January 2018 – Commons Comics

Here’s another review from the archives, for those who might need a laugh amidst all this snow and ice. This review was originally published in the “Elkhart Truth” in the summer of 2015, and the final installment, “Glorkian Warrior and the Mustache of Destiny,” was released in 2016. If you and your kids—or just you—like this book, check out some of Kochalka’s Johnny Boo series, too, with “Johnny Boo and the Ice Cream Computer” coming out this summer, and “Johnny Boo Is King” next year, both on Top Shelf Books. His new series “Mechaboys” is coming out this summer as well, so let me know how that is if you get to it before my boys and I do.

Continue reading ““The Glorkian Warrior Eats Adventure Pie,” by James Kochalka, Master of Silly”

Here’s another post from the “Elkhart Truth” archives, originally published February 2015. The fourth and concluding issue of “Malice in Ovenland” has since been released, in August 2016. “Kid Code” is still on issue one, but Damian Duffy and John Jennings have been busy with other projects, most notably a graphic novel version of Octavia Butler’s classic science-fiction novel “Kindred.”

Even more exciting, especially for my Goshen readers, keep an eye out for a visit from Rosarium Comics’s Bill Campbell on March 13, 2018. Campbell will be visiting Goshen College as part of the English Department’s S.A. Yoder lecture series.

Disclosure statement: Rosarium provided me with free access to their comics titles.

Being raised in an all-white community in the United States during the 1970s and ‘80s, I often felt like I was imprisoned in the “Land of Can’t,” says Bill Campbell, founder of Rosarium Publishing, in his testimonial for the Comics Empower Project. He cites his mother as one influence who helped him dismiss negative messages about being black. The other was comic books, which gave him “the chance to explore a world, ever so briefly, where fantastical things such as flying were possible, a world where the Land of Can’t could never be found on the map.” Continue reading ““Kid Code” and “Malice in Ovenland”: Rosarium Publishing Mixes and Remixes It Up”