Love Letters #4

New year, new me etc. This year I’m pushing myself to read more manga, and the first one I read this year blew me away (see below!), so I’m taking that as a strong sign. I’m always a fan of “slice of life” stories, where the characters are just going about their daily lives, and the conflict and drama is born of those low stakes situations, rather than from world ending threats or massive fights, so I suspect those will be the majority of the manga titles that I go for. Not that those stories can only be found there though, a lot of my favourite comics and graphic novels exist in that space too, I think it’s why I loved the recent Krakoan era of the X-Men so much for example, big name creators working on big name books like Tom Taylor and Ryan North do great work with those types of stories too. They fit anywhere and can be a really nice counterpoint to the high pace, high stakes stories that we often get out of the major publishers, not to mention wholesome, positive and calming reads at a time when the real world feels like the opposite of that. Now, speaking of fantastic slice of life stories…

Ultimate Spiderman #12

Writer: Jonathan Hickman Penciller: Marco Checchetto

A whole year of Ultimate Spider-Man comes to an end in what presents as a bottleneck issue, but is hiding much more underneath. It presents itself as a simple store of Peter and MJ’s families trying to enjoy Christmas together at the Parker house, in a way that doesn’t advance the over-arching plot at all, but lets Hickman spend plenty of time on character instead, then it hits you with a great twist ending that in just a page or two, advances the plot just as far as a regular issue would have. It’s the kind of best-of-both-worlds storytelling that Hickman likes to do a lot, and it pays off really well in this issue. Marco Checchetto continues to kill it on art, even on an issue that takes place almost entirely in a kitchen and a living room, (and doesn’t even feature Spider-Man in costume). It’s hard for me to imagine Peter and his family looking any different in my head than the way he draws them, and I can’t think of a higher compliment than that.

Hirayasumi Vol. 1

Story and Art: Keigo Shinzo

Part of the joy of end of year best-of lists is being made aware of things that are right down your alley, but passed by you completely. My want list has grown so much over the past month because of them, my bank account weeps. Thankfully, the first book I bought from that list hit like a meteor to make it all worthwhile. I love “slice of life” as a genre in just about any medium it comes in, and Hirayasumi is such a perfect encapsulation of everything I want from that kind of book. Sweet, funny, heart-warming, sad, reflective and above all else, super-duper charming, its like a warm blanket on a cold night. It follows bubbly and positive twenty-something Hiroto and his gloomy and abashed cousin Natsumi who has just moved in with him to start uni, and flashes back to the friendship that Hiroto had with the old woman who owned the house before he did. Super simple premise that gives the character work plenty of air to breathe, I’m hooked immediately. The highest praise I can give to Hirayasumi is that I can't remember another book that has made me this happy reading it, it's really something special.

Finders Keepers #1

Writer: Vita Ayala Artist: Skylar Partridge

The very simple premise for Finders Keepers is, “reverse Indiana Jones”, which is one of those ideas that seems like such a slam dunk, you wonder how no one has done it before. It specifically takes Indy’s famous line “that belongs in a museum”, grabs it by the shoulders, shakes it and says, “no, it belongs in the place you stole it from.” Vita Ayala is a fantastic writer, really adept at pacing and using limited space to tell a much grander story, they bounce easily from exposition to action and back again, really capturing the feel of the classic 80’s action/adventure films. This one was technically a one shot, but as part of The Horizon Experiment – a series of pilot issues (that have mostly been really great) featuring marginalised characters in stories told by marginalised creators – so there’s no guarantee it will continue on, but I’m really hoping it finds an audience that can justify keeping it as an ongoing series because there’s so much potential here.

The New Gods #1 and #2

Writer: Ram V Artists: Evan Cagle, Jorge Fornez, Jesse Lonergan

Having just come off reading Dawnrunner by the same creative team (I wrote about it here!), I was definitely in full hype mode for The New Gods. Thankfully (and unsurprisingly) it’s fantastic. Between Ram V writing about mythology and Evan Cagle drawing epic action sequences, it was a foregone conclusion honestly. You couldn’t pick a better writer to tackle the incredibly dense, incredibly rich, mostly insane world of Kirby creations, and the way that the huge lore and mythos of the world has been focused down to a very fine point is clever and rewarding. Even if you don’t understand all the greater parts at play here, (as I often don’t), at it’s core it has begun as a story about comic’s best married couple, and the most popular/mainstream of the New Gods – Mister Miracle and Big Barda, focusing on an impossible mission they’re undertaking in the midst of their new parenthood. Their story helps keep things grounded when the book decides to take off at higher levels, which it does beautifully. These are the times when the art really gets to shine, some of these pages and panels are mesmerizing and epic in scope, and they really help convey the bigger pictures and themes at play here – life, death, reality, duty, inevitability and more are touched on in just the first two issues, but considering how well it has been done so far, and who is doing it, it already feels like the New Gods is destined to pay off in a major way.