Fangs & Foul Play (Issues 0-1), by L.K. Ingino and Alex Guenther with colors by Ilaria Fella and Mariam Yasser, letters by Joel Rodriguez, and editing by Chuck Pineau, is, fundamentally, very funny. I mean, okay, sure, it’s horror. But mostly it’s just funny. Issue 0 is “The Enthralling.” I guess our dudebro is “an ex-army colonel with a tortured past,” because Kickstarter told me … Continue reading Fangs & Foul Play (issue 0-1)
Slice of Life, by Kat Calamia, Phil Falco, and Valeria Peri, with letters by Tyler Esposito and Garth Mattams, started out life on Webtoon Canvas. (Tangentially, I’m always sort of startled by the high quality of some of what hangs out on Canvas. Definitely not all, obviously, but some of it is better than a lot of the originals.) Slice of Life is marketed as … Continue reading Slice of Life #1
Vampire Emmy and the Garbage Girl, by Pat Shand, Roberta Ingranata, Carola Borelli, and Jim Campbell, is short and funny and surprisingly tender. It is, as the first section is titled, a Meet Cute—with, of course, vampires and shapeshifters and small demons (and raccoons). While they’re all collected in one volume, the book is itself almost a series of vignettes, an exploration of a burgeoning … Continue reading Vampire Emmy and the Garbage Girl
Vampire Detective in Space (Issue 01), written by Caleb Palmquist, drawn by Dave Swartz, and with letters by Dave Lentz, is the start of Something. Of what we’re not entirely sure, given its ending, but it’s definitely A Start. It’s also a lot of fun. Not a whole lot happens, in Issue 1. It’s short, which makes it hard to have a ton, but this … Continue reading Vampire Detective in Space Issue 01
Seanan McGuire’s “Any Way the Wind Blows,” published originally right here on Tor.com’s website, is very short, very funny, very charming, and very good. Which is far too many verys in one sentence, is it not? But it is a delightful little piece of writing. The premise is fairly simple: our captain and her crew, aboard the good airship Stubby (aka Her Majesty’s Stalwart Triumph … Continue reading Any Way the Wind Blows: A Tor.com Original
These aren’t quite capsule reviews, or even lightning reviews, but they are a series of short book reviews of informational kids’ books that I read on Friday—because, as a librarian who works with children’s literature a lot so I can serve preservice teachers and preservice speech therapists, I need to know that lit. And preservice teachers really need informational texts. Before I launch into these … Continue reading four mini reviews, four informational picture books
I’m not particularly sure why I’m so fond of Tam Lin, but I am, and I have been since I was pretty damn young. Maybe it’s how I first came to it, retold in The Perilous Gard. Maybe it’s how I later came to the magic and strangeness of the ballad itself. I’ve no idea. But, either way, I’ve read many an adaption, and continue … Continue reading Tommy Lin: A Motorcycle Fairytale
Everything sucks, the world is always on fire, I’m stretched so thin that I’m about to break (thanks overwork!), and so last night I really needed something special to unwind. Something that didn’t demand a hell of a lot of analytical abilities. Something with big font and easy words, because dyslexia is bad when stress and fatigue are bad. Something that was pretty light, both … Continue reading you don’t have to be smol to enjoy The Going to Bed Book
Back in 1973, the early days of feminism’s second wave, Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English wrote Witches, Midwives, & Nurses: A History of Women Healers. The marvelous Feminist Press at the City University of New York reprinted it in this, its second edition, in 2010. It’s a fascinating little book, and also, I think, a hot mess. But I’m not sure, especially if we read … Continue reading Thoughts on Witches, Midwives, & Nurses: A History of Women Healers, Second Edition
Everett Sloane likes things neat, in tidy lines and ordered spaces. He’s a mathematician, and, if I’ve learned anything from my brother whose degree is in math, it’s that mathematicians do tend to love things with answers. (I went into humanities, and people are messy as hell.) But Everett’s carrying a messy secret past, and when it walks back into his life, it threatens to … Continue reading Tommy Cabot Was Here (The Cabots Book 1)
Essentially a Nerd 