Graphic novel review: Ember and the Island of Lost Creatures by Jason Pamment

(courtesy Allen & Unwin Book Publishers) I can still remember how incredibly isolating and alone it felt to be bullied continuously and mercilessly during 13 long years of school. Like anyone under constant attack by bullies, I alternated between crushing despair, near-palpable loneliness and a sense that no one would Continue Reading

Merry pop culture Christmas to all … and to all a good streaming-reading-listening night! (Bonus The Penguins of Madagascar Christmas Special)

(courtesy Pinterest (c) Peanuts) Merry pop culture Christmas everyone! Another year has somehow zoomed right through, around and past us, offering up far too many books and movies and TV/streaming show and songs and graphic novels to consume in one lifetime, but reminding us as we gobbled what we could Continue Reading

Songs, songs and more songs #118: Five songs I love from Heartstopper S3 by beabadoobee, Baby Queen, Tom Odell, Griff + Angie McMahon

(courtesy Netflix) For anyone who’s ever struggled to make their authentic way into the world as a young adult because they didn’t match the world’s very restrictively narrow idea of what a person should be sexually, Heartstopper has been a liberating revelation. Warmly inclusive and funny and heartfelt to a Continue Reading

Halloween graphic novel review: The Stuff of Legend – Book 2: The Jungle by Mike Raight and Brian Smith with illustrations by Charles Paul Wilson III

Being afraid of the dark is one of those thing childish things we re supposed to put aside as we grow older. After all, the idea that evil and terrible things lurk in the places where there is no light, where our view is limited or outright obscured, is surely Continue Reading

Graphic novel review: Peculiar Woods (Vol. 2) – The Mystery of the Intelligents by Andrés J. Colmenares

(courtesy Simon & Schuster) It’s wonderful when a creator can make a cliffhanger moment pay off. If you recall, the first Peculiar Woods story, The Ancient Underwater City, ended definitively, yes, but a tantalising cliffhanger moment woven in, and in its sequel, The Mystery of the Intelligents, Andrés J. Colmenares Continue Reading