Review by Kryssanne Adams
This book really creeped me out! All of Burns' drawings are so precise and simple that I felt as if I'd been sucked into a black and white horror film; all of his characters are painfully apathetic as a terrifying yet completely preventable sexually transmitted disease ravages their community and deforms them. It's like watching a slow motion train wreck, and it's entirely repulsive yet extremely engrossing.
Review by Kryssanne Adams
Burns creates a fascinating and in-depth world, immersing the reader in it without explanation. It was difficult to tell what was happening or what would happen next because it starts out weird, with the main character following his long dead cat through a hole in the wall, and keeps twisting and unraveling and becoming stranger and stranger until nothing is recognizable. It's easy to get lost in!
Review by Kryssanne Adams
I absolutely wish this book existed when I was a teen! It's full of body positivity and self empowerment with fun spells and activities on the side like tarot, palm reading, friendship spells, candle making, astrology, and all sorts of mischief on the side.
Review by Kryssanne Adams
This is the only bible I live by. This book is ideal for dumpster divers and those who frequent the food bank. Instead of recipes, it contains lists of flavors that work well together. It's a cookbook that doesn't tell you what cook, it tells you how to cook!
Review by Thomas Duder
Wet Moon #1 is excellent.
There's plenty of raves about it on Goodreads, and other places, and I will hold to that phrase: Wet Moon #1 is freakin' excellent.
It's not like it's all about the fragile, the broken, those who are entranced by cliches of "something something dark-sided," it's actually quite real - the silly little moments and the dead-serious ones.
And that's what I like the most about this one, the attention to little details and the foibles that makes these 20-something kids actually enjoyable to read, their interactions and daily alliances, the little victories and the soul-crushing, perceived defeat.
As an introduction to the series, it's good, and I'm lookin' forward to Wet Moon #2~!
~Thomas Duder, Author of the Things
Review by Thomas Duder
With a wonderful color palette and a penchant for the absurd and the violent, Stockoe gives us a new perspective on Orcs. Instead of just being masked mass-produced villains, we see them in a wonderful array of desires, needs, and culture.
It's also got penises (penii?) all over the place, so yeah - be warned. And their coinage, dear God...I winced as it was explained how they gathered coin of the realm.
Rather brutal, I would suggest that this is what happens when you let Gremlins grow up and form civilizations of their own.
Fun and violent, Orc Stain is worth an hour of your time...just be prepared.
This graphic novel is truly dripping with dick.
~Thomas Duder, Author of the Things
Review by Kryssanne Adams
Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns gives me so many intense feelings that I didn't know poetry could make me experience, from giddy joy to empathetic soul crushing disappointment. This is my go to book when I need a good cry -- you can read it aloud to yrself until you break in half.
Review by Kryssanne Adams
I can't even tell what's real anymore. I don't know what just happened but I enjoyed it from cover to cover; it's hard to tell if the protagonist is dreaming or completely insane, and the storyline is impossible to predict but totally worth getting lost in. If yr into Chippendale's storytelling and art style, be sure to check out his music! Lightning Bolt & Black Pus sound the way his drawings look, if that makes any sense at all.
Review by Kryssanne Adams
Is this good? Does this suck? Why should these two questions frame the art we make instead of just creating to create? Barry asks all of the right questions.
In What It Is, Barry explores the source her own creative blocks, closely integrating her creative side with her inner child and unabashedly sharing her own experiences of questioning her self worth as an artist. The book is relatively stream of consciousness, half autobiography and half philosophical, and comes with a helpful workbook in the back that's full of fun/weird prompts to help exercise yr brain.
Barry makes it clear that every artist struggles to translate their brain onto paper sometimes, and this book is very inspiring! I can't recommend it enough, especially if yr stuck in a rut.
Review by Kryssanne Adams
This is hands down the saddest book I've ever read. Read it, but don't read it too quickly! It explores the pathetic life of a passive middle aged protagonist who's basically a child, never taking initiative to do anything other than what he's told. After decades of speculation and fantasizing, Jimmy goes to meet his father, and the story is intricately woven in with stories from the past -- that of his own father's childhood as well as his grandfather's childhood in a way that examines the impact of trauma through generations. Jimmy Corrigan is heartbreaking, but brilliantly told.
Review by Kryssanne Adams
This book changed the way I look at money and what my time is worth and I can't recommend it enough! I read it over two years ago and it still comes up in conversation semi-regularly.
Review by Kryssanne Adams
This story follows all Georges' activities in her music scene and interpersonal relationships with her absent father looming in the background as a big unanswered question throughout. All of her questions are answered in the end, and it's not like you were expecting! This one made me tear up.
Review by Kryssanne Adams
This is one of the most beautiful books I've happened upon and I love the format and aesthetic of it; there are 14 individual little booklets, each in a different style. As for the story itself, not a whole lot happens. The apathy, anxiety, and powerlessness of the narrator makes it uncomfortably sad, and I read it as a critique of American life and the desire to avoid discomfort. In a way, I think it's a call to action -- don't be like the protagonist! Go out and make something of yrself!
Read this book, but pace yrself or you'll feel devastatingly sad for a few days!
Review by Spencer Holmes
http://www.mediafire.com/view/ezxlwxkuynibg5d/6513.pdf
Review by Spencer Holmes
I read this young adult novel as a young adult and loved it. Its slightly unusual in a way that defies the genres without breaking it.
Also, there is a really great scene where the protagonist accidentally eats magic mushrooms and describes the experience quite vividly. Well played.
This book is character-driven, post-apocalyptic, soft, and a little fierce.
Review by Naomi Gibson
One dark and moody eve, in a search of voyage into a wordless comic-world, I happened across this tome, and boy, am I ever glad I did. This team of artists has produced a work that is nothing short of masterful. Luscious illustrations, impeccable storytelling rhythm, gracefully gratuitous violence. There's nothing quite like witnessing the hijinks and antics of virtuosic artists at play, and herein you'll get 188 straight full-color pages of it. If you draw, paint, participate in the weaving of story, or have a stupidly dark sense of humor, you should probably read this book.
Review by Kryssanne Adams
This book totally rewired my brain. There's a spell for everyone, thought most of them basically come down to picking out symbols in every day life to use as tools for divination and sharpen your own intuition. I make a habit to talk to crows since reading this book, and they give solid advice.
Review by Spencer Holmes
Chomsky is very eloquent and consistently makes very good arguments that appeal to wide variety of people from academic types to the layman. However this book in particular is a little bit hard to jump into if you're just picking him up for the first time, or if you aren't looking for a full blown, well developed treatise on anarchist theory. "Understanding Power" is a more approachable book by the same author, and with similar themes.
Review by Leanne Galletly
A visit to afternoon tea with a group of Iranian women. Satrapi shows us that there are real women under the veils, who don't always know what they want or who they should be in society.
Review by Kryssanne Adams
Initially attracted to Darcy's art style, I was really excited when Meatcake came in from the request list. I expected an extended narrative, and was disappointed; the characters are interesting, but the stories are rarely longer than a few panels. I made it halfway through the book before putting it back on the shelf. The characters are interesting, but I wanted more depth.