A selection of September graphic novels

The Old Guard 3 books by Greg Rucka with art by Leandro Fernandez (2017-2021) 481 pages

Book One: Opening Fire This brought back some memories of watching the movie on Netflix in 2020. A bit gory, but fast paced. Obviously you can read at a slower pace, but I feel like the story doesn't dwell too long on any one thing and keeps the action moving forward. Good job quickly establishing each character.

Book Two: Force Multiplied I really liked this continuation of the story. Andy's flashbacks, the introduction of Noriko, and Booker still being outcast from the group are solid plot elements. Themes of human trafficking and slavery, and whether the immortals work to make the world a better place or cynically view human life with little value are written well by Rucka. I think the art is as good as in the first volume.

Tales Through Time Book 1 Mixed bag. Many writers and artists get to play in different time periods with the Old Guard characters. I liked most of the short stories, but some are less impressive in building the world.

1177 B.C.: A Graphic History of the Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric H. Cline with art by Glynnis Fawkes (2024) 256 pages

Adapted from a prose history book. Very detailed exploration of archeological findings surrounding the Late Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean. Fawkes, the artist, injects funny asides and jokes throughout. This is not for a casual graphic novel reader. Only take a look if you are really interested in archeology or this time period.

Now Let Me Fly: A Portrait of Eugene Bullard by Ronald Wimberly with art by Brahm Revel (2023) 322 pages

Fascinating! And left open-ended for a possible second book illustrating Eugene Bullard's life after WWI. From inside the front cover flap, "Brahm Revel's clear and kinetic art captures moments from Bullard's life with remarkable empathy." The writing is strong too from the framing device to flashbacks in the Jim Crow South and escape to Europe. There is a great kinetic energy to the story. This covers Eugene's childhood, his many odd jobs as a young man, and serving in the French army during WWI. He became the first Black fighter pilot in WWI. I'm finding I really enjoy the quality of everything from publisher First Second.

Pashmina by Nidhi Chanani (2017) 176 pages

For Pri, her mother's homeland, India, can only exist in her imagination. Quick read. I like the story structure and the mix of magic and realism. I wish it was more detailed. Since it is aimed at teens, the shorter length feels a bit rushed. The art is great using both monochrome and color like the Wizard of Oz, except the one Uncle looks like a bobble-head.

Daytripper by Fabio Moon with art by Gabriel Ba (2011) 256 pages

Nonlinear in the best way. Bras is an obit writer for a Brazilian newspaper. Learning of peoples' lives at the point of their death seems like a directionless job for a writer rather than a chance to explore profound themes. Or is it?! The writer and artist, twin brothers, speculate about the choices we make using Bras' life. In diverging timelines, what does Bras' life look like if he died at 32, 21, 28, 41, at 11, 33, 38, 47, or 76. His family and one friend, named Jorge, remain fairly constant. The brothers delve into so much beauty and suffering associated with life by building plots around different unexpected deaths. It is deep and subtle storytelling, keenly felt and at times surreal.

Homegoing

 Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (2016) 305 pages

I loved this novel. I listened to the first half as an audiobook then had to switch to print. It is an epic multi-generational saga that in some ways is fourteen separate, but connected, coming-of-age tales. "Two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana" on Africa's southwest coast. One stays in Africa and the other is sold into slavery in America. The chapters alternate between Effia's and Esi's descendents. This is historical fiction through a range of historical time periods. The historical details and variety of lived experiences of the African Diaspora are described with such liveliness. There are stories of love, of suffering, of labor, of grief, of colonization, and of discovering a black person's place in the world. 

Their Eyes Were Watching God

 

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (1937) 238 pages

I listened to the audiobook through Libby. Ruby Dee is amazing at performing and narrating the story. She makes every other skillful audiobook narrator I've heard seem like they are only giving a 70% effort. The various character voices and emotive delivery are stellar. Hurston's story feels like a legend about the founding of the black town of Eatonville, Florida, where she grew up, and where she did anthropological studies in college. We follow the life of Janie. As a child she is raised by her grandmother and married off young to a much older man. She is raised to be obedient and stays put for years. Later, she runs off with a smooth talker who has dreams of being the mayor of a new black town. As the mayor's wife she is treated with respect, but is caught in a sort of gilded cage. As a still young widow, Janie meets perhaps her great love, and starts life anew again. She begins to enjoy life and find her individuality for the first time. The ending crashes through fairly rapidly with a hurricane hitting Florida, a rabid dog bite, and a brief courtroom drama. Hurston really masters the language in a poetic way with the dialect of blacks in the south in the 1930s.

Mudbound

 Mudbound by Hillary Jordan (2008) 328 pages

I listened to the audiobook on Hoopla. There were six narrators since chapters of the book switch between the point of view of each of the six main characters. I watched the movie adaptation by Dee Rees back when it was released on Netflix in 2017 and have had the novel on my reading list for awhile. The movie has a strong ensemble cast. There are two sharecropper families in the Mississippi Delta in the years following WWII. The black family, the Jacksons, are one of the tenants, and the white family, the McAllans are the landlord. We get to know husband and wife Hap and Florence Jackson and their grown son Ronsel. We also meet brothers Henry and Jamie McAllan, their father Pappy, and Henry's new wife Laura. In the movie, the friendship that forms between Jamie and Ronsel, who are both just back from serving in the war, stands out as they commiserate over their war experiences and struggle with being back in the Jim Crow south. In the book, Laura is responsible for the largest portion of the narration. Mudbound is the name of the farm, a name given by one of the McAllans' young daughters. It is a name not as grand as Henry would like, but one that Laura who is from the "civilized" city of Memphis feels is a perfect fit. Each character is clearly drawn. The family dynamics of parents and children, older brother and younger brother, and husband and wife are relatable. Pappy is clearly a villain with nearly no redeeming features, but even the "good" white characters show their racism when challenged. There are twists in the drama that I did not remember from the movie as it builds to its conclusion.

The Nickel Boys

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, 224 pages.

Due to be released in July of 2019, Whitehead uses his prodigious talent to tell the story of Elwood Curtis and Jack Turner, two young black men caught up in a hellish parody of justice in the Jim Crow South, both of them remanded to the Nickel Academy, a Florida juvenile reformatory. Elwood accepted a ride in a stolen car on his way to his first college class. That was his crime, and for that he finds himself sentenced to Nickel, where he suffers through severe beatings and daily encounters with sadistic adults. A firm believer in the teachings of Dr Martin Luther King, Elwood must decide how far he can allow his principles to bend without allowing them to break, how much hate he can answer with love. Elwood, Turner, and the other boys must try to survive and find their way to one of the four paths out of Nickel.