A review blog of new comics and graphic novels by writer, professor, and comics scholar Jessica Baldanzi
From Lone Mountain, by John Porcellino. 304 pages, Drawn and Quarterly, March 2018. Paperback, 22.95.
NOTE: Drawn and Quarterly sent me a free review copy of this book.
Thanks to Better World Books, 215 S. Main St. in Goshen, for providing me with books to review. You can find or order all of the books I review at the store.
This is King Cat:
This is his creator, John Porcellino:
Ghost Stories, by Whit Taylor. 120 pages, Rosarium Press, January 2018. Paperback, $17.95.
Rosarium Press provided me with a free online review copy of this book. Thanks also to Better World Books, 215 S. Main St. in Goshen, for providing me with books to review. You can find or order all of the books I review at the store.
NOTE: You can hear Bill Campbell, head of Rosarium Press, speak on Tuesday, March 13 at 7:30 in Rieth Recital Hall on the Goshen College campus. His talk is called “Social Justice in Publishing.” Click here for more information.
Everything Is Flammable, by Gabrielle Bell, Uncivilized Books (Minneapolis), June 2017, $25.95, mature teen to adult
Thanks to Better World Books, 215 S. Main St. in Goshen, for providing me with books to review. You can find all of these books at the store.
It’s hard at first to put your finger on why the rambling, fragmentary work of Gabrielle Bell adds up to such a powerful whole. Her first full-length book, the new memoir Everything Is Flammable, drifts from her anxiety to her neighbors to her obsession with her garden. But the method to her accumulated mental wanderings becomes clearer and clearer as the book unfolds, and the sum total is well worth the wait.
Which isn’t to say that you have to wait long at all to appreciate Bell’s mastery of the form. The book begins with the one-page, six-panel vignette, “I’m Doing Fine.” As with any autobiographical work, there wouldn’t be much of a story to tell if that statement were true. Witness her closing frame:
Continue reading “Everything Is Flammable, by Gabrielle Bell”
