I decided to try and read more graphic novels and comics in 2020. This was because I had quite a few boxes of comics that have been sitting, unread and unloved, in my parents garage as well as a few boxes of comics I received as a parting gift from a friend that moved away. Some of these jaunts into my backlog have been fruitful in the case of comics like Paper Girls or revisiting Saga. Others haven't like being more than a little disappointed with Fatale. But since then I've dived into quite a few more. So here's my first graphic novel wrap up. Enjoy!

Superman: Red Son By Mark Millar

If you had asked me a year ago if I had ever read Superman: Red Son, I'd have scoffed and tried to change the topic or maybe even lied (gasp!) because I was embarrassed and felt like some sort of filthy casual for never having read it. So I got around to it and boy am I glad I did.

If you've never heard of it, Superman: Red Son is a speculative story that doesn't take place in official Superman cannon. This asks the question, what would happen if, instead of landing in backwater Kansas, his pod landed in the USSR?

I thought this story was really well done and it manages to work in members of the Justice League and how they would have reacted to this version of Superman. Superman isn't an old fashioned bad guy and neither is Lex Luthor a good guy. Even though Luthor is on the “right” side of things, he's still an asshole and Superman still tries to do good despite lacking the Kent up bringing that made him the Man of Steel we know and love. This is a fun and quick read that dives into no only the idea of nurture versus nature, but how history could have played out if a few key things went differently.

Superman: Red Son is very good but I think it falls just a little shy of being great. The last act of the story suffered from some pacing issues that kept this from being perfect.

Superman: Red Son gets an 8 out of 11

Market Day by James Sturm

Mendleman’s life goes through an upheaval when he discovers that he can no longer earn a living for his growing family doing the work that defines him—making well-crafted rugs by hand. A proud artisan, he takes his donkey-drawn cart to the market only to be turned away when the distinctive shop he once sold to now stocks only cheaply manufactured merchandise. As the realities of the marketplace sink in, Mendleman unravels. James Sturm draws a quiet, reflective, and beautiful portrait of eastern Europe in the early 1900s–bringing to life the hustle and bustle of an Old World marketplace on the brink of industrialization. Market Day is an ageless tale of how economic and social forces can affect a single life. (Premise from Goodreads)

I randomly found this at a library book sale. We paid five dollars and you get a back and can fill it with as many books as you want. You should look for some in your area. It's really cool. But we were wanting to head home but we still had room in one of our bags so we just started grabbing stuff that we could sell or donate. This was one I grabbed, and I'm glad I did.

I wasn't overly wowed by this graphic novel. It was just okay. But it's something truly random. A book that I had never heard of before that I truly had no idea what to expect. The art in this nice. There are quite a few panels that are quite beautiful that I found myself gazing at longer than I needed to. But the story was just okay. It was a sad tale and something that probably really happened so some poor craftsman. But unfortunately it wasn't enough to wow me. It was just okay.

Market Day gets a 6 out of 11

Prince Of Cats by Ron Wimberly

Prince of Cats is the B side to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, played at an eighties block party in a NY where underground sword dueling blossomed alongside hip-hop, punk, disco, and no wave. It's a deconstruction of Romeo and Juliet's romantic meta narrative focussing on the minor players with Tybalt at the center.(Premise from Goodreads).

This graphic novel was brought to my attention thanks to my friend Figbar. He was promoting comics and graphic novels by Black authors and I was excited to jump right in. I was very lucky my local library had a copy of this. I was shocked by it's size, if you've ever seen an issue of Variety magazine, then you'll know what to expect.

A lot like Superman: Red Son I liked this a lot but I felt like the ending fizzled out. Since this follows Tybalt we know how it's going to end, unless somehow you've never seen or read Romeo & Juliet, but what happens before then is the fun part. It's especially fun when we see scenes from the play and the familiar biting of thumbs. But when the story starts to cover the happenings of the play, I feel like the greater story, the fun one that Wimberly created, dissipates in favor of The Bard's work. Nothing wrong with Shakespeare's original, but I was having fun with Wimberly's new story so I was a tad disappointed when his story got lost near the end.

All in all this was a really well done story with wonderful art. The punkish 80's New York style is great. The colors are vivid, and I even like Wimberly's vision of Tybalt.

Price of Cats gets a 8.5 out of 11

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (Vol 1 + 2) by Brandon Montclare and Amy Reeder

Lunella Lafayette is a preteen super genius who wants to change the world- but learned the hard way that it takes more than just big brains. Fearful of the monstrous Inhuman genes inside her, life is turned upside down when a savage, red-scaled tyrant is teleported from prehistoric past to a far-flung future we call today. The pair is many things, and together the most amazing Marvel Team-Up. Marvel presents...Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur! (Premise from Amazon)

I've had this series on my TBR list for a while and on a whim I checked my local library for it and guess what? They had the first two! So I got them and dove right in. As I read both volumes I had to actively keep in mind that this is a series aimed at kids. There are plenty of references and small jokes for older readers but this is for a younger audience. The good thing is, this comic doesn't talk down to kids. What makes it kid friendly is that it's a little less violent and has a bit of a goofier tone.

Luna Lafayette is a genius but that doesn't mean she gets everything and that's what makes her so endearing. Her parents, while loving, are at times oblivious to what makes Luna tick. Bullies still get to her. And she's not above a kid sized tantrum. As extraordinarily fictional as this is, she's also a very real character.

Devil Dinosaur is cute and is basically just a big dog. He's may more intelligent than a dinosaur should be, which helps him, you know, not just eat people willy-nilly. His presence helps Luna get out of some tight scrapes but also delivers some nice comic relief.

This is a fun and family friendly comic. It's not great or outstanding in any sort of way. It's just fun.

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur gets a 7.5 out of 11

I was already familiar with Brian K Vaughan's work since I had read Y: The Last Man and the first five volumes of Saga. But when my friend Figbar was moving away and was getting rid of some of his stuff, he gave me a bunch of comics and in that stash I found Paper Girls. A 30 issue series that's a quick and very fun read. Here's my review.



I love comics, but it's easy for me to get burnt out. Especially with Marvel and DC. There are just a million crossovers and huge events that mean you have to buy issues from series you never bought before. And if you don't do that, you tend to get lost. Also, there's the constant question of what is currently in cannon and what isn't. That's what I like about publishers like Image, IDW, and Boom (to name a few). They tend to have series that don't go on forever and even if they're long running series, they tend to not have a million crossovers. I know that the 30 issues of Paper Girls is it. As far as I know there isn't a sequel or any spin offs. I still have the entire Final Crisis/ Blackest Night/Brightest Day run with every single issue, but that takes up a whole short box of comics. So instead of diving into that hubbub, why not tackle a short but thoroughly enjoyable series?

Paper Girls is about four 12 year old girls, Erin, Mac, KJ, and Tiffany, who deliver newspapers in a fictional suburb of Cleveland. It's the morning after Halloween 1988 when the town is invaded by a mysterious force from the future and the girls are caught up in it.The series ran from October 2015 to July 2019 and was published by Image Comics.



I got sucked into this series right away. Vaughan created four very different and unique characters that I grew to like and care for as the story went on. These kids were believable. They weren't goody two shoes little girls but they also weren't written like adults. They had a good mix of child and adult qualities which was a very realistic. It was also nice seeing a story about four young females who didn't just sit around and wait for someone to come save them. It was impressive that it was a female centric comic with kids and it was done well. From my male point of reference, Brian K Vaughan writes women well. That is to say, there weren't any glaring problems that stood out to me. My wife is reading this series now and thus far, she has no problems with it. So that's a good sign.

The story got confusing at times but it I always eventually got it. The girls kept getting into trouble the whole time, but it always made sense. The flow of events worked, which isn't always easy to do with a story involving time travel, but Vaughan was able to keep the story moving without it going contrived.



The only issue I really had has to do with the ending so it kind of limits what I can say, as I don't want to spoil the whole thing for you. What I can say with that there were certain aspects of the story that didn't seem to matter at all in the end. There were a few things the girls did that had no effect on the outcome. This could be a good thing. It could show that sometimes things are just out of your control. But to me it just felt like parts (but not all) of the girls' struggle were pointless.

That aside, Paper Girls was good. It was a truly unique story with well written and engaging characters that kept me turning the pages from issue 1 to issue 30. Even though I liked it, I'm still glad it ended because it never got the chance to get stale.  If you're interested in a good limited run comic series, this is it.

Paper Girls by Brian K Vaughan gets an 8 out of 11

1. A character appearance that you misread and imagined differently.

2. A character name that you’ve been pronouncing wrong.

3. An overused trope that is your guilty pleasure.

4. A cliché character type that you like better on screen than reading about.

5. A word/phrase that you learnt because of its use in a book.

Racist Dog Whistle

Thanks to the book Yes No Maybe So by Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed, I learned this term that refers to a low key racists sign that meant to fly under the radar for the majority of people but be a secret sign to those in the know. So basically, a tool for garbage human beings.

6. Have you ever not read or completed a required reading book for school?

Not that I can think of, but I know Anne and I have changed our personal plans because we wanted to read instead, But we didn't cancel plans with friends. We just decided not to go to a movie, or go out to eat, or something in favor of staying in and reading.



So there's my answers to the I Messed Up Book Tag. What are yours? If you did this or plan on doing it, let me know!

May was Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and my wife and I took part in an Asian readathon. Though this was the year we were going to read more of what we wanted and not have our TBR list controlled by something like the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge (which is an awesome challenge btw), we still find readathons fun. Especially an Asian one. I myself am half Japanese and grew up very connected to my Asian half. So this readathon spoke to me.

I also wanted to expand my Asian reading horizon to include more than Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. The murder of George Floyd has made me want to expand my horizons in the African American direction, but back in early may, my focus was on Asians.

 Anne was the one who made me aware of Yes No Maybe So and recommended it to me because one of the two authors is Becky Albertalli, the author of one of my favorite books Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda and the second author is Aisha Saeed, a Pakistani American and guess where Pakistan is? In South Asia! So yay! I found my first book for the readathon. What did I think of it? Here's my review.



I like YA romance. It's cute and can cover some important topics all the while having a sweet romance story. Books like the aforementioned Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda, What If It's Us?, and They Both Die At The End. What If It's Us? was written by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera so I knew what I was getting into with this book and knew that I'd more than likely enjoy it.



This book is about two people. Jamie Goldberg and Maya Rehman. Two teenagers who where childhood friends and who will be placed together again when they find themselves volunteering for a local political campaign that turns out to be more important to them than they could ever imagine.
Maya and Jamie have their own problems but maybe they can find answers where they least expect it, in each other.

Just like with What If It's Us?, Yes No Maybe So had two main characters and each author took one of the characters. Becky Albertalli wrote Jamie's parts while Aisha Saeed wrote Maya's parts. If you've ever read a book by Albertalli you'll recognize her style with Jamie immediately. Since I was new to Saeed's work, I didn't know what to expect from Maya's parts, but they flowed quite well and had a unique voice.

I enjoyed this book and found Maya and Jamie's friendship and romance to be cute and just what I needed after being in a reading slump. It was an easy read/listen which was just what I needed. It took a while getting used to the romance as I've only ever read gay romance from Albertalli, so when Jamie and Maya started getting chummy, I was a tad confused. That's not really a critique. Just something that made me smile.

Politics played a large part in this story and it was done well. Jamie and Maya volunteer for the campaign of a state senator hopeful. The campaign is running an uphill battle as it's for a democrat in traditionally red Georgia. I was happy to see that the book didn't take the "all republicans are evil" route as there were a few good characters who weren't democrats. It shows that the other side isn't evil, something that's important to keep in mind.

This book was aimed at a young adult audience and that was easy to see when the various problems the characters experiences showed up. Remember when you were a kid and certain problems seemed like the biggest thing ever and that your life would never be the same, but now, years later, as an adult, you can hardly even remember why it was such a big deal? Or, you remember it perfectly but are embarrassed by how seriously you took it all? This book had a mix of those types of problems and bigger, more serious problems. So even though it was a YA book, as an adult, I could relate to the problems in different ways. Either remembering what it was like to be a kid or I could see it was a bigger more widespread problem like racism.

The one thing that actually bugged me about the book was the referencing of the white supremacist OK symbol and Pepe meme. In the book they talk about how white supremacists took over the "fifi meme" and the OK symbol. I have trouble with this because it annoys me in real life. If we let these asshats take away something as basic and universal as the OK symbol, they that gives them the power to do it to so many other things. But seeing as how that was my biggest problem with the book, one could say I liked it quite a bit.

I would recommend this book to anyone who's a fan of YA romance or is just in the mood for a sweet and quick read. The audio book had two great narrators for Jamie and Maya but even if I had physically read the book, I'd have enjoyed it just as much.

Yes No Maybe So by Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed gets an 8 out of 11