Recently I've been reading more than I have in a long time. Here are some of the books I've finished in the last couple weeks: more »

Berlin: City of Smoke is an incredible historical graphic novel. Set between May 1929 and September 1930, it brings together a diverse set of perspectives in a politically and socially turbulent Germany. Jason Lutes is remarkably successful at creating fascinating characters and fleshing out worldviews in a way that makes the story both engrossing and information-rich. The wait of 8 years between volumes in this trilogy has certainly been rewarding.

Phoebe Gloeckner's A Child's Life and Other Stories is incredibly difficult to take in. At once it is a wholly heartrending account of a woman's life and a masterpiece of the comics form. It is not an accessible work and can very accurately be described as disturbing, but it is clearly an important work in the comics field.

Marc-Antoine Mathieu's Museum Vaults: Excerpts from the Journal of an Expert is a wonderfully strange short graphic novel that blends surrealism, philosophy of art, and humour in an exploration of a fictional Louvre. It's smart, the visuals are expertly chosen and absolutely worth the few minutes it takes to enjoy.

I was surprised by Josh Neufeld's honesty and warmth in A Few Perfect Hours. It's a travel comic book that shows genuine insight into the experiences Josh and Sari experienced in travelling through Asia and Europe, and once they had returned to New York. A Few Perfect Hours reminded me of comics' best travel book, Craig Thompson's Carnet de Voyage, in only positive ways. The titular story alone makes this a book worth reading, and the other stories collected in this volume are also excellent.

A Dangerous Woman is an excellent biographical comic. Rudahl successfully created a detailed account of Emma Goldman's life that is very entertaining and surprisingly accessible. I'm not usually sympathetic with radical anarchy, but Goldman is presented as an immediately likable figure, and her passion for human rights, free speech, birth control, anti-war and free love movements were translated superbly well into the comics form. This is no tired history, but rather a lively account of a woman who's struggles matter tremendously today just as they did in her own time.

I wanted to like this new Buckaroo Banzai story, but it ended up being a terrible mess. I grew up with the cult classic film, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai : Across the Eighth Dimension, and it still holds up a lot better than the books written to follow it. None of the fun of the film was carried into this graphic novel, the writing was incredibly weak and average comic art was the strongest aspect of this disappointing book.

Scott McCloud's serious explorations of comic craft, culture and commerce are incredibly insightful and treat comics with the respect they demand. Making Comics is an incredible resource for understanding the process of comics creation. Readers, would-be creators and professionals could each gain a tremendous amount of wisdom from this practical, entertaining and heartfelt celebration of comics storytelling.

Incognito mashes up contemporary superhero comics with their pulp roots but doesn't really add anything new to either genre. It's a very entertaining comic, with some fun twists, but doesn't ever go beyond that into something more substantial. It's not as ambitious as Watchmen and other comics which attempt to play more with the superhero tradition, and falls flat because of that lack.

Reinventing Comics is a remarkably prescient assessment of the potential that comics have to expand in countless ways. The breakdown of revolutions in comics into the categories of comics as literature, comics as art, creators’ rights, industry innovation, public perception, institutional scrutiny, gender balance, minority representation, diversity of genre, digital production, digital delivery and digital comics gives the book a framework that makes the idea-dense book a very smooth read. McCloud’s work is equal parts entertaining, informative and inspiring and I recommend it very highly.