Week of 9/9/2024
More hijinks ensue in The Shapes's Annual Anniversary Special and I discuss my top 6 Harvey Award nominees.
The Shapes
Annual Anniversary Special 3-4
News
Sammy the Critic
Top 6 Harvey Award Nominees
“No, it's duck hunting season.”
“That, sir, is an in-mitigated frab-reaction. It's rabbit season.”
Wrong you nimrods. It’s Harvey Awards season (and Ignatz Awards but I’m saving that for next week)! Having cast my ballot before the deadline a week ago after putting a crazy amount of books on hold at my local library, I can now give a slight sigh of relief knowing I have my favorite Harvey-nominated picks together to discuss. So why is it top 6 and not 5? Firstly, imperfect numbers are underrated. Secondly, the list was too damn good for me to pare it down to 5 books. As with the Eisner list, I’m going out of my way to avoid including works I’ve previously discussed. However, if I hadn’t created this rule for myself, Shubeik Lubiek by Deena Mohamed would have absolutely ranked number 1, which I still consider the best book from 2023 and one of the greatest of the decade. Without further ado, let’s rumble!
6. Homebody by Theo Parish (Harper Alley)
In their debut graphic novel, Norwich-based author Theo Parish writes a beautiful graphic memoir about their self-discovery as a non-binary person as they internalized and deconstructed gender stereotypes. I know, I know, the premise sounds like another gender identity autobio comic like Gender Queer and, yes, it does share similar themes. But Parish articulates with a unique voice using vivid metaphors for their experience such as the house analogy to explain their gender dysphoria (I wonder if that was a reference to The Owl House).
Plus, this is very YA and even kid-friendly both content-wise and in how the concepts are explained, so you could give this to a middle schooler without a page easily being taken out of context.
5. Lunar Boy by Cin Wibowo (Harper Alley)
Born on the moon, transmasculine boy Indu is adopted by a human family at an early age and lives in a spaceship before moving to Earth where he struggles to fit in socially due to language barriers and cultural differences even within his extended family.
A memorable debut coming-of-age futuristic tale featuring gorgeous colors, diverse characters, and a cute romance by twins Jessica and Jacinto Wibowo, this is my favorite middle-grade graphic novel of 2024. I definitely learned a lot about Indonesian culture and indigenous gender identities from reading this!
4. A Guest in the House, by EM Carroll (Macmillan Publishers)
Abby lives a normal life in a 90s small town in Canada working at a convenience store while married to her husband and recent widower David and his daughter Chrystal or so it seems. David is stoic and emotionally withdrawn apparently from the grief of supposedly losing his wife to cancer, but as Abby begins experiencing psychedelically-rendered visions and visits from her ghost who also visits Chrystal, the itching suspicions rise that there’s more than what David is letting on.
This is my second Emily Carroll book with my first being the short story collection Through the Woods, which did not appeal to me when I read it three years ago. However, from reading this, Carroll’s storytelling skills have immensely evolved since then because this is a bloody masterpiece! Horror is hard to do in comics due to the diminished control the author has over the reader’s pace, but the pulsating mystery elements are so gripping that it kept me at the edge of my seat as I turned the pages. Threading multi-layered subject matters of grief, alienation, and repressed sexuality among others, this book culminates in a twist that’s sure to give literary critics a field day of interpretations.
3. Where the Body Was, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips (Image)
It’s 1984 in a suburb (which I’ll assume is Californian based on the setting) with a host of dysfunctional personalities such as a boarding house of punk junkies, an alleged cop caught up in an affair with the MILF next door married to a suspicious psychiatrist, a little girl who thinks she’s a superhero, and a drugged-addled veteran. What do they all have in common? Nothing really, but they all have their POV of a murder that happens in the neighborhood.
Riding off the acclaim of works like the Reckless series and Pulp, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips craft another hit that further cements them as the best crime fiction duo in the comics today. Their writing follows an almost cinematic pace in the best way possible harkening back to the American New Wave era that’s structured with a rich cast of intriguing characters, aesthetic grit, and incisive dialogue. If you’re a thriller fan, this is not a book to sleep on.
2. Bunt! Striking Out on Financial Aid by Ngozi Ukazu (First Second)
Molly Bauer is ecstatic about her first year at college enrolled at the Peachtree Insitute for Collegiate Arts (PICA) until she discovers the scholarship she qualified for is discontinued thus voiding the financial aid she would have received. Knowing how disappointed her moms would be at the prospect of their daughter going into debt (considering they wanted her to attend a different school), all hope appears to dissipate. That is until Molly uncovers a loophole in the PICA records to earn a scholarship from them and that involves organizing a sports team to win a game of softball. The issue? Almost everyone on the team is an artsy misfit with little athletic skills including a furry V-tuber, fujoshi artist, and fashion designer with mommy issues to name a few!
I love this graphic novel because it combines the classic underdog sports team trope (which I enjoy even as someone who isn’t a huge sports fan) with geeky art school humor that takes light-hearted jabs at all creatives. It’s the perfect combination I never thought I needed!
1. Infinity Particle by Wendy Xu (Quill Tree)
Clementine Chang is an aspiring scientist who moves to Mars to start a new job at the lab of renowned scientist Dr. Marcella Lin where she meets the human-presenting, sentient android Kye, who was designed to be Lin’s lab assistant. After spending enough time around each other, Clem and Kye develop an intimate bond which becomes a source of conflict as Dr. Lin’s authoritarian personality to Kye’s increasing emotions and autonomy.
Drawing with a limited white, blue, and light rose risograph-styled palette, Wendy Xu’s futuristic romance explores larger sci-fi themes of the obfuscating dichotomy between humanity and artificial intelligence in an advanced society while sticking to a primarily character-driven narrative that allows more individual character arcs and motifs to be touched upon such as Clem’s childhood trauma. Following a manga influence, Xu’s art style displays distinct line variation that manifests authentically with animated effervescence throughout the character movements and backgrounds.
In other words, if this is the future, then it ain’t half bad!