Books
Graphic Novel 'Cuisine Chinoise' Is a Feast for the Eyes and the Mind
Lush art and dark, cryptic fables permeate Zao Dao's stunning graphic novel, Cuisine Chinoise.
05 Aug 2020
Lush art and dark, cryptic fables permeate Zao Dao's stunning graphic novel, Cuisine Chinoise.
Fifty years ago Attica prisoners rose up for justice -- and were slaughtered. Graphic novel Big Black: Stand at Attica is a powerful story from a survivor's point of view.
In J&K, John Pham explores perspectives in the psychological sense. Like Picasso, he views things from more than one angle.
Where fiction typically emphasizes plot, Yeon-Sik Hong's Umma's Table emphasizes a rich layering of events that creates the artful impression of memoir-like fiction.
Tian Veasna's superb yet harrowing graphic portrayal of the Khmer Rouge regime, Year of the Rabbit, conveys what damage a living nightmare can do to a country and its people in a mere four years.
David Jesus Vignolli's graphic novel, New World, chronicles Indigenous resistance to European monsters in gorgeous art and mythic undertones.
The powerful graphic novel Grass documents the atrocities against WWII "comfort women" through the recollections of a survivor. This is an incredibly powerful and urgent work that, frankly, should be read by the governments of all nations that must face, admit to, and begin real reparations for their country's atrocities.
In The Man Without Talent, Tadao Tsuge captures the element of fantasy reflected in the childish utopianism of free market capitalism and the committed entrepreneurs who are its happy-go-lucky evangelists.
Jaime Hernandez conveys an exuberance and vitality in his characters that make them easy to relate to and sympathize with. This is no less so in his latest graphic novel, Tonta.
Award-winning graphic artist Eleanor Davis likes to accent key moments in Hard Tomorrow through panel size. Big moments are literally bigger. Layout is a way of making meaning.
In Kate Lacour's graphic novel of imagined medical oddities, Vivisectionary, the viewer is the main character and the images the deranged antagonist.
As cannabis legalization spreads, Box Brown's graphic novel, Cannabis, examines the sordid and racist history of how it became demonized in the first place.
Jérôme Tubiana and Alexandre France have created a powerful work in Guantánamo Kid that brings attention to the humanity of people who are accused as terrorists.
Passion defines Rina Ayuyang's life as Blame This on the Boogie explores the pleasures and pitfalls of pop culture devotion.
The Hernandez Bros.' Love and Rockets graphic fiction series has created a community of misfits filled with as much anger as warmth, with as many mistakes as wisdom, and with as much sadness as joy.
While Manuele Fior's Red Ultramarine is far from abstract expressionism, it is a pleasure to find an artist-writer who regards the art of his images to be equal to the narrative they convey.
Existential loneliness and small comforts are perfectly conveyed in three simple colors in Michael Cho's graphic novel, Shoplifter.
Bill Morrison's The Beatles Yellow Submarine mixes its psychedelia to fully represent the strange combinations found in George Dunning's 1968 film.
Mickey Zacchilli's scribbled artistic and literary style undermines expectations.
The struggle for recognition and rights assumes heroic proportions in Duncan Tonatiuh's innovative graphic novel, Undocumented: A Workers Fight.
Drnaso's Sabrina explores how isolation, both psychic and social, fuels the evolution of tragedy into social paranoia and a dehumanized narrative of fraud.
Tyler's excitement and seemingly never-ending thrill from the point of view of her younger self as a Beatles fan nearly leaps from the page.
Swedish graphic novelist Anneli Furmar paints a bright window into a gray corner of political history.
Adam Rapp's characters have to kill and bag children to earn their keep. How does one depict that on stage and on page?
If Winter's Cosmos is Comeau's Alpha Centauri, I look forward to what fruits his new planets will bear next.
Travel is inherently marked by moments of beauty, mundanity, exhaustion, and connection; comics artist Craig Thompson shows it all.
While migraines are known for their staggering (if temporary) disabling of the sufferer, some artists, like French, fearlessly explore the fantastical element of the migraine experience.
This tribute to surrealist painter Rene Magritte reveals more about the comics form than the artist.
The liminal state between immigrant and citizen becomes the permanent experience of undocumented people.
Julie Mahor's hand is deft in so many ways, producing a visually and emotionally complex tale of coming-of-age love uniquely grounded in the comics form.
Although Unferth's family-oriented plot and Haidle's style sometimes evoke children's illustrated books, this is for grown-ups—and the intentionally simplistic rendering is more than surface details.
While no imitator, Dave McKean shares kindred tastes with Nash and creates a fictionalized memoir and dream journal of Nash's WWI experiences.
History doesn't always tell us how to get it right. It sometimes warns us of the cost of getting it wrong. Art steeped in that history, like John Lewis' graphic novel trilogy, March, can remind us, if we're paying attention.
Hillary Chute's Disaster Drawn reveals that comics may be the most useful form for witnessing war and trauma.
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