Thought Train to Pusan

That transition into adulthood and finding your way can be a tricky one, and full of random shenanigans. I feel like that’s a common topic for a lot of stories today about finding success and where you want to go in your adult life: I am definitely sitting right in that stage, just trying to figure stuff out and not really sure the best way to go about it. In The Blunder Years , a lot of those fears of failure and feeling lost and adrift come to life through little essays about various moments in Adam Ellis’ life, as he tries to make his way after graduating from art school. Stages of learning and progression are presented in the form of funny stories that are punctuated with humorous comics to illustrate the wackiness of some of the situations he found himself in. The drawings involved in this are cute and comedic, and Ellis definitely has a distinct style about how he portrays people. And if you haven’t checked out his other web comics, I would definitely suggest taking a look...

You know when you’re dreaming and something absurd and surreal happens but your dream self is just like, “yeah, that makes sense”? That’s what the progression of this book and the characters’ reactions felt like to me. They just kind of rolled with everything, despite it being a ridiculous ride of the supernatural and things that don’t entirely make sense. A crossover between our world and another filled with monsters and other strange beings and seemingly arbitrary rules of what is possible and what is not. But I guess when things get weird, you learn along the way, which is exactly what the protagonists of this book do. John Dies at the End follows a young man named David, and his friend John, as they become embroiled in a strange fight against evil paranormal forces from other realms. It all starts when John ends up taking a bizarre “drug” at a party, and begins to see things that not all people can see: other planes, if you will. David soon ends up accidentally having this ...

“It came from the woods. Most strange things do.” You know how horror movies can be super effective when they create a sense of unease just by making you know that something is not quite right? But you can’t determine what that thing that’s not right is, and therefore you have no idea what to do or how to fix the situation? How the idea of a monster is almost scarier than when you actually see what it is, because of the way your imagination runs wild and fills in the dark space with exactly what you fear? Emily Carroll’s Through the Woods , uses this idea of ambiguity and uncertainty to create an eerie set of visual short stories, all of which center around the concept of the dark and mysterious nature of the woods. What dangers might be lurking in there, unseen? What kind of monsters do our minds make up when we let it drift? The five stories (as well as a short conclusion) are all presented in a way that never quite leaves a definitive end to the story: it is up to us to fill ...