Banana Sunday by Root Nibot (words) and Colleen Coover (pictures) is about a girl starting at a new high school. But she has three talking monkeys to look after. It's light and fluffy and funny and Gogo is the best monkey ever. I loved it and I forced it on Sok and she texted me to confirm that Gogo is in fact the best monkey ever.
Fair Weather by Joe Matt. This is a biographical graphic novel about one weekend in the author's childhood. It's surprisingly frank about how much of a brat he was, and I found I liked the best friend much more than the main character. It's a bit nasty, and a bit funny and very evocative of a certain age and place and time.
The Quitter by Harvey Pekar. Harvey wrote American Splendor which there's been a movie about now which has him in it as well as the actor playing him. Anyway this is his novel about his childhood and basically why he is such a bastard and so unhappy. I really liked the art in this book, as I haven't liked some of the American Splendor art so much. It's pretty honest, which is what I like about his work, so I liked this.
Serenity Rose by Aaron A. Eh. I couldn't get into this. It was all a bit derivative of Jhonen Vasquez and Gloom Cookie and Courtenay Crumrin without having its own hook. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for it. That is a distinct possibility when it comes to Goth comics.
Pedro and Me by Judd Winick. I don't know if anyone remembers that the Real World once had a gay guy with AIDS on it. This is the story of that gay guy from the point of view of the guy who roomed with him on The Real World, and it's a fantastic piece of work. It makes you care about all the characters, it informs you about AIDS, it shows the decline Pedro went through and his incredible work informing people. It made me cry. Loved it.
Kill me, kiss me by Lee Young Yuu. This is a Korean manga which is like a weird Shakespeare romance set in a high school. Kinda. The main girl is in love with this teen model, when she finds out he goes to the same (all boys) school as her look-alike cousin she convinces him to switch places with her for a week.
So, she goes to the boys' school and gets in trouble with a gang leader who begins to feel strangely attracted to this 'boy'. Her cousin goes to her school and begins to enjoy girls' fashions and the teen model, well. He has secrets too. It's a weird, fun gender-fuck adventure with laugh out loud moments and yeah. I've only read the first volume but I have 2 and 3 out now, just waiting for me to get to them.
Gotta love the Wellington Library's adult graphic novel section.
Posted by jenni at July 15, 2007 04:46 PM