Huygen created an academic guidebook for the reader which is imaginative and engaging. Rien Poortvliet’s detailed illustrations also give the reader the hope and expectation that anyone could run into gnomes while enjoying the wilderness and it would be completely normal.

Chantler is a perfect example of how comics can be one of the best ways to tell a heartfelt and moving story in over 200 pages while only having less than a page of dialogue.

His use of expressions and pace-setting is genius and is a must-read for anyone who is a fan of the 20s, Jazz, or loves graphic novels.

This past week was more reading bedtime stories. A couple of years ago I was lucky to find the entire Sweet Pickles series by Ruth Lerner Perle and Jacquelyn Reinach. They were originally released in the late 70s with Weekly Reader.

I read Tony McMillen’s newest book, AttaBoy.

Tony made the book in a treasury size and it was a great idea to have the book in a larger than normal comic book size format.

I really loved the story. It was a combination of classic Nintendo game instructional manual with symbolism and parallels to the narrator’s personal history.

This past week I read the DC Comics 1988 mini-series “The Weird”. With the Big Two publishers, I have been recently gravitating to stand-alone stories and so I discovered this four-issue mini-series.

The book raises many questions to the reader regarding our connection to social media and how we create personas about ourselves to the public. I appreciate how Baker’s story allows the reader to come up with their own judgments and just let the story focus on the characters and not necessarily the setting.

More for nostalgia's sake, I dug out my reference book I purchased back in 1995, “The Fantasy Role-Playing Gamer’s Bible” by Sean Patrick Fannon. The book is such a fun resource for those who want to discover old-school games and also great for folks who want to learn about how to get into role-playing games.

The Story Hour by Standard Education Society is what I read this past week. It is a collection of fables, stories, and poems. Some of them do not translate well to the modern audience, but most are just as imaginative and magical as anything a child would read now.

I dug out the 1976 book, ‘Secret Origins of the Super DC Heroes. It is mostly a collection of reprinted origin comics of 10 major DC characters back in the ’30s and ’40s.

The artwork, writing style, and layout of the panels are great examples of the golden age of comics. The book contains 18 reprinted stories. These are always fun and nostalgic reads.

First, it was nostalgia reading the strips, and then as I put on my cartoonist hat, I really began to appreciate how Prohias was able to say a complete story without words and embrace the rare quality of having both protagonists also be antagonists.

It is a great reference book for comic scriptwriting and very easy to follow along. I recommend it to folks who are starting to write and it is also a great reference and reminder book for seasoned writers too.

The story is pretty weird, and it seems a bit haphazard, but I am also assuming it is a collection of serialized stories. It basically reminded me of a magical unicorn version of “Quantum Leap”.

I loved that my memories of the book stayed true. I think this book really launched me into the idea of world-building, as Berenstain showed the history, culture, and activities of trolls in a fun and entertaining way that inspired me as a child to make my own worlds.

“Meanwhile” is a fun hard-cover graphic novel that allows the reader to choose their own path for the character which acts more as a solo adventure game than a comic book. I have reread it many times and almost every time it is a different ending.

There are a lot of dad joke books out there, and many of them carry the same uneventful puns, and it is rare to find a book that has some that are not filled with elementary school level jokes or ones that are pun in objectively bad taste.

This book is mostly filled with funny puns that are delightfully witting and also groan-worthy in the workplace, at church, and in the playground.

I really have started to prefer the space-faring comic titles as it seems like more epic events take place that has lasting meta plot effects as compared to the more earth-bound titles.

I am also curious to see where the storyline is going. Al Ewing, the writer is making the not-so-subtle comparison to the team with the Avengers, by calling the team the ‘Space version of the Avengers.’

My 6-year-old raided my bookcase and found a Star Wars: The Clone Wars graphic novel called “Shipyards of Doom” and has been eagerly reading it to me and to her younger sister every night.

I am such a proud dad to see my daughter discover Star Wars on her own. She was even more excited to discover that Disney Plus has all of the Star Wars too.

This past week was a full week of bedtime stories for the little ones. Most of the week was reading generic fairy tale-type stories.

My four-year-old picked out the book, “Only the Cat Saw” by Ashley Wolff and it was a delightful change of pace to the standard bedtime story fare.

It’s a fun 5-

This past week, I’ve been reading more public domain golden age comics; mainly the old Sheena comics to help me out with the writing styles of the 1940s.

This past week I read the 2006 series of the “Defenders”. It was one of my bookshelf discoveries. It was so cool to see that the writers of this series were no other than the writing team of Keith Giffens and J.M. DeMatteis.

I loved their Justice League run in the late ’80s and early ’90s, and was excited to read these first 5 issues.