(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
Graphic novel
Fall hard, love harder: Thoughts on Heartstopper season 3
(courtesy IMP Awards) Watching a new season of Heartstopper, just like reading the graphic novels upon which they are based, feels like coming home. That may sound like an extravagantly sentimental thing to say, but Alice Oseman’s wondrously inclusive creation feels, even at its darkest and most seriously contemplative (and Continue Reading
Graphic novel review: Alice Ever After by Dan Panosian (writer) and Giorgio Spalletta (artist)
(courtesy BOOM! Studios) SNAPSHOTAlice first visited Wonderland as a child. Now grown up, it’s become her only escape from a cold, harsh world that feels even less real—a distant family, a tormented lover, and a father with secrets he’ll do anything to protect. But in order to return to her Continue Reading
Fall hard, love harder: Heartstopper season 3 drops its first trailer
(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTYou may recall, moments before Heartstopper season 2 concludes, Charlie (Joe Locke) and Nick (Kit Connor) solidify their feelings for each other in a deeply vulnerable conversation. As honest as their heart-to-heart is, it seems there are things still left unsaid. “I love your hair. I love Continue Reading
Graphic novel review: The Man Who F#&%ed Up Time by John Layman, Karl Mostert and Dee Cunniffe
(courtesy Aftershock Comics) Who of us hasn’t wondered, in ways endlessly big or thoughtfully small, what it would be like to jump into a time machine and see what the past looks like? To walk among the dinosaurs. See the Romans battle and subdue another city or state. See the Continue Reading
It ends where it all began: Thoughts on Sweet Tooth S3 (the final season)
(courtesy IMP Awards) What a journey this has been! What started as a reasonably small story about a hybrid boy/deer living in the depths of Yellowstone National Park, or really just Yellowstone since civilisational constructs have largely fallen into disuse in just under a decade of apocalyptic decay, has grown Continue Reading
Standing up for who you are and what matters: Thoughts on Sweet Tooth S2
The COVID pandemic gave rise to many a strange dynamic. One of them, and the one that impacted this reviewer most when it came to consuming everything from movies to streaming shows to books, was a willingness to dive into all kinds of plague-related and end of the world-set storytelling; Continue Reading
Graphic novel review: Eight Billion Genies by Charles Soule and Ryan Browne
(courtesy Image Comics) On the surface, the idea of a genie appearing before each and every one of the people currently alive on Earth and offering them one wish would be something miraculous and full of wondrous possibility. Think of the things that could be righted – world hunger, climate Continue Reading
Graphic novel review: Know Your Station by Sarah Gailey / Kiana Kangas / Rebecca Nalty
(courtesy BOOM! Studios) A prevailing theme in many sci-fi stories is how, even in the future where things are supposed to get better, the rich seem to be richer and still in power while the poor continue to be treated like annoying but necessary resources who think far too much Continue Reading
Graphic novel review: Paper Girls 5 & 6 by Brian K Vaughan and Cliff Chiang
(courtesy Image Comics) On the face of it, time travel seems like one of the most fun idea out there. What’s not to like about the chance to zap anywhere in history and see dinosaurs or kill Hitler or see what the Earth looks like in 1.2 billion years? But Continue Reading