Thought Train to Pusan

The third volume in the Chew comic series is all about relationships. In particular, Just Desserts focuses on chibopath Tony Chu’s relationship with his new girlfriend, Amelia Mintz the saboscrivner. They have been dating for a while now, and things seem to be going swimmingly between them. Things are also working out splendidly between Tony and his partner John these days. Now if only Tony’s job would stop getting in the way of his newfound love of life; that, and his dysfunctional family’s apparent disgust for him. This volume of Tony’s story also brings back Tony’s old partner-- and overall nemesis him the series so far—Mason Savoy, as he tries to uncover the truth behind the poultry bans across the globe.   The story is a rolling, my friends. What I love about this series is how humorously it manages to handle some dark and gruesome subjects. It is ridiculous, yet still hits on some serious political and conspiratorial issues. I also thoroughly enjoy the artwork th...

This book was an impulse purchase of mine as I waited in line to buy my textbooks for this semester. And it was enjoyable and fun, but at the same time I expected something… different. I’m not sure what that was, but I almost thought that this book would be creepier (well, besides the old photographs, that is) or more intense than it turned out to be. But even so, this is still a fun book, and I expect a young adult audience that likes fantastical mystery would absolutely love it. Miss Perengrine’s Home for Peculiar Children focuses on a teenage boy named Jacob, who grew up with his grandfather’s stories of the old orphanage he used to live in as a child, and all the strange children that lived there, hiding from the “monsters” in the world. As Jacob grows older, he believes less and less in his grandfather’s stories, that is, until his grandfather dies under mysterious circumstances, his dying words being somewhat of a riddle for Jacob to solve. As Jacob tries to get over his ...

--> There’s something a little “Six Feet Under” about the premise of this book: a son whose life is in disarray returns home after the death of his father, only to have to deal with the rest of his dysfunctional family that wants nothing to do with one another. I thought I could get behind something like this, and while the writing is solid and some real, complicated emotions are examined, This is Where I Leave You left me a bit irritated. Judd Foxman’s life is a mess, what with recently discovering that his wife had been cheating on him with his boss, forcing Judd out of their house and into a dank basement with no job, no friends, and no idea what to do with himself. Now, to top this all off, Judd learns that his father has just passed away, and that his dying wish was for his family to all sit Shiva for him: this is a Jewish mourning ritual that requires Judd and his 3 somewhat estranged siblings to all congregate at their childhood home for an entire week. The Foxm...

“Hey, you like funny things! You should totally read this,” my cousin said to me one day as he rifled through his vast collection of comic books.  They are basically his most prized possessions, and while some may think he’s a bit of an oddball, my cousin definitely knows what he’s talking about when it comes to this stuff, and he was dead on about this series; Chew is hilarious, in a demented kind of way, and I am starting to absolutely love it. I will admit, it’s the sort of thing that won’t appeal to everyone, as it gets a bit ludicrous and also very dirty and grotesque at times, but if you like the weird and wonderful in your graphic novels and comic series, then you will probably like this as well. Volume 2, entitled International Flavor , follows our dear chibopath Tony Chu with a new partner at the FDA, who just so happens to be his old police-force partner, John Colby. John had previously been injured while on a job with Tony, and after having some serious reconstru...

[With art by David Aja, Javier Pulido, Steve Lieber, Francesco Francavilla, and Jesse Hamm] Hawkeye might be a bit of a doofus and not really know what he’s doing with himself at any given moment, but there is still something so likeable about him; you can tell that he genuinely cares about people, despite his often confused and public “I couldn’t care less about anything” nature. Hawkeye wants to do the right thing, he’s just not always sure what that is. Once again focusing on the life of Clint Barton when he’s not acting as a part of The Avengers, Little Hits collects issues 6 to 11 of the Hawkeye series. Each issue acts like it’s own little episode in Clint’s life, though some are connected with recurring characters, such as Kate Bishop (the Young Avenger’s Hawkeye), and Cherry (the girl who is always in with the wrong people) who first appeared in My Life as a Weapon . The stories seem to progress much slower in Little Hits than they did in the previous volume, and ...