graphic novel, but more of an illustrated text. It's Van Gogh's life from the perspective of his sister-in-law. It's through her eyes we see not only Vincent's mental struggles but how much it affects her husband and Vincent's brother, Theodore. The two were extremely close with Theodore looking after Vincent for most of his adult life. After she's left with a house full of Vincent's paintings, we also see how she and her son (also named Vincent) spent their lives promoting his work, getting it into the public consciousness, and eventually creating the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam.

Quick Stops Volume 2 ★★★
Instead of 4 one-issue stories this go around, we get a complete story about how Mooby was created. Given that it's Kevin Smith, there's lots of sex involved and then it gets crazy. It's really over the top by the end.

Four Gathered on Christmas Eve ★★★★
Following a long time Victorian tradition of telling spooky stories on Christmas Eve, four terrific creators tell us theirs. I love the setup for this. Eric Powell draws the four of them in Victorian England as cantankerous storytellers meeting to tell their stories. It's a lot of fun and probably more fun than the stories even. I'll not go into the stories themselves as they are all only 10-15 pages except to say that Becky Cloonan won an Eisner for hers.

Erased: A Black Actor's Journey Through the Glory Days of Hollywood ★★
A look at racism in Hollywood in the mid 20th century through the eyes of a fictional actor of color. He was light enough skinned to portray almost any race. This would have worked better if it had been a real story instead. Not sure why you'd even need a fictional one when there's so many real ones. The conversations in this sound like preaching at times instead of real conversation.

The Lonesome Hunters Library Edition ★★★★
I really hope Crook continues this story. It's about an old man with a sword that makes him immortal and a young girl who has lost her family. The old man is a coward in hiding until the girl in the apartment next door gets in trouble with some magical magpies. Meanwhile they are also being pursued by the crazy church the old man used to be apart of. Crook's art is great. So is the story. This is my second time reading through the first 2 miniseries and it was just as good this go around.

The Legacy of Arniston House ★★★★★
Damn, that was great. I feel like I need a cigarette (and I don't even smoke) even though it ends on a huge cliffhanger. I like how it ties in the first 3 books in the series showing more of a through story than I expected. So much happens. So much changes. Lots of twists and turns. Some Harry Potter type moments with some slobber knocker magical battles. I cannot wait for the next book. Long live Ropa Moyo!

Lumine, Vol. 2 ★★
Nothing at all happens in this for the first half of this book. I get that this witch kid is unliked in his school. You've beaten me over the head with this fact. I need about 5 pages to pick that up, not 125. This school is normal except witches and werecreatures go there. The second half picks up but it's just page after page of werecreatures tossling around. It's so damn repetitive. I just didn't like this at all.

Last week's ARCs.

Zerocalcare's The Armadillo Prophecy ★★★
Zerocalcare's first dip into humorous self-differential comics. This one isn't as focused as his later comics which I dig quite a bit. It's fine. It's supposed to be about finding out an old friend has died (that he hadn't talked to in years.) but he keeps getting distracted by other minutia and very little is actually about that.

The Second Chance of Darius Logan ★★★★★
I had a great time with this. It's from a very good writer of comics and now you can say a very good writer of novels. It's about a teenager whose family died 10 years ago in a huge tragedy involving super heroes. He's been struggling ever since, barely surviving as he is thrown into worse and worse situations in the system. When he really screws up, he's given the choice of prison or joining the Second Change program at Super Justice Force where he'll grow to become part of the support system supporting the superheroes of this world. This book has a lot of heart and hits all the beats I wanted to see as this kid grows into his own. I really hope Walker gives us a follow-up. Great stuff.

Sleep, Little Batman ★★★★★
I'm not typically one to read picture books but when I saw the title I knew I needed to give this a whirl. I love how the dad is dressed like Superman and Little Batman is fighting going to bed like every kid does. I also love how the kid refuses to take off his Batman mask even in the tub. Great idea for a book as I think a whole lot of us have lived this book at one point in their life or maybe even more than once, as both Little Batman and Superdad.

Rompepistas ★★★★
A very good graphic novel adaptation of a coming of age novel about a young punk in the 80's. He's returning to his hometown for the first time in decades and reflecting back to when he was 17.

The Unbelievable Unteens ★★★
Jeff Lemire does his riff on X-Men and Teen Titans by reusing the plot for Black Hammer. The team members have all forgotten who they were until they are woken one by one 10 years later. Snapdragon is in trouble and needs the team to save her. It's a little to by the numbers for me. Tyler Crook's art remains great though. I really like his stuff.

Skulldigger + Skeleton Boy ★★★★★
Puts a new spin on the Batman / Robin / Joker dynamic by putting a Punisher spin on Batman. Skulldigger comes across a kid whose parents have just been murdered and takes the Joe Chill character out permanently. You'll need to read the rest yourself to see where the story heads. One of the best of the Black Hammer spin offs.

Kalevala: The Graphic Novel ★★
I finally gave up on this turkey halfway through. It's kind of the Finnish version of Beowulf with a bunch of poems put together to form this conglomerate. The art reminds me of something Dave McKean would draw but with way more nude women in there for no good reason. For spells, the font switches to some kind of Ye Olde English type lettering that I couldn't read one word of. I finally gave up before I went cross-eyed. This was a nice idea that just didn't pan out. I can't imagine anyone but maybe scholars who have read the original text would like this.

The Prism Vol. 1: Burn ★★
The visuals in this are really cool. I just had no idea what was going on. It starts off with some part of the world being completely inhabitable. Then it cuts away to a concert with a rock star entering from space to the show. Then to save the Earth, 5 rock stars head to space in a giant guitar ship to make music that will save the world. Even though I had no idea why things were happening I was intrigued enough to kind of like it. It just felt like someone had removed some very important exposition from the final cut.

The World of Black Hammer, Vol. 4 ★★★★
Skullkicker + Skeleton Boy rocks. The Unbelievable Unteens does not.

Rosh wrote: "The Vanishing Bookstore by Helen Phifer

Good, not great. The titular bookstore is hardly present in the story!"

Is that because it's vanishing? Ba-dum-tss

I don't think it's a negative review. It's 5 or 6 different entries now out of over 2,000 books I've reviewed. I have a feeling it's some kind of weird glitch that occasionally pops up, probably due to some behind the scenes criteria that is rarely met. The books are from at least 2 different publishers as well.

Rosh wrote: "I haven't faced this issue so far. I always go to my "Not Reviewed" section under "Your Downloads" and post my review. Then the book disappears from that section. Is there some other "TBR" section ..."

Nope, that's what I do as well. It's just for certain books (and it happens very infrequently but it's always the same books) the books keep popping back up in "Your Downloads" as if I never left a review. In fact the reviews are now gone too as if they never existed. Some of these books go back to 2019. I've gotten to the point where I just ignore them because I've put my reviews in there at least a dozen times.

Theediscerning wrote: "I have at least half a dozen books on edelweiss that I can post and post and post a review on - and post - and it is still on my TBR pile. I don't care about the stats but I like tidiness and so on..."

If someone has a solution I'd love to hear it too. There's a few random books that I've reviewed on Edelweiss probably a dozen times and they just keep showing up again as if I haven't read them.

Last week's ARCs.

Quests Aside Vol. 1: Adventurers Anonymous ★★★★★
Once in a while you take a stab in the dark on something and are pleasantly surprised. I loved this. It's a light-hearted book about a retired adventurer running a bar. One day the king shows up and tells him he's commandeering the bar in a month for his new barracks. The book follows the lives of the people working at the bar as they get in and out of trouble. Nothing earthshaking but sometimes all you need is well-written and fun.


The Pale Queen ★★★★★
A delightful story about a young tutor in a small valley who wants more but her family can't afford to send her off to university. She comes across the fae who offer her a boon in return for a favor. She slowly begins to be pulled in their world while at the same time the niece of the rich man she tutors for has come to town for the summer and there could be a spark between the two. While intended for that middle school age group, there's enough to like here for all ages. And the art is wonderful. It really draws you into the pastoral setting that can sometimes be slightly sinister.


Freedom Was in Sight: A Graphic History of Reconstruction in the Washington, D.C., Region ★★★★★
Delves into personal accounts of African Americans mainly during Reconstruction. I think this is an important reminder of history and the struggles this country has dealt with throughout its history. For every two steps forward we take, there always seems to be one step backward. Its amazing, some of the progress we made as a society immediately following the Civil War while at the same time still managing to be very racist at the same time. It's a struggle we have to continue to fight for every day so that everyone in this country can truly be equal. These true stories were inspiring.


Shepherdess Warriors Vol 1 ★★★★
It's been 10 years since the men of the village left for war leaving the women to defend themselves. Hence, they started the Shepherdess Warriors, a group of women riding rams while defending their lands. A new group of girls are apprenticing when a monster enters their territory threatening the village. Now it'll be up to these girls to drive it off. This was a quite good all-ages story, full of danger and excitement.


The Book of Elsewhere ★★
This was not good. I know others here enjoyed it but the way it was written made it a slog to get through. If I hadn't already read the not good comics as well as the fact that I really like Keanu Reeves, I wouldn't have kept at this like a scab that you feel you need to rip off again and again, always too soon.

To be honest, I don't remember if this dovetails with the comics or this is the same story in a new medium. I can tell you the comics did not have an 80,000 year old boar in them that continuously sought out B for no good reason other than "There can be only one!". That was SO dumb. Because I'm a sucker for punishment, I know I'll wind up reading those stupid comics again just to put together how they connect even though it ultimately doesn't matter. Chances are the Netflix show will change up B's story again anyway other than he's an immortal John Wick who goes into BRZRKR rages.

The chapters are broken up into 3 separate areas told in first, second and third person to differentiate them. This infuriated me to no end. Sections often did strange grammatical things like combining words and abandoning punctuation completely that drove me batty. Sorry, I must have been a proof reader in a past life. The current story and the only one that matters is told in third person. B in the past was told in second person while stories in the past from random people who knew B / Unute were in first person. The latter two were all pretty much pointless and I guess added to get to 300 pages. That's the only reason I can see they exist.

The story is mainly about how some people see B as a god while others see him as a devil or death versus life if you will. This entire book inspired a lot of eyerolling from me as I was constantly counting pages until the end of each chapter so I could force myself to finish this in chunks because I certainly wasn't digging it.

Last week's (and technically last year's) ARCs.

Hope It All Works Out!: A Poorly Drawn Lines Collection ★★★
A bunch of absurd and sarcastic short strips. Maybe not quite as funny as some of the previous collections. Still worth a quick spin through with Mouse, Bird, Turtle and Snail.

Luminous Beings ★★★★
A last night before going off to college story set in a world full of zombie squirrels causing everyone to wear hazmat suits when outside. Other than that the world is more or less like ours. Two best friends want to be indie film makers but one of them is going off to college and hasn't told the other. Meanwhile, they along with two others are after a $20,000 reward for a missing adult. It becomes one long, crazy night. (You know, what I'm talking about. You've more or less seen this movie before.) The story is good. So is the art. I like the pink and blue color palette as well. Good stuff.

Death Comes For The Toymaker, Vol 1 ★★★
An alternative version of Santa Claus based on Mesopotamian mythology combining him with Gilgamesh. Even though the setup is that he's Santa, this isn't really a Christmas story. After the initial setup, it goes full in on Gilgamesh's story instead. This version of Santa has made a deal with Death for his immortality. He takes over for Death on Christmas while Death takes the day off. So while Santa has a naughty and nice list, there's also a third death list. After those initial revelations, this swerves into Gilgamesh's history of how he got there and how he tries to get out of the deal he's made. It's interesting and definitely original.

Shaolin Cowboy: Cruel to Be Kin--Silent but Deadly Edition ★★★
Works well as an art book. Geof Darrow's art skill is unparalleled. There's so much detail packed on each page. Telling the story without any lettering though just makes this a 200 page slobberknocker where you don't know why anything is happening. Our Shaolin cowboy is just having hyperviolent fights with men and kaiju nonstop. So I don't know why you'd get this instead of the original unless you really hate text boxes. There is a script at the end which seems kind of stupid when the whole point is to enjoy the exquisite artwork.

Assassin's Apprentice, Volume 2 ★★★★
A very good adaptation of the Robin Hobb novel. My only complaint is how long it takes for these to come out. Good art. Interesting story of the bastard son of a noble learning his place in the keep while secretly training to be an assassin.

Oba Electroplating Factory ★★★
Some works of autofiction from a classic manga artist written in the 70s. The stories are bleak and often risque. The artwork could be strange. Backgrounds were very detailed while faces were often cartoonish and elongated. I thought this was fine.

Wingbearer ★★
Others seem to really like this book but I thought it was kind of stupid. This girl lives in a tree where birds' souls are reincarnated as leaves on the trees. Then one day the leaves no longer are in the leaves and she has to leave to find out what is happening. Such a disappointment, especially considering how good Liu's other series, Monstress and The Night Eaters are.

Frank Miller's Pandora ★★
An OK, fairies mix with humans story. The storytelling isn't as bad as some of MIller's other recent works, but it's not great either. At least he didn't try to draw this as his art has devolved dramatically. Emma Kubert's art is solid, not as dynamic as her dad's or uncle's yet though. It's all a bit generic though and ends on a cliffhanger. We'll see if it ever gets an ending.

Kingdom Quarterback: Patrick Mahomes, the Kansas City Chiefs, and How a Once Swingin' Cow Town Chased the Ultimate Comeback ★★★
So this book has multiple personalities. I was expecting a book about Patrick Mahomes and the rise of the Chiefs. And that is in there to an extent. But the majority of the book is the history of Kansas City and its complicated racial history. (That's putting it nicely.) For over a century people of color have had a hard go of it in the city. Through things like redlining and neighborhood covenants, black people weren't allowed to buy into new neighborhoods as people left the city for the suburbs. Now this isn't the only place where things like this happened. Levittown on Long Island and Pennsylvania is known for it. Similar things happened in Detroit and other areas around the country after World War II. But Kansas City made a more or less masterclass on the subject. They placed parks and freeways between areas to keep them segregated so that even after they could no longer officially on paper keep Negros out for all intents and purposes they still worked for decades. Even today a lot of the communities are still over 90% white.

The House of Cross ★★★★
The best Alex Cross book I've read in a while. It's nice to see the series get back on track. Someone's murdering federal judges with a presidential inauguration on the horizon. Meanwhile Bree and John investigate Maestro, the big, bad, secret organization of the last several books. It's all very exciting and fast paced but that's all you're getting from me. Go read it yourself.

Last week's ARCs.

Dread The Halls ★★★★★
This was great. Four horror stories revolving around the holidays and winter. Every one of them was really good. The art was good. Jordan Hart's story at the end about his grandmother encountering Krampus in Germany after World War II was terrific as well. This is horror comics done right.

Creepshow 2024 Holiday Special #1 ★★
Neither of these stories had much to do with the holidays. Nor were they any good. The first one was by Tini and Blake Howard. It's about a guy who meets a mummy and takes a bite out of it and then starts eating people. It's beyond dumb with terrible art that makes it difficult to follow the story.
The second story was a bit better. It's about a late night talk show host doing a Christmas special who is awful to everyone. Pye Parr's art wasn't bad.

Ali Cross: The Graphic Novel ★★★
A faithful adaptation of the James Patterson book for younger readers. It follows Alex Cross's son, Ali, as he searches for a friend who has gone missing. Yes, it's lower stakes but it's still entertaining. My only complaints are minor in that some of the character designs don't match the characters from the books. Cross's partner, Sampson, is supposed to be a huge behemoth of a man who is 6' 9" and Nana just looked like a normal character with gray hair instead of actually looking much older.

Djuna: The Extraordinary Life of Djuna Barnes ★★★
A graphic novel biography about a queer writer from the first half of the 20th century who has largely been forgotten even though she traveled in the same circles as Hemmingway. T.S. Elliot and Peggy Guggenheim. She lived a very unconventional life made more so by her attitude later in life. It's an interesting story. It's just one that I often felt disconnected to because of the writing style.

Luminous Beings ★★★★
A last night before going off to college story set in a world full of zombie squirrels causing everyone to wear hazmat suits when outside. Other than that the world is more or less like ours. Two best friends want to be indie film makers but one of them is going off to college and hasn't told the other. Meanwhile, they along with two others are after a $20,000 reward for a missing adult. It becomes one long, crazy night. (You know, what I'm talking about. You've more or less seen this movie before.) The story is good. So is the art. I like the pink and blue color palette as well. Good stuff.

These days I think commenting helps a lot. GR has definitely changed its algorithm and reviews seem to be disappearing before others even know they exist. Commenting helps push them back up where others can see them.

Last week's ARCs.

Mr. Boop ★★★
This was interesting. It's really weird. It's a comic strip where the artist has inserted himself as Betty Boop's husband. There are no jokes. Each 4 panel strip just ends without jokes. Betty and Mr. Boop are really into each other and having sex and they bring other cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny and Peter Griffin into their bedroom for orgies. Then later on, it turns to be about IP infringement and the end just kind of peters out. It's a very strange concept.

Time Before Time, Vol. 1 ★★★★
A time travel book where organized crime owns all of the time machines. They're ferrying people back to the past where things are better while also smuggling future tech back to their time. The book travels through a lot of different times but the years are always stated. I never felt lost since they typically are only jumping back and forth between a couple of different years at a time. There's some complex world building going on with rival gangs controlling different eras of history while our main character just wants to get out of the game before his time runs out.

Conan the Barbarian Vol. 4 Frozen Faith ★★★
Jim Zub's take on "The Frost Giant's Daughter". Zub has expanded the story to include some flashbacks to Conan's childhood. I guess there wasn't enough content in the original short story to get four issues. I know it's not all that long but it's been a while since I read it. Doug Braithwaite's art is perfect for Conan.

What If... Loki Was Worthy? ★★★
This is a prose novel, not a graphic novel. This is more the spirit of the What If Disney+ show than the comics where one change in their story sets a character down a different path. It's just another world than the MCU. In this one, there are no superheroes. Thor has secretly been visiting Earth and has a family there. He dies while visiting Earth setting Tony Stark and Asgard on a collision course towards one another. It's fine. It doesn't feel like the author has the greatest grasp of the Marvel universe though.

Last week's ARCs

Spookhouse 2 ★★★★★
Eric Powell knows how to put together a horror anthology. This hearkens back to old comics like Eerie or Creepy. Adults into fun horror books will enjoy this along with those who have youngsters who are into things that go bump into the night. The book is kept at a PG level with the most gruesome elements being some undead creatures and very little gore.

Once Upon a Time at the End of the World Vol. 3 ★★★
An OK ending to a series that to me never lived up to its full potential. After the last volume, the two have split off, living a lonely existence and kept on screwing up royally. Now they have to band together again to stop the end of the world. I get what Aaron was trying to do here. I just didn't connect nearly as much as he was striving for.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: 40th Anniversary Comics Celebration—The Deluxe Edition ★★★
I don't know that this is any longer than the regular edition as far as actual comics though. It does collect the 40 different covers but the content of the anthology is still only about 100 pages. I did like how they got most of the creators from all of the different iterations of the Turtles to return for stories. The stories themselves are all pretty short and inconsequential. The idea to bring all of these creative teams back though was a good one.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Black, White, and Green ★★★★
IDW gets in on the black, white and one color game that the big two love so much. The stories are all about 10 pages and generally pretty good. The last two stories make the mistake of using white lettering with no background color and I couldn't read the narration at all. The one story that stood out to me was the one from Dave Weilgosz and Riley Rossmo, mainly because I typically hate Rossmo's art with a passion. He's adapted a Frank Miller, Sin City style though that really works and ditched the caricatures he typically draws.

Ripple Effects ★★★★
I thought this was really well done. It's about a man who along with getting powers also became diabetic. Now he has to manage it while also learning how to fight crime. Each issue also has an essay in the back about someone who battles an invisible disease. My wife has MS and you can see the days when she is struggling with it while trying to put on a brave face. I thought this was pretty realistic (with the caveat that this world also has a few superheroes).

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Starring Boris Karloff ★★★★★
A faithful adaptation of the classic horror novel, but with Boris Karloff's face as the face of the monster. It's an interesting idea and done very well. I really like Kerry Gammill's artwork. Not only does it have a classic look, he in no way cuts corners like a lot of modern artists. Every panel is incredibly detailed with full backgrounds. You'll find no basic shapes floating in panels here. Just a really well done comic.

TBH, I never use Shelf Julie. For anything with illustrations I sideload them to Dragonfire Reader on my ipad. I find that a much better reading experience. The endless vertical scroll on the shelf app drives me nuts.

Last week's ARCs.

Blue Book Volume 2: 1947 ★★
A really boring drive by approach to UFO sightings throughout the 20th century. It's written in a factual style that is extremely dry and there's no real story. Just a few panels for most of the major sightings. I'm honestly not sure why this even exists. Disappointing considering I like both creators involved.

Batman: Resurrection ★★★
I thought it was odd to write a new prose book based on Batman '89 in 2024. After all, why wait 35 years? But it actually wasn't half bad. It takes place between Batman and Batman Returns, bridging the gap. It answers some perceived plot holes in the first movie with the Joker. Batman is having nightmares about the Joker still being alive and it seems like he may have returned. I do remember those rumors being told about what Batman Returns would be about. Two more Batman villains make their debut in the Batman '89 universe and I thought they were both done pretty well. They both maintained their comic book roots while getting updated to fit this world. Miller does a good job of bridging the gap between the two films. He also seems to have laid some seeds for another Batman book to come out next year, Batman: Revolution.

The Midnight: Shadows ★★
Some guys in a band I never heard of, The Midnight, created a comic to go along with their album. It's set in 2 different time, 1999 and a 100 years in the future. The guy in 1999 is starting a family and goes to play an old video game that may have transported him into the future. (It's never very clear which reality in the real one.) In the future most of Earth has been destroyed by some vague shadows. That's my problem with the whole thing. Everything stays very vague so they don't have to commit. There are also 3 different artists working on this and it can be some grating changes between them.

We Called Them Giants ★★★
A bare bones dystopian future comic. Lori is a foster kid, waking up one day to find everyone missing. Eventually she finds another girl. For some reason most of the food has also disappeared which makes no sense other than video game sense. The two girls have to fight for resources with this gang called the Dogs until these giant aliens show up. The idea here seems to be that we are the aliens pets but I don't think its conveyed very well. The shining star here is Stephanie Hans's art. It's gorgeous. It's detailed. It's the concepts though just aren't fleshed out very well. Maybe they should have added an additional 20 pages to this OGN and did a bit more world building.

Do a Powerbomb! ★★★★★
I'll just say that I hate wrestling. My great grandma was kind of obsessed with wrestling when I was growing up. She'd have boxes of VHS tapes she'd break out and make us watch it every time I came over. But if real wrestling was nearly as good as this comic, I'd instantly be a fan.

It's about a father and daughter with an estranged relationship who have been in wrestling their whole life. Lona's mother was the champ, until an accident happened and the wrestler Cobrasun was the cause. Now no one will train Lona until one day she gets involved with an interdimensional tag team tournament with the prize being you get to bring a loved one back to life. And her partner? The man who killed her mother, Cobrasun.

This thing is packed with so much heart. The visuals are great. You can feel all the moves as they fly off the turnbuckle. Mike Spicer's colors pop off the page. If you like comics, do yourself a favor and read this book.

The History of Science Fiction: A Graphic Novel Adventure ★★
Dense doesn't even begin to describe this thing. It feels like a dissertation disguised as a comic book. It's packed with information if you can keep yourself awake enough to retain the information in it. The pages are heaps and heaps of text between talking heads (typically known science fiction authors) listing off authors and their books but with little other information provided. The biggest pro for this book is to make some listicles of the books mentioned within and then go out and actually read those instead.

Hillbilly, Volume 1 ★★★★★
Eric Powell shifts from his signature series, The Goon, to this new character of the Hillbilly. The Hillbilly walks the back roads of Appalachia with his Devil's Cleaver hunting witches that plague the small towns therein. The art is just absolutely gorgeous. Just exquisite pencil works with subtle colors. The Buzzard does make an appearance so I guess this is set in the same world as The Goon.

Hillbilly, Volume 2 ★★★★★
Eric Powell's stories of Rondel, keeper of the Devil's Cleaver. He roams Appalachia killing monsters and righting wrongs in hillbilly fairy tales. There's no larger story here although the extras mention plans for the characters to reappear in future stories. I'd imagine there's a plan to eventually kill all the witches.

Hillbilly, Volume 3 ★★★★★
Visually this book is stunning. Powell's creatures are fantastical and original. The character designs are stylized, yet perfect. I love the washed out, almost sepia tone coloring. There's a larger story at this point with both the Hillbilly and the witches building armies to throw at one another. I do wish this was left to breathe a little longer.

Hillbilly Volume 4: Red-Eyed Witchery From Beyond ★★
Hillbilly is typically excellent but Powell only drew one issue of this. Without his art and subtle colors, this looked awful. That combined with a lesser story of Rondel fighting aliens just wasn't a good fit.

Last week's Thanksgiving ARCs.

Fortune and Glory: The Musical ★★★
Bendis's story about how he was approached to write the book for Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, the famously failed musical of the past decade. That's just a small part of the book though. At least half of it is how he became a writer and got into comics. For those of you who haven't read his earliest comics, he also started out as an artist before learning that his real talent laid solely in writing comics.

Frank Miller’s Ronin Rising Manga Edition ★
Frank Miller continues to tarnish his legacy in the 21st century with this nonsense sequel to Ronin. I had absolutely no idea what was happening. It was all pinup pages of gigantic monsters floating in space (or the womb, who the Hell knows) with the same repetitive dialogue for 300 pages. Then there's a mother and a toddler with Superman's powers killing them and talking repeatedly about Virgo and one of the other zodiac signs that I can't be bothered to remember. This is easily the worst comic of the year. This new publisher, Cana, needs to pay people to get them to read it. It's that bad. It wasn't even worth reading it with the free ARC I received.

Godzilla's 70th Anniversary Deluxe Edition ★★★
The 70th Anniversary special is pretty good. I gave it 4 stars when I first read it. This deluxe edition adds these random Best of Godzilla comics that I think bring down the collection as a whole. They are all very random. Some of them are incomplete stories. If you're a Godzilla fan, you've probably already read all of it in previous collections. It just seem like a scam to take more of your money.

Thief of the Heights ★★★
A YA dystopian comic about three friends who create prosthetics for people inflected by some disease that requires limbs to be amputated. The best of the best get lifted out of the darkness to cities higher up on the food chain with better resources and daylight. It's fine. My problems are that we've read this story many times before. So many times before that Son M. doesn't really even bother to go into details about much of this world. You're supposed to just take what was given and go with it. But this is also 240 pages long so what else were they were doing with these pages? The ending feels like it comes out of nowhere too. All of a sudden there's a revolution plot that wasn't really there at all before. It was so rushed that I thought maybe towards the end, the publisher told the creators that they were not getting a second book and they had to cram the rest of the story in the last 50 pages.

Batman: Resurrection ★★★
I thought it was odd to write a new prose book based on Batman '89 in 2024. After all, why wait 35 years? But it actually wasn't half bad. It takes place between Batman and Batman Returns, bridging the gap. It answers some perceived plot holes in the first movie with the Joker. Batman is having nightmares about the Joker still being alive and it seems like he may have returned. I do remember those rumors being told about what Batman Returns would be about. Two more Batman villains make their debut in the Batman '89 universe and I thought they were both done pretty well. They both maintained their comic book roots while getting updated to fit this world. Miller does a good job of bridging the gap between the two films. He also seems to have laid some seeds for another Batman book to come out next year, Batman: Revolution.

Last week's ARCs.

Dune: House Corrino Vol. 2 ★★
The art seems to be getting worse in these adaptations as it goes along. Maybe Boom is looking to save some money towards the end of these? Anyway, it's still houses Atreides and Harkonnen going at it with one another with the Emperor doing real shady stuff behind the scenes. I'm suddenly glad it's almost over as it's losing my interest.

Barda ★★★
This is OK. I was impressed that Ukazu was able to update the New Gods story in a relatable way without really changing it. But this is also a dumbed down version for kids. Some of it didn't quite fit together almost as if pages were in the wrong order. The art's not very good and that's compounded with zero backgrounds. Still it's not bad for a simplified version of the Big Barda and Scott Free story.

Braba: A Brazilian Comics Anthology ★★★
An anthology of short comics from Brazilian creators. Some are pretty good, some not so much. I like the ones that tell an actual story as opposed to getting esoteric.

Dudley Datson and the Forever Machine ★★★
Another Comixology Original from Scott Snyder. One thing I'll give him, he has no shortage of ideas. This one is an all ages story about the power of ideas. Dudley Datson is a teenage inventor who meets up with a talking dog and has to go on the run from an alien race that wants to enslave humanity.

Dog Days ★★★
The story of a Korean couple who adopt a dog. They decide to move outside of Seoul to the countryside where dogs are often treated quite differently. Frequently neglected, sometimes much worse. I was pretty shocked when she met someone who butchered dogs like livestock. They'd have to get through me first to touch our dog. Thankfully, she mentions in the afterword that those laws have changed as of 2024, no longer allowing it.

PamG wrote: "Here is my 4.19 rounded to 4 stars review of Bellevue by Robin Cook:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Medical Thriller
Suspenseful, Vivid, Thought-..."

I can't believe Robin Cook is still writing. I was 3 years old when he wrote Coma.

A secret trick for those arcs you fall behind on Kerry. If you have a kindle, go ahead and send them to it before the cutoff date, they'll be there forever so you can still get caught up and read them.