CGHS Library

Avengers (GN Avengers)

-

We just acquired the first three Avengers graphic novels and Marvel's Ultimate Character Guide.

Kill Shakespeare (GN Shakespeare)

An inventive comic book rendering of an odd mish-mash of Shakespearean leads (Hamlet, Juliet, Othello, Falstaff) fight Richard III, Iago, and Lady Macbeth in an adventure where the murky objective is to find and eliminate the wizard, Will Shakespeare.

I bought this because people who know way more about graphic novels than I do thought it was clever. You tell me what you think. (MH)

Halo Graphic Novels (GN Halo)

George says Blood Line is the best of these and that Uprising, written from a civilian viewpoint, is slow.

Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer is Back (GN Pinocchio)

We all know the story of Pinocchio, a puppet whose dream was to be a real boy and whose wooden nose grew when he lied. Well, Pinocchio is back, and instead of living in a world of colorful adventures, morals, and love, he’s living in a dark, grisly world full of vampires, angst, and heartache. The second volume of Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer finds our hero reuniting with his dear friend Carlotta and a group of other sentient puppets from The Great Puppet Theater. As he faces the vampire menace in the name of his dearly departed Gepetto, Pinocchio must face the betrayal of someone close, his original dream realized, and the capture of his love. This volume ends in a cliffhanger, but it makes sure to give you a big heaping helping of foreshadowing.

Note: The Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer graphic novels have earned the Mary Awesomebrooks Seal of Approval!

Review by Mary Alsobrooks

Scott Pilgrim (GN Scott Pilgrim)

  Guess what has silly Canadians, funny gay roommates, EPIC battles, 1-UPs, and a sprinkling of romantic octagons. 

I guess Scott Pilgrim! 

Scott Pilgrim is a lovely series of graphic novels by Brian Lee O’Malley. It tells the tale of Scott's epic adventure to finally win the heart of Ramona Flowers. He must face off against her seven evil exes while dealing with problems of his own. The graphic novels are heavily laden with video game references and band battles (Scott is the bassist for a band called Sex Bob-omb), and this happens to be the recipe for one of the best stories EVA! (Review by Mary Alsobrooks)

 

The Dark Tower (GN King)

We just received all seven of these graphic novels.

Scott Pilgrim GN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Review by Timothy Frese

The Big Skinny GN LAY

 

For most of her life Carol Lay tried unsuccessfully to lose weight. She tried diet pills, low carb and food combination diets, hypnosis and Weight Watchers, but never managed to keep off the weight for more than a few months. But five years ago, something clicked — Carol reached her goal weight of 125 lbs and has maintained it ever since.

If you’ve never imagined how you’d deal with the

diet challenges of Girl Scouts at your door or George

Clooney offering to share his McDonald’s takeout —

don’t worry, Carol has. She also knows what it’s like

to experience a broken heart and have no one to

comfort you except Ben & Jerry. She’s been there,

and she’ll tell you and show you what it was like —

and give you the tools and inspiration so you can do

it, too.

 

Orange

Orange has become so nihilistic about her life - callous parents, shallow friends, meaningless relationships - that she decides the only way out is to kill herself. But as she is about to jump, a mysterious man stops her, convincing her there might be something to live for after all. When, several weeks later, he commits suicide himself, how will she make sense of her brutal, heartbreaking world?

The Chinese refused to publish it, saying it was too depressing. 

The actual lineworks was done by CHEN Weidong, while Benjamin colored it and designed the story. (from Baka-Updates Manga)

The Chinese might have a point. The pictures are beautiful. The story is very sad. (MH)

Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer

     Anybody who has read Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer has been delighted by it. The author is from Nebraska and a short interview from the Lincoln Journal Star follows. Here is more information about the book from the publisher.

Lincoln Journal Star: Why Pinocchio and vampires?

Van Jensen: At the start, the artist, Dusty, had this basic idea of Pinocchio killing a vampire in this one-panel gag cartoon. At the time I thought it was clever and then forgot about it. Then he called me out of the blue and asked what I thought of doing a book out of this. At first I wasn't sure how to make a whole book out of this. But then I went back to the original Carlo Collodi story. It's just such a brilliant story, so subversive and funny, and there's a lot of stuff that's not in the Disney cartoon. There were a lot of elements left hanging that I could pick up and weave together in interesting ways. I thought, OK, there's potential for a real story here and not just a joke. It's something that's totally ridiculous, but we make it so that it has some meatier elements infused into it.

LJS: The book got a glowing review on USA Today's Pop Candy blog. The review noted that this is not just another story capitalizing on the vampire bandwagon. Is it frustrating that the book might just get lumped into that genre by a lot of people?

VJ: I haven't heard this yet, but I'm expecting people to say, "Oh, this is just another vampire book; I can just disregard it because of that." That would be annoying. But the book is doing well so far. And part of that owes to the fact that vampires have buzz right now. I don't think of myself as a pop author. I'm not someone who just cares about making money. But at the same time I want as many people as possible to read what I write. If being about vampires helps me get more readers, that's good.

LJS: And you're not even a vampire fan, right?

VJ: I'm trying to be. I've read "Dracula" and a couple of the "Blade" comics. But the whole vampire scene doesn't mean anything to me.

LJS: In your book, Pinocchio is this kind of surly, grizzled action hero. Were you basing his personality on any particular character or group of characters? He seemed to me like Pinocchio as mentored by John McClane.

VJ: It probably comes across that I watch a lot of action movies, especially bad action movies. I'd like to think of myself as a serious writer, but I do love some cheesy action. The other side of his personality is just the character of Pinocchio from the original. He was totally over the top and getting into trouble and not listening to anyone.

LJS: What kind of comics did you grow up reading?

VJ: I was limited. There's a grocery store in my hometown, and it's literally called The Store. In Lewellen, they don't need to create names. It's just "the whatever." The Store had a handful of issues. I read the superhero stuff, G.I. Joe comics. It wasn't until college that I even had an awareness of indie comics. I try to read tons and tons of comics because I think you can learn something from everything you read. I'll spend 10 minutes looking at a panel, thinking, "How in the hell did this guy do that?"

I don't think I'm ever going to get to this level, but I'm going to give it a shot.