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juushikaTitle: Barking
Author: Lucy Sullivan
Published: Avery Hill Publishing, 2024
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 125
Total Page Count: 515,575
Text Number: 1871
Read Because: after multiple years I have finally obtained Local Library Card and thus browsed graphic novels and obvious this one was meant for me, aka: hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: After the death of a friend, a black dog haunts our protagonist as her mental health deteriorates. The black dog as an avatar for mental illness, companion and predator both, is a central element of my personal mythology, and Sullivan's rendering is exactly that creature, dark and half-perceived. So I love this for that. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot to the narrative beyond that conceit, and what there is is muddied by the sketchy, high-contrast art and hostile font choice: good for rendering tone, bad for, y'know, reading. There has to be a compromise for legibility; I really want to like this, but it left me more frustrated than moved.
Title: The Low, Low Woods
Author: Carmen Maria Machado
Illustrator: DaNi
Published: DC Black Label, 2020
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 170
Total Page Count: 515,805
Text Number: 1874
Read Because: fan of the author, hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: In a dying Appalachian mining town, best friends wake with memory loss—an issue known to plague the town's women. This is published by DC despite being more graphic novel than comic, so I wish they'd refrained from the practice of distracting bold text. But the tone here is phenomenal: sketchy (albeit occasionally messy) art in dark autumnal tones, a setting which is increasingly magical realist, and a queerplatonic relationship between lesbian best friends which, although simplified by the story's scope, is alive and convincing.
It's the plot that leaves me unsatisfied. This is one of those narratives where the speculative element is a metaphor for an institutional issue in a way that manages to undermine both halves, simplifying the issue, pulling magic from the magic. Which is weird, because it's a balance the author consistently nails in her other work. That said, reviews seem roundly shocked that a) women mad about sexism and/or b) queer people real, so perhaps even an uneven effort is a triumph.
Title: The Deep Dark
Author: Molly Knox Ostertag
Published: Graphix, 2024
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 480
Total Page Count: 521,915
Text Number: 1898
Read Because: personal enjoyment, paperback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: Our protagonist keeps the world at a distance because a secret burden waits for her under the floorboards of her family home. Beautiful art, effective use of color, evocative setting; compelling read, with a slowly evolving mystery and convincing emotional landscape; earnest in its queer cast and the room it allows for imperfect but optimistic arcs. And a little too sweet, for me. I get frustrated by "my identity issues are embodied by this unsolvable and very real speculative danger; oops, nevermind, danger resolved through-self acceptance!"—I get what motivates that drive towards resolution, but I find it gently alienating and it lacks (no pun intended re: the book's content) teeth.
Author: Lucy Sullivan
Published: Avery Hill Publishing, 2024
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 125
Total Page Count: 515,575
Text Number: 1871
Read Because: after multiple years I have finally obtained Local Library Card and thus browsed graphic novels and obvious this one was meant for me, aka: hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: After the death of a friend, a black dog haunts our protagonist as her mental health deteriorates. The black dog as an avatar for mental illness, companion and predator both, is a central element of my personal mythology, and Sullivan's rendering is exactly that creature, dark and half-perceived. So I love this for that. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot to the narrative beyond that conceit, and what there is is muddied by the sketchy, high-contrast art and hostile font choice: good for rendering tone, bad for, y'know, reading. There has to be a compromise for legibility; I really want to like this, but it left me more frustrated than moved.
Title: The Low, Low Woods
Author: Carmen Maria Machado
Illustrator: DaNi
Published: DC Black Label, 2020
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 170
Total Page Count: 515,805
Text Number: 1874
Read Because: fan of the author, hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: In a dying Appalachian mining town, best friends wake with memory loss—an issue known to plague the town's women. This is published by DC despite being more graphic novel than comic, so I wish they'd refrained from the practice of distracting bold text. But the tone here is phenomenal: sketchy (albeit occasionally messy) art in dark autumnal tones, a setting which is increasingly magical realist, and a queerplatonic relationship between lesbian best friends which, although simplified by the story's scope, is alive and convincing.
It's the plot that leaves me unsatisfied. This is one of those narratives where the speculative element is a metaphor for an institutional issue in a way that manages to undermine both halves, simplifying the issue, pulling magic from the magic. Which is weird, because it's a balance the author consistently nails in her other work. That said, reviews seem roundly shocked that a) women mad about sexism and/or b) queer people real, so perhaps even an uneven effort is a triumph.
Title: The Deep Dark
Author: Molly Knox Ostertag
Published: Graphix, 2024
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 480
Total Page Count: 521,915
Text Number: 1898
Read Because: personal enjoyment, paperback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: Our protagonist keeps the world at a distance because a secret burden waits for her under the floorboards of her family home. Beautiful art, effective use of color, evocative setting; compelling read, with a slowly evolving mystery and convincing emotional landscape; earnest in its queer cast and the room it allows for imperfect but optimistic arcs. And a little too sweet, for me. I get frustrated by "my identity issues are embodied by this unsolvable and very real speculative danger; oops, nevermind, danger resolved through-self acceptance!"—I get what motivates that drive towards resolution, but I find it gently alienating and it lacks (no pun intended re: the book's content) teeth.
