Category Archives: Adventure

Toronto Comic Arts Festival 2024

by Rebecca

I’ve been going to the Small Press Expo (SPX) for years, but last weekend was the first time I’ve managed to go to the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) and it was so much fun! We came in to Toronto on Friday and left on Monday so that we could attend the entirety of the event on Saturday and Sunday. I attended five presentations, browsed hundreds of vendor stalls, and bought 14 graphic novels. (And was tempted by a whole lot more!) I haven’t read all my new acquisitions yet, but most of the ones I have are also online so I can link out to them as well as brag about them:

Godslave
by Meaghan Carter
A nineteen-year-old college drop-out accidentally wakes up an ancient Egyptian god who looks a bit like a fennec fox (so cute!) and then gets drawn into the deadly family drama of the Egyptian pantheon. Who the good guys are is deeply in question. I bought the first two volumes, which comprise the first five chapters, but the online version has started the sixth chapter!

The Big Mystery Case: A Crime Comedy
by Luke Bruger-Howard
This is a hilarious pastiche of crime thrillers that reminds me of the equally hilarious video How To Make Blockbuster Movie Trailer. It’s a quick read (less than an hour) and a loving mockery of the detective genre.

Baggage
by Violet Kitchen
This is an absolutely beautiful poem of a graphic novel, about packing for a trip, unpacking in a hotel room, and then repacking to depart again. It’s gorgeous in the way it uses both artwork and words to evoke emotions and communicate a sense memory. The imagery is very clean and crisp while the concept is very ethereal and dreamlike, and it works together perfectly.

The Closest Thing to Living
by Ky K
They only had the prologue of this story in hardcopy, but it drew me in and included a link to the online version for me to continue following and see what happened to the woman who wakes up from her murder, discovers she’s a vampire, and decides that this is the freedom she needed to be more true to herself. She’s very nihilistic and isn’t much interested in her own past, but it looks like despite being dead, she won’t be able to actually walk away.

Autumn Wing and the Crown of Fire, Volume 1: The Sword of Red Leaves
by Brandon Hankins
Gorgeous inkbrush artwork with a limited color palate that I really love. This first chapter is about a young nephilim, who’s trying to earn the right to go on a quest to forge a crown of fire, aka a halo, and come into his full power. It did a really good job of addressing what it means to be strong, especially when other people are yelling at you for both not giving in to them and for not being strong. I just bought the first volume, but five chapters are online!

Tales from the Sixth Sun
by Dennis Moran
Absolutely gorgeous artwork and a magical world that reminds me a bit of Wakanda, with mysticism and technology integrated, set in a fantasy world heavily influenced by Afrofuturism and Inca-futurism. The first half of the book is nearly word-less, and the art carries the storytelling so beautifully but also very tightly focused. The later part has more dialogue and introduces a much more complex society and history and plot. This book contains the first three chapters of the story, but the first six chapters are online!

I am extremely picky about the graphic novels I buy: I they need to have both beautiful artwork and interesting storylines, and all of these were wonderful finds. I’m really looking forward to making this festival an annual event.

Little Mushroom by Shisi

by Rebecca

Little Mushroom
by Shisi
translated by Xiao
2022

This is adorable and hilarious and horrifying. This is set in a post-apocalyptic world (with all the scientific explanation of Star Trek, ie, absolutely ludicrous but boy does the author and a series of scientist characters try) where the final bastions of humanity are in a handful of highly guarded cities under military rule, while plants and animals outside are all aggressively mutating and mutagenic. Get stung by an insect and within a couple of hours you’ll become a giant insect monster going on a killing rampage. The nature aspect reminds me of Scavengers Reign, and the writing is clearly intended to evoke specific visual images that sometimes comes across oddly in a written medium, but this would make a stunning animation.

The society is an extreme form of fascism that’s written as a necessary evil with the protestors dying horrible deaths for not understanding the necessity of the military department with little to no oversight that executes anyone suspected of being tainted with a mutation. The slogan of “Humankind’s interests take precedence over all else” very much includes the rights of any individual. There’s the military, the scientists, the breeding program, and everyone else. It’s a grim society, on the cusp of destruction: an extreme dystopia.

However, the book’s perspective is not from the point of view of a human. While humans are struggling for survival in an increasingly hostile world due to the mutating animals and plants, one such mutation is a mushroom who has gained sentience, mobility, and the ability to shape change into the form of a human. That mushroom, named An Zhe, ventures forth into the human city to reacquire part of itself that had been collected by a human research team. Human massacres just aren’t as traumatic to a mushroom as they are to a human and An Zhe’s calm curiosity permeates the book. What does he know about humans and morals and society? He’s just a little mushroom! Adorable!

Lu Feng, the human in charge of executing any human mutations, takes one look at An Zhe and essentially goes: huh. An Zhe is definitely odd but not in the way of a mutated human. Deeply suspicious, but to all appearances just an oddly sweet and naive human.

And thus the plot develops: the human race losing the century-long war against the increasing number of devastating disasters while desperately trying to figure out what’s causing the mutations, An Zhe trying to figure out how to fit into human society while searching for his lost “spore”, and Lu Feng developing unwanted feelings for the one person who isn’t scared of him.

It is utterly ridiculous and adorable — despite the gore, body horror, and overarching destruction — and somehow ends happily.

While this is printed in two volumes, it was originally written as a webnovel with three books and then a series of epilogues and side stories. I’d originally just bought the first volume which is books one and two (despite the cover which says “book one” on it). It does come to a good conclusion and is a natural break in the story… except that there are some really distracting loose ends (a mannequin that’s a perfect replica of Lu Feng was created, confiscated, and then never shows up again? I think not!) so I immediately ordered the second volume and then had to wait a week for it to show up.

There’s definitely some cultural commentary and common Chinese tropes that I don’t have the context for, but I still really enjoyed these books. I can’t give a blanket recommendation since the society is seriously grim dark with the aforementioned body horror and gory deaths, so readers will need to judge their own preferences, but it really is amazing how chill and even hilarious the narration can be regarding the horrors when the POV character is a self-aware mushroom.

Web comics

by Rebecca

I have been bingeing so many web comics! There are so many, and cover such a range! And I know I’ve read web comics before and even recommended some of them on this blog, but previously I was discovering them on their individual websites and now I have discovered that there are phone apps that give you access to some untold numbers of web comics all through a single searchable interface.

Admittedly, the vast majority are pretty darn schlocky, and my first impression was that they were like harlequin romances for fantasy fans. (“His Majesty’s Proposal”, “The Remarried Empress”, and “Justice for the Villainess” are all real titles of webcomics I’ve tried.) But on the one hand, I do enjoy some schlocky fantasy romances, and on the other hand, there are other genres represented, and some really good stories, as long as you’re willing to go searching.

Many of the stories are on-going with weekly updates which remind me of why I stopped following comics in individual issues and waited for trade paperbacks instead. I find the individual updates frustratingly short. But having just discovered these collections, there are a lot of issues to catch up on before I’m current, and there are some great stories that have been completed.

Manta is one of the apps I downloaded on my phone, although it’s also available as a website. I now have a monthly subscription that gives me full access to any story in their collection. Some of the completed stories that I recommend are:

  • Shall We Pole Dance? is a 12-issue nonfiction story about a woman’s experience improving physically and mentally through joining a pole dancing class, that’s just sweet and delightful.
  • The Night Market is a 12-issue fantasy story about a magical market that is an intersection of worlds, where you can buy anything at all, but once you enter, you must buy something, and everything has a cost.
  • Unbreakable Master is a 141-issue fantasy gay romance about a guy who breaks everything he touches discovering that there is a hidden world of magical beings fighting a war for control of the world, and what role his powers might have in this struggle.
  • Traces of the Sun is a 96-issue fantasy gay romance about a guy who has the magical power to fix things, a job fixing destroyed buildings, and a secret: that when his childhood friends were killed in an attack, he tried to fix them, but only raised them as zombies that he can neither bring fully to life nor settle into peace. (This is based on a book and I want to read the book so bad, but it’s in Korean and there’s no translation available.)

Webtoons is the other app I now have installed on my phone, which charges a certain number of “coins” per recent issue, with coins being sold for real money, however, as long as you’re willing to wait a few weeks, the backlog of older issues are free. None of the stories I’ve read on this app have been completed, but there are several that I’ve enjoyed the backlog and updates for:

  • Eleceed is currently at 262 free issues of a fantasy adventure story about a kid who has a superpower discovering that there’s a whole society of “awakened ones” with superpowers and working up the ranks of power via an endless series of dramatic duels, which is a tedious premise, but the growing cast of characters are so darn delightful! The sweet kid, Jiwoo Seo, discovers an injured cat, who is actually a person, Kayden, who had semi-accidentally transformed himself into a cat, but proceeds to mentor the kid. This story made me realize that for a society that’s essentially lawful evil, the chaotic neutral of Kayden is a net benefit.
  • Cleric of Decay is currently at 30 free issues of a fantasy adventure story where our protagonist has been sucked into a video game he was playing, but only after he’d both selected a particularly difficult/weak character class AND installed cheat codes to make it viable. So now he’s wandering around as the last living cleric of an evil goddess who was killed and dismembered years ago trying to collect objects of power at the demand of a mummified hand of a goddess while staying unnoticed by the various paladins and clerics of more accepted deities.
  • Paranoid Mage is currently at 11 free issues of a fantasy adventure story about a young man who discovers he has magic powers shortly before being discovered by a secret society of magic users who are strictly hierarchical and do not think he is allowed to opt out of joining their society on a low rung. He escapes, and is now on the run/in hiding, while trying to learn to use his powers, and also stumbling across parts of magical society.

These stories are a delight and an addiction.

Comics written by women

by Anna

I ran across a thread on Twitter listing out comics and manga by women, and there were a number I hadn’t heard of, so I promptly went on a hold spree on my library’s website.

The Good

Sleepless by Sarah Vaughn and Leila del Duca

Ooh, this was a delight! The beautiful illustrations and realistic dialogue work together to draw the reader into this diverse Renaissance-type world of heraldry, politics, and magic. Lady Pyppenia or “Poppy” is the beloved though illegitimate daughter of the late king, trying to find her place in the court once her uncle takes the thrown. Her sworn knight, Cyrenic, is one of the ‘sleepless,’ guards who have magically sacrificed their need for sleep in order to offer around-the-clock protection, and the only one she can trust when assassins come for her.

The world building is expansive enough that it reminds me a bit of Game of Thrones, though much more family friendly, of course. The variety of fantasy cultures borrow elements from Europe through the Mediterranean and down into North Africa, represented with different fashions, manners, and magic, and all trying to navigate the various political alliances. At the same time, it is an intimate look at the relationship between a young woman in a precarious position of power and the man that serves her. The first volume ends on a cliffhanger, and the second picks up immediately, so get them together if you can.

Black Cloak by Kelly Thompson and Meredith McClaren

Another phenomenal story! I knew it was likely to be a good one for me from the various raves describing it as fantasy shot through with noir mystery/police procedural. There’s not much better way to my heart, and it is excellently done.

Set in a futuristic fantasy world, where elves, dragons, and humans all jostle for political power in the last standing city, Black Cloak balances the writing and illustrations beautifully in its “show, don’t tell” approach. When two bodies wash ashore from the mermaid lagoon, our protagonist, a ‘black cloak’ cop, must investigate. The world-building unfolds with the mystery as the bodies lead to secrets through all levels of the society.

Continue reading →

The Wild Robot by Peter Brown

by Rebecca

The Wild Robot
2016
by Peter Brown

This was clearly written for young readers with simple language, chapters that are only a page or two long, and fun illustrations on most pages. It’s also 300 pages long, covers a lot of ground in those many short chapters, and is lovely to read as an adult, with a heart-felt plot arch. The titular wild robot, Roz, is a general assistant robot made for by and for humans with a learning AI component, who is lost in a shipwreck and wakes up for the first time on an island full of wild animals, and no humans at all. So Roz must learn directly from nature and the wild animals, which whom she learns to speak and live and become wild.

It’s light and fun with the animals all talking in their animal language and having an hour of truce every day between predator and prey to gather and discuss the island news, but it does acknowledge (albeit lightly) that sometimes the predators do kill and eat the prey animals, because that’s the nature of nature. But it’s a lovely feel-good story, with adventures, found family and beautiful wilderness.

The Wild Robot Escapes
2018
by Peter Brown

Although they were published two years apart, the sequel feels like the second half of a duology. This is another 300-pages of many short chapters riddled with illustrations and a simple plot arch that’s also emotionally deep and resonant. It continues directly from the end of the first book, and creates some lovely parallels.

There is a third book, The Wild Robot Protects, that I’ll probably read eventually as well, but I’m guessing it’s more a stand alone story, while these two are definitely paired.

I highly recommend these for any kid who’s just getting into longer full-text books, or for any ESL readers who want something that’s interesting with plot and characters while still needing simply language, or anyone like me who just wants a somewhat relaxing read about sweet characters figuring out how to succeed.

Also, as a little extra, DreamWorks is making this into an animated movie. The trailer looks adorable, and I’m deeply curious as to what they do with the plot arc.

The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang

by Rebecca

The Poppy War
by R. F. Kuang
2018

Some years back, I first heard of this book in a recommendation list that had tagged it as grimdark. That’s not a subgenre I appreciate at all, and so I didn’t read it then. More recently, I ran across a recommendation somewhere else, and it looked interesting so I gave it a shot, and for the most part it slots pretty neatly into a lot of fantasy and YA war books that deal with horrible situations. However, out of 530 pages, there are about 30 at the 400 page mark that are absolutely horrifying and I wish I hadn’t read.

While the book is set in a fantasy world, it’s clearly inspired by China and Japan and the Japanese invasions of China. And those 30 pages are inspired by the Rape of Nanking, aka the Nanking massacre of 1937-1938. If you ever want nightmares, look up that bit of history. As a piece of fiction, it comes across as a series of gratuitously detailed descriptions of physical and sexual abuse on a massive scale; as a reminder of the depths of horror that humans perpetuate upon each other, it made me wonder why I was reading fiction and not somehow doing something to stop any of the current genocides taking place, and how horrible is it that none of them are as horrifying as Nanking was.

But, you know, other than that, the book felt like a combination of The Magicians (which I didn’t care for) and Iron Widow (which I did). The plot focuses on Rin, a young orphan girl being fostered by drug runners who’s determined to get out of an arranged marriage by passing the entrance exam for the premier military academy (which come with an automatic full scholarship) and going on to do great things.

The book is organized into three parts, the first part of which is basically an extremely long training montage. I do love a good training montage, so this isn’t a bad thing from my perspective, although some of it broke my suspension of disbelief. (Forcing yourself to stay awake for days on end to rote memorize texts you don’t understand is unlikely to actually lead to a good test grade.)

The next two parts are the war. And also where the characters get increasingly full of themselves even as they make increasingly questionable decisions. The training montage section dealt with a lot of cool world building and magic theory, but not much about military structure, strategy, tactics, or logistics, all of which they could have been helpful later on.

There is an extremely dramatic conclusion with Rin coming into her power and rather conclusively ending the war, while also setting up for an even more dramatic sequel. However, it also falls a bit flat as it tries rather quickly to address the philosophical question of whether or not atrocities in response to atrocities are ever acceptable.

So over all, this was well written, but I didn’t actually like it, and while I’m curious to know what happens in the next book, I don’t think I’m going to read it.

Apocalyptic Travel graphic novels

by Rebecca

Touring After the Apocalypse, Volumes 1 – 3
by Sakae Saito
translated by Amanda Haley
2022-2023

I randomly checked these manga out from the new release section of my local library and they’re adorable. Youko and Airi are (or at least appear to be) two teenage girls who are traveling via motorsbike around Japan, seeing the sights, following Youko’s older sister’s previous touring schedule, but while the pictures and social media posts that the sister posted look (more or less) like regular posts we might see today, Youko and Airi are seeing the sights after they’re long abandoned and worn down and completely absent any other people. But they’re so excited to see everything!

In each volume, there’s some discovery that to me-the-reader acknowledges the whole tragedy of the empty and crumbling infrastructure of society and what it means that there are so many people not there. To the two girls, it’s fun and interesting and then they move on to the next thing. It keeps the whole mood light-hearted, while also highlighting how much society changes in a single generation as kids who didn’t live the history are accustomed to their lives as being the norm.

There’s a slowly building reveal that something else is going on with these two, but while there are various hints and teases so far, I haven’t figured it out yet.

I’m also really impressed with the translation job since there’s a lot of pop culture references and word games that flow perfectly naturally while I’m reading the English and I can only imagine were incredibly difficult to transpose from the original Japanese.

The Electric State
by Simon Stålenhag
2017

Oof, this is beautiful and moody and horrifying and dark, and it ends in such a way that there’s just enough hope for the future that I think “maybe…”, even though it’s very clear that there’s no real hope. But, just, maybe…?

My first thought when looking at this book was that it was an art book, full of beautiful full page and two-page spreads of various post-apocalyptic scenes. And it is! But it’s also a novella with a story, written in text and full paragraphs and absolutely no text boxes or the like, so it’s more of a picture book than a graphic novel in the way the text and the images interact.

The story is about the narrator Michelle and her companion Skip making a cross country trip in a thoroughly failed cyberpunk society. The setting is intra-apocalyptic rather than post, and oof, does it dip into all sorts of horror, with the implication that at least three types of apocalyptic disasters were all happening at once: war, environmental, and technological. It was reassuring that the events were set in the 1990s with a different history prior to that because this book would have been even more horrifying if it was set in the 2040s. There are a series of flashbacks that reveal the narrator’s backstory, but it’s only in the final third of the book that the reason for trip and Skip’s story are finally revealed, and it’s such a magnificent twist that just twists my heart and stomach.

The differences between these two titles is kind of amazing, just in tone and visualization, especially given how similar the premise and frameworks are. It very much highlights how two people can tell the same story in such different ways that they become two different stories. Reading these two so soon one after another reminds me very much of the Holy Shit! Two Cakes! meme.

graphic novels

by Rebecca

It’s Okay That It’s Not Okay
by Christina Tran
2022

I got this book from the Small Press Expo and it’s really good and also really emotional, about the process of dealing with grief after too long trying to push past it. Trans’ mother died in 2003, but the story is set in 2011, as she deals with the results of never fully allowing herself to grieve before, and not feeling able to grieve anymore. It’s really beautiful and well done, using the graphics to show both how busy she kept herself for years and also how hard the depression hit when she was no longer able to push the emotions away. There were definitely parts I recognized in myself and others. I highly recommend it.

Cat Burglar Black
by Richard Sala
2009

This is an adorable classic gothic mystery with gangs of orphaned street thieves, mysterious secret organizations, orphans, previously unknown aunts, mysterious illnesses that require full face bandages, hidden treasures, and a lot of just-off-screen gruesome deaths. There was also a lot of info dumping about the various backstories, but the action was really well done. The deaths had a certain Edward Gorey quality to them. I expect kids and teens would love this, but I might be too old to properly appreciate the many macabre deaths.

Thistil Mistil Kistil
by Sarah Schanze
2015

This is gorgeous. It’s another Small Press Expo acquisition that I bought entirely for the illustrations which are amazing, and only then did I pay attention to the story which is also really good. The plot is about a viking kid who has died honorably in battle, but due to circumstances has been blocked from Valhalla and given the mission to find three pieces of famous weapons that Loki has stolen and return them to Odin before he will be allowed to enter. So he goes to Loki to try to figure out what he did with them. Loki is more or less curious about how is all going to play out and probably has motives of his own to go along with this quest to find whatever happened to those pieces. Stuff happens. After reading this, I discovered that it is only the first five chapters, and while the story is not yet completed, the first twenty-two chapters are available online: https://www.tmkcomic.com/archive/ Yay! So I am now all caught up and wow, did things get complicated and I really hope the rest comes soon! But also, just wow, the illustrations are so beautiful and so significant to the story telling.

The Mystery of the Fool & the Vanisher
by David and Ruth Ellwand
2008

This book is less of a graphic novel and more an extensively illustrated short story. (“Picture book for adults” was how I first phrased this but then thought that sounded pornographic, which this is decidedly not.) The plot is a Victorian gothic mystery about a photographer, an archaeologist, and the pixies who do not appreciate archaeological digs in their territory. The illustrations are all photographs, including photographs of photographs, as the framing story is about a photographer who finds an abandoned locked trunk that contains documentation of a much earlier photographer who tried the prove the existence of the fae folk. (I was much reminded of Arthur Conan Doyle’s attempts to prove such.) It is extremely atmospheric.

Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo

by Rebecca

Into the Riverlands
by Nghi Vo
2022

I had somehow failed to notice the publication of this third part of The Singing Hills Cycle, sequel to The Empress of Salt and Fortune and When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, but am delighted to have found it now. Each novella stands alone, but they show the experiences of Cleric Chih and Almost Brilliant in their exploration of the world in search of stories and histories to bring back to their abbey.

While this world has always had a certain magical element, this book is more traditionally wuxia than the previous two. Chih is not a martial artist, and they are present as a witness rather than a direct actor of events, but there are current events of bandits and martial arts masters as well as legends of heroes and villains, and there’s a real question of how much or little overlap there is between the tales and the truth, with each of the characters having their own opinions too.

I’d already commented in my review of Zen Cho’s The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water that it fits in well with this series, but I was reminded of it even more when reading this newest novella. I also felt both ridiculous for not noticing immediately and a bit proud of myself for realizing eventually that the jianghu, where most wuxia stories are set, translates directly to “riverlands”.

This book is only 100 pages long, but it packs a lot of rich details into those pages without ever feeling rushed. When I finished the book, I also had to go back an re-read the beginning again to see these characters in the context of the completed story. It’s a really beautifully written story with multiple interesting perspectives on how history is told.

Witch King by Martha Wells

by Rebecca

Witch King
by Martha Wells
May 30, 2023

I’ve been having trouble focusing on books recently, but this wonderful book managed to break through that malaise. Possibly in part because at the beginning it fit right in with The Untamed fanfic that I’ve been reading.

In many ways it felt like Wells might have seen that show and/or read that book and decided to write her own take on it: The titular Witch King is awoken from the dead, has a new body, and has to figure out what happened and why. The story also alternates between current events and prior events when he was an adolescent fighting what seemed like an impossible battle against powerful villains, with uneasy allies.

It is very much Wells’ own story, though, with fascinating, complex characters and even more fascinating, complex societal world-building, and turning so many stereotypes just ninety degrees, so that they’re not inverted so much as just going off in unexpected new directions. I love this author’s writing so much, but her Murderbot series has been so fabulous recently that I just hadn’t thought about how much I love her fantasy books as well. Wells’ fantasy worlds are all multicultural, in a wonderful way, such that it’s not the plot, but it’s important background the characters and how they interact with each other and the plot.

This book has a lot of action and adventure and fights and rescues and escapes in both the current events and the past events plot lines, but it also has a remarkably calm and focused perspective that reminds me a bit of The Empress of Salt and Fortune. The past plot line is many decades in the past and time has had a chance to heal some of those wounds, or at least scar them over. And in the present plot line, Kai (the Witch King) is an experienced adult with those scars giving him perspective and distance even from the current events.

Wells also does an amazing job of running both plot lines in parallel such that they interact with and give important context to each other. Although it did take several chapters for me to get over being dismayed each time it switched because I’d gotten so invested in one plot line that I couldn’t remember how invested I was in the other until I was back in and dismayed to swap back.

The whole book was fascinating and fun and kept me focused to the point where even as I set it down nearly as often as I had any other book I’ve tried to read recently, I consistently picked it up again, and read it over the course of four days. I highly recommend it.