It’s been a while since I wrote a comic book review in my Reading / Book section on my blog. Most of my book/comic reviews are positive because what’s the point of writing a review about something I dislike. A month ago I finished Backstagers Volume #1 published by Boom! Studios which is a comic I purchased while on my Boston Trip. This comic is charming, lighthearted and explores the positive feeling of fitting in.

Boom! Studios is based in California with the focus of creating unique comics for all ages. Lumberjanes was created by Boom! Studios which has been receiving great reviews. Boom! Studios have also written comics about WWE, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and Cartoon Network.

The creative team behind The Backstagers includes comics writer James Tynion IV and artist Rian Sygh. James Tynion is a mastermind in the comics industry because of his work on the Batman Detective Comics for DC Comics. Rian Sygh’s artwork is so heartwarming with the use of color and how each character is drawn. Both Tynion IV and Sygh also identify on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum which really adds to the storytelling in this book.

The Backstagers starts with Jory, the new kid at an elite school with all boys. Jory wants to meet new friends and decides to join the club known as the “Backstagers” the individuals who help put on the school plays. The Backstagers consist of Sasha, Aziz, Hunter, and Beckett. In between gathering supplies for the play, the Backstagers must go into the mythical backstage room where the crafting supplies exist along with strange creatures and entrances to other dimensions. Can the boys put on the school play without getting killed by the creatures backstage?

I enjoyed reading this comic. This comic demonstrates healthy male friendships by showing that these characters laugh, cry, and aren’t seen as overtly aggressive. The artwork also provides the heartwarming feel for this comic and I have become a fan of Sygh’s artwork.

The Backstagers is a lighthearted comic that has elements of LGBTQIA+ pride. This would have been perfect to read this past June for Pride month. I highly recommend supporting a smaller indie comics studio. Check your local comic book store to see if they carry this comic.

As promised, I said I would also write a blog post detailing all the comics I purchased in Boston. It’s wild to think that my trip to Boston was already a month ago, time is flying by quick! While I was in Boston, I received a recommendation to visit the comic book store Comicopia. Boston has a couple different comic shops including Newbury Comics which has several locations in the city. Comicopia was terrific because it was on the west side of Boston near this beautiful colonial neighborhood. I was also impressed by their selection in this small shop. Almost all of the comics I bought were written by local creators in the New England area. Here is my extensive haul from the store:

Siren School by Isabella Rothman

This is probably my favorite comic I bought and read. It’s a cute feminist comic about female sirens teaching young sirens to lure men to their deaths. Instead of saying sexual stuff though, they say things like “I know I can’t play video games” and other quotes appealing to the man’s ego. Definitely gave me some laughs in only a couple short pages.

Kitties by Greg Steele

This comic wasn’t a story, it was just an art collage of cute and chubby kitties wearing superhero costumes. Something I didn’t really know I needed until I saw it.

Good Morning Gorgon by Ben Doane and Olivia Li

The premise is simple, a Gorgon mom is shopping for all of her snakehead babies. Not much more to say than that.

The BackStagers Volume #1 by James Tynion IV, Rian Sygh and Walter Baiamonte

This graphic novel was included in HideNGoShauna’s post about graphic novels for Pride Month. The book is currently on my coffee table to remind me to read it, especially in the month of June.

Local comics are my favorite to read because there are some talented creators who aren’t getting the recognition they deserve. When you visit your comic book store, go straight for the locals section. If there isn’t one, work to change that. If you’re only reading DC or Marvel, you’re missing out on so many great comics. Support your local comic book community! 🙂

I’m super excited to share with you all the first Kickstarter campaign I have ever backed! Sometimes I scroll through Kickstarter browsing through different campaigns, but I have never felt compelled to pull out my credit card and back a project. This changed when I clicked on the campaign for the graphic novel AFTERGLOW. I was drawn to the pastel artwork, the characters, and the overall storyline. It’s close to being funded even though the campaign is going to run for twenty more days. Join me in funding this graphic novel!

AFTERGLOW is told after The Glowing destroyed 80% of the population. The wildlife was impacted including animals being mutated along with water being contaminated. Lacey is one of the survivors in this new world along with her radioactive cat. Yes, you heard me right she is riding on a radioactive cat. Not going to lie the radioactive cat did draw me into this graphic novel because I will forever be a cat lady. So basically this gigantic house cat and Lacey go on adventures together.

AFTERGlOW is created by K. Lynn Smith. She is the author of the webcomic, Plume. I haven’t read Plume yet, but I do have the website bookmarked under my webcomics folder. Pat Shand is the other brilliant mind behind AFTERGLOW and someone I’m less familiar with.

As far as the rewards, they’re pretty typical for any Kickstarter campaign. The more you pay, the more you unlock such as exclusive artwork, bookmarks, buttons, bumper stickers, and more. I personally only need the physical trade paperback so I didn’t pledge for any of the extra stuff, but if you’re a collector that might be worth it for you.

I have no doubt that this project will be backed considering they are less than $500 away from their funding goal. You can go check out the official Kickstarter campaign here: AFTERGLOW – Graphic Novel I have never been more excited for a graphic novel to ship to me!

Every time I travel to a new city I look for smaller stores to shop at. Boston has plenty of comic book stores, bookstores, and smaller boutiques. Specifically, I visited Brattle Book Shop and Comicopia which by the way if you’re ever in Boston, Comicopia is the best comic book store on the East Coast. I bought plenty of books & comics to last me a while. Since my post was starting to get a little long, I’m going to do two separate posts one for my books and one for my comics. Here were the books I purchased at this classic outdoor bookstore.

Brattle Bookshop is one of the oldest bookstores in the U.S. When the weather is nice, books are displayed on racks and on the shelves in the above two pictures. There were huge shelves with one of those old-fashioned library ladders. There were two full floors of books and on the third floor were rare books. I didn’t purchase any rare books because some sets were close to $200 or more. The prices from this shop are incredibly fair as you can see that there are $1, $3, and $5 books outside. Here are my finds from Brattle Books:

Madhouse by Rob Thurman

This is one of the books I found on the $1 book rack. This book is the third book in the Cal Leandros series which I had never heard. Cal and Neko are half-human brothers who run their own paranormal detective agency in the Big Apple. A malevolent evil being is murdering humans at an alarming rate so Cal and Neko must kill it. Seems similar to the Dresden series which I like.

The Night Manager by John Le Carre

I’m a big fan of Tom Hiddleston’s role in the TV adaptation of this book. I have heard that the TV adaptation is better than the book, but I want to read the book and then re-watch The Night Manager. The Night Manager tells the story of Jonathon Pine working as a night manager at a prestigious hotel. When his former lover is brutally murdered at the hands of Richard Roper, a prominent man who cannot be touched by MI6, Pine goes undercover into Roper’s operations to bring justice to his fallen lover. I believe the Night Manager TV series is six episodes long and is on Amazon Prime.

Serpents in the Cold by Thomas O’Malley

This mystery book takes place in 1950’s Boston where a serial killer is on the prowl for the next victim. Mystery is my second favorite genre to read from because I enjoy the suspense leading up to uncovering the truth. After I finish a mystery book, I always feel like I’m on cloud nine because of knowing how the book ends which I didn’t know a couple hours before finishing the book.

H.P. Lovecraft’s Dunwich Horror

One of my favorite board games is Arkham Horror which is based on H.P. Lovecraft’s horror stories. This is a graphic novel take on some of his classic stories. Lovecraft’s stories are intriguing, but since they were written in the early 1900s, the language used can be dull and hard to interpret at times. This graphic novel makes that easier.

Griff by Christopher Moore and Ian Corson

My final purchase is this graphic novel for a decent price. I read the reviews for this graphic novel and apparently, other comic fans are saying it’s mediocre. I guess I will form my own opinion. The book takes place in NYC where an alien invasion is occurring. A couple New Yorkers are destined to fight back and take back their favorite city.

My book pile is growing bigger which is how I like it. I always like to have something new to read. My comic post will be posted soon enough because there’s a lot of cool stuff I bought I wanted to share. Also, I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Memorial Day. Let’s be thankful for Veterans who have fought for so much to give us the rights we have.

This past week I watched The Avengers with my boyfriend to prepare for Infinity War. This movie has a special place in my heart because it helped me get into reading comics. I remember sitting in the theater being a senior in high school and preparing to go off to college that fall. I watched this movie and I was entranced by all of the characters with their backstories and how they worked together. I wanted to dedicate a full post as to how much this movie meant to me and how re-watching it gave me all the feelings.

As I mentioned, I was a senior in high school when this movie was released. Reflecting back to that time in my life, I was insecure. Insecure about my looks, my body, and who I was as a person. My uncle persuaded me, my brother, and my mom, to go to the theaters to watch this movie.

Everyone probably has their favorite Avenger. Most would say Iron Man or Captain America, but my favorite was Hawkeye. I had an obsession with Jeremy Renner for a couple years after the release of The Avengers. I still have two Jeremy Renner Hawkeye posters in my old bedroom at my mom’s house. Hawkeye is an ordinary human being who is forced into this alien invasion by Loki. He’s also the Avenger who I think is given the most crap because he uses a bow. However, his hand-to-hand combat skills are lethal especially when he’s paired with the Black Widow.

Also, can I just say one of the very first OTPs I had was Black Widow and Hawkeye. I have always wanted to know what the hell happened in Budapest!?!?!?!. I was shocked when Black Widow was paired with Hulk because it seemed odd to me. I feel bad for Hawkeye because I felt he really didn’t get the attention that he deserves in the Marvel universe and I know other fans agree with me.

I didn’t visit a comic book store until the summer of 2013 when I brought my ex-boyfriend to Mead Hall Comics & Games in Minneapolis. I bought a few single issues without really knowing what I was looking for. Now, I buy mostly trades because it’s difficult for me to keep up with single-issue comics. I wouldn’t have even started buying comics if it wasn’t for seeing The Avengers in the theaters.

To wrap up this post, I wanted to say how The Avengers has really transformed me into the geek girl I am today. It helped broaden my interests and put me deep into the Marvel Comics fandom. I’m excited to see where Marvel movies will head and I’m looking forward to reading more superhero comics and enjoying free comic book day this year.

One of the more recent books I read, The Postmortal by Drew Magary, had an interesting premise that made me think. In the book, there was a “cure” for aging discovered and almost everyone in this book received “The Cure”. They would stay the same age and their organs wouldn’t deteriorate. The planet changes as people are living way longer than they used to. The question is, if the cure existed where you wouldn’t age any longer, would you take it?

I don’t think I would want to receive “The Cure” for aging. I try and take care of my body so that as I age I’m able to use it for longer. In the book, the government eventually goes to extreme measures by sanctioning the killing of elderly people. There’s also a lot more divorce because people enter into what’s called a cycle marriage. Cycle marriages are contracts where each person says they want to be together for 40 years and then divorce to find someone else to marry. I would like to think the person I end up with will be by my side forever, not just as a placement holder.

For the record, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the book for a few reasons. The main character was annoying and the book moved too slowly for me. I will say I did like some of the themes the book presented as to whether or not we deserve the right to live forever. I look at Wolverine as another good example of this. He has lived through decades, but he isn’t happy because he has seen everyone he cares about perish while he has to suffer through his life. That’s not a life worth living.

Even though I didn’t like this book, it allowed me to be able to read something that I normally wouldn’t have. Let me know in the comments whether you would receive the cure for aging if it ever became available.

I have been having a fantastic day. I got off of work two hours early, cleaned the kitchen, and reviewed my health goals with my personal trainer/coach. With the newly available free time, I wanted to check into my Goodreads account and see how I’m doing with my 2018 reading challenge. I have been reading so many books & comics that I haven’t been able to post reviews as quickly as I have been reading, which is a good thing. This post is more, to sum up what I read that I hadn’t had a chance to review on this blog yet.

Good as Gone by Amy Gentry

CONTENT WARNING: Rape, sexual violence, and sexual assault. 

I randomly stumbled upon this book at Barnes & Noble. I included the content warning because there are some graphic scenes in this book.

Eight years ago, Julie was kidnapped out of her bedroom in Houston, Texas. On a random summer day her mother, Anna answers the door and sees an older Julie on her doorstep. Anna is overjoyed by the return of her daughter however, Anna starts to doubt Julie’s story. Out of the blue, a private investigator contacts Anna about his suspicions about Julie’s kidnapping. Julie’s story unravels and the reader is left to grapple with whether or not Julie is actually Julie and if she’s an imposter, what does she want with Anna?

I’m not going to spoil the book, but my major complaint was how the story was told. “Julie’s” story is told backward while Anna’s story is told moving forward. It made the story confusing and I felt I had to read back into the book to remember Julie’s story. I felt the book kept me on the edge of my seat without really knowing what would happen. I ended up giving it three stars on Goodreads.

Moonstruck Issue #3 by Grace Ellis & Shae Beagle

Image Comics is a powerhouse company with some of my favorite comics including Papergirls, Nailbiter, and Sex Criminals. It features magical creatures, fancy coffee drinks, and female friendships. Chet is a centaur who lost her legs in a magic show, can Julie return them and defeat the magician? Honestly one of the best comic series I have read, I gave this Five stars on Goodreads.

Manhunter Volume #1

Kate Spencer is a hard-assed, cigarette-smoking, attorney. She is angry when a criminal she’s prosecuting gets let back into the city. She steals weapons from a police locker and takes on the mantle of Manhunter. Think Daredevil, but the DC Comics version. This came out in 2005, so it does feel a bit dated, but it didn’t bother me when I read it. I gave this four stars on Goodreads and I do intend to buy the other volumes.

Rogue One Book Adaptation by Alexander Freed

I don’t know what I was expecting, but this read exactly how it plays in the movie. I did like that parts of the book were told from the perspective of Bodhi, Cassian, and KTSO. Rogue One is my favorite Star Wars film. I would recommend this if you love Rogue One as much as I do. I gave this three stars on Goodreads.

I have read eleven books out of my challenge to read twenty. I mentioned this in another blog post, but I always start my Goodreads challenge at ten and I increase it every time I meet that goal. That way instead of feeling defeated because I didn’t read as much as I wanted to, I get encouraged because I can increase my goal if needed. Let me know what you’re currently reading in the comments below!

As I was updating my Goodreads account with everything I had been reading in 2018, this dawned on me. I had been entering the trade paperbacks and comics I had been reading as “books” for this year. I figured if you can read something, it could count as a book. I absolutely adore Goodreads because it keeps my online bookshelf organized and I can follow my favorite book vloggers and see what they shelve. I’m not sure if there’s something that’s like Goodreads, but for comics. If there is a site that exists, I should create an account to keep my comics separate from my books. For now, I have been putting my comics under my books. Is this appropriate?

To answer this question, I decided to look up the definition of a book. Here are a couple that I found:

Book

/book/

noun 

1. A written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound in covers.
2. A work of fiction or nonfiction in an electronic format
3. A set of written, printed, or blank pages fastened along one side and encased between protective covers.
4.  A printed or written literary work

It’s interesting how the definition of a “book” has been modified over the years. With the internet, eBooks have had to be written into the definition of a book since that didn’t exist 30-40 years ago. Looking at the above definitions, it seems like a comic would be a book. Technically it’s a printed work with images and they are put together, probably not sewn.

Let’s take a look at the definition of a comic then and see what the difference is:

Comicbook

noun 

1. a magazine that presents a serialized story in the form of a comic strip, typically featuring the adventures of a superhero.
2. A magazine containing sequences of comic strips
3. of or relating to or marked by comedy (definition of a comic)
4. of or relating to comic strips

The definition of a comic versus a book is slightly different. Notice how comics are described as magazines. You can still “read” a magazine so does that mean a comic is a book?

I personally have no problem listing my comics on Goodreads. It helps me remember series I want to keep up with and since I have no idea if there’s a site specifically for comics, it helps to have everything in the same place. Should comics be classified as books?

I discover new books mostly from other book bloggers. They give me first-hand knowledge about new books to read that peak my interest. I have been reading Super Space Chick’s blog ever since Kristin appeared on Syfy’s Fangasm TV series. Her blog gives me book inspiration and whenever she posts a review, I always read it. This book sounded good and even though I never read a book by Marie Lu, I knew she had written other successful series. Warcross was everything I wanted it to be and more. It featured a fantastic female heroine, diversity among the characters, and a shocking twist I hadn’t seen coming. I will keep this review spoiler-free because I want everyone to know this book exists.

Warcross is a successful virtual reality game almost every gamer plays around the world. Emika Chen is one female gamer who plays Warcross in between her work as a bounty hunter in NYC. During the Warcross Championships, Emika accidentally hacks into the gameplay. Instead of being arrested, she’s flown to Tokyo to meet Hideo Tanaka, the designer, and creator of Warcross. He offers Emika a job for a bounty on a mysterious hacker named “Zero” who is interfering with the championships. Emika must use her skills as a hacker and as a gamer to identify Zero and prevent major consequences for the Warcross empire.

Emika Chen is probably one of my favorite female characters in a book. Without giving spoilers, she’s someone who won’t sacrifice her values for the sake of someone else.  A lot of female characters will abandon a part of themselves for someone they care about, and Emika doesn’t do that. She has rainbow-colored hair and a sleeve of tattoos which makes her appearance unique.

The ending though, holy shit. I read the last 20 pages and I thought I knew how this book would end, but I was wrong. I like not being able to predict how a book will end.

One criticism I have been seeing with this book is that it’s too similar to Ready Player One. My counter-argument is Ready Player One takes place in a dystopian society? I don’t know for sure, I haven’t read the book. Warcross takes place in a future society still in the U.S. and I wouldn’t put it in the category of being a “dystopian novel”.

I wanted to end my review with a quote from Marie Lu which can be found in the acknowledgments section of Warcross: To all the Gamer Girls out there, you inspired this.

Finishing a trilogy is always bittersweet. You get sucked into this world while getting to know every character. The Steelheart trilogy is still one of my all-time favorite book series I have read to date. I was super excited to read this book because I wanted to know how this series would end. Would David and Megan end up together? Would David be able to save Prof while unlocking the answers to Epics? Unfortunately, I felt I was left with more questions than answers and I expected the book to conclude everything with a neat bow, but I was wrong. I will try and keep my review spoiler free, but there will be spoilers for the other books in the series. It’s best to avoid this review if you plan on reading this trilogy, which you should.

Briefly recapping the Steelheart trilogy; this version of the United States is home to beings titled Epics. Epics have superpowers that they received when a red star in the sky arose called Calamity. These Epics are almost always evil and David Charleston has made it his mission to end them and restore humanity to what it was before Calamity rose into the sky. David teams up with the old team (Abraham, Cody, Megan, and Mizzy) to invade Knighthawk, an intelligent inventor who once knew Prof before he turned into his evil epic form. This plan goes to shit when David and his team are caught by Knighthawk. Ultimately, he invites them into his bunker and tells stories of his time knowing Prof.

Based on intel provided by Knighthawk, David & the Reckoner’s head to Idithia otherwise known as Atlanta. I will say out of all the places the team could end up, this was my least favorite world. It was a world made of salt which is bland considering the other places Brandon Sanderson envisioned in the previous novels.

David and Prof do go into a big fight at the end of the book which is a little too long. The plot twist behind “Calamity” surprised me, but still left me confused. I’m left with many more questions about why Calamity exists and where this “star” came from. I wish I would have more answers instead of coming up with my own theory.

There is a touching scene with David on the very last page of the book that was rather heartwarming. I am not going into detail on what happened because I do want to keep this mostly spoiler free. I did write a very detailed review on my Goodreads page, so check that out if you want more spoilers.

Overall, I liked the book, but I felt let down. I think this book had a slower pace than the other books in the series. I’m not going to let my opinion of this book ruin how I feel about the series as a whole. As much as I’m going to miss the world in Steelheart, I’m looking forward to decreasing my book pile in my bedroom. There’s so much to read and so little time to do so.