It is an entertaining and heartwarming story with humor and great panel layouts that give the reader a sense of the cinematic.  Judd Winick wrote and illustrated the story, and I look forward to reading another installment.

A while ago, I backed Tiny Library on Kickstarter.  It is a deck of 50 single-card RPGs from various creators, and this kit is chock full of inspiration.  Some of the cards are very much stand-alone mini-role-playing games.  Other cards are inspirations for creative minds; some are resources people could use for their games.

This past week I finally got to read ‘Olaju: The Edge of Origins’ by one of our past guests, Peter Chizoba Daniel.  It is a gorgeous graphic novel that is inspired by Nigerian folklore.  This story is unique to most other comics I have read in the past, and I would categorize it mainly in the high fantasy genre, or it could be in a new category on its own of African High Fantasy.

The late Dirk Zimmer’s artwork gave me great nostalgia. The illustrations provided an outstanding balance of horror and innocent accessibility so that my 8-year-old self was haunted by the images but not terrified by them.

I read ‘Mighty Jack and the Goblin King’ by Ben Hatke this past week.  Compared to the first book, ‘Mighty Jack’, this one had less dialogue and more action.  The second book was also much more overt in its inspiration of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and also gives a robust backstory and does some substantial world-building as well.

I particularly loved that it was heartfelt and funny, and I could tell that Dan and Jason had an enjoyable time making the book.  This is what stands out for me.  The sheer joy and humor in the book made it engaging.

I have been researching and designing my FATE Core adventure module for my ‘Appliance’ game and found Mindjammer Press’ cosmic fantasy roleplaying game, ‘The Chronicles of Future Earth’, an excellent resource. 

This quick and powerful read follows a young girl who goes back to visit her mother’s hometown after a storm.  A great backstory is touched regarding her mother’s passing and the seemingly normalized magical creatures that live next to this seaside fishing village.

What I appreciated the most from this book is how some proverbs are like those of the Zarma and Hausa people.  This does make it hard to determine where some of these sayings originated, but it does say a lot about how some phrases and sayings resonate throughout all of West Africa.

What I appreciated about this book, as I have daughters and work as a disability advocate in my day job is how Ben naturally includes into the story strong female characters and normalizes the inclusion of folks living with disabilities.

I really enjoyed the build-up of mysteries and the reveal of backstories while the reader learns more about Wyatt and Adeline.

The book has a pretty good pace and fits well within the teen superhero genre. It has heart and Eric did a great job showing the reader what a supportive and competitive sibling relationship looks like.

This is a great children’s book and has a great message for kids, and that is all about following your dreams, and being kind can make you feel good. Amy Baron also found an amazing illustrator for ‘The Gentle Bulldozer’ with Rogerio Coelho. His friendly and accessible style is a perfect companion to Baron’s story.

This was an engaging and visually stunning coming-of-age story about a girl who accidentally crashes her father’s airship in a faraway jungle paradise. She meets new friends and builds her confidence and grows from seeing the flaws of those she looks up to and learns that no one is perfect.

I have been enjoying reading some of the comics that I bought through doing Proxibid. One of them is the old New Universe series ‘Kickers Inc’. Jim Shooter created the line of in celebration of Marvel Comics’ 25th anniversary.

As a reader, I knew I was reading a horror comic, but my logical brain was trying to make sense of what was happening and was hoping that I would get some answers at the end of the story, but frankly, I am glad I did not. It made the story’s horror last longer in my mind.

This anthology compromises seven stories of Direct Support Professionals on their duties of support folks living with disabilities. Green Mountain Support Services sponsored the comic and it was written by Mike Luoma and illustrated by several Vermont cartoonists.

This past week I read ‘Kerry and the Knight of the Forest’ by Andi Watson it was a delightfully thick YA graphic novel that reaches over 260 pages. The story is about a boy named Kerry who gets lost in the woods and a waystone helps him find his way out of the forest.

‘Baba Yaga’s Assistant’ was geared towards the young adult audience, but at the same time had some pretty adult themes of the death of family members, while discussing the importance of finding one’s own life path based on the values and wisdom established by multi-generational households.

One of my favorite things about this is the repartee between characters. It is reminiscent of the 90s in the sense that the original Image Comics superhero teams were built from a similar story premise and the 90s movies were also a great era of witty banter.

I really enjoyed ‘The Return of Thelma the Unicorn.’ It read like a poem and the illustrations were entertaining for kids and fun to look at for adults as there were enough visual jokes and references that gave me a chuckle.