COMICS! SuperMutant Magic Academy by Jillian Tamaki

Gemma and Frances

School wasn't very magical for me. Either in the Harry Potter sense or the 'This is the best time of my life!' sense. For some of the kids at SuperMutant Magic Academy I think the same can be said about the latter. They do get the Potter part, though, damn them!

Much like the previously featured artist Emily Carroll, I can't remember where exactly I discovered Jillian Tamaki's SuperMutant Magic Academy. It was most likely a link from one of the other comics I read online, but I do remember it being fairly early on in the run, and being entranced from the first strip I read.

SMMA usually punches me in the gut, occasionally in the face, and maybe once or twice below the belt. That's how good it is. Whether it's Marsha's undying and unrequited love for Wendy, Frances' quest for truth through art, or Everlasting Boy's cosmic (and otherwise)  adventures, Tamaki delivers simple truths and heartbreaking realities. 

I noted earlier that they get to live in a Harry Potteresque world, but their life is anything but earth-saving battles. As Lauren Davis noted in her review of SMMA for io9, "their concerns are largely mundane." Boys, girls, school, hanging out, reading books, playing games. In other words, they're just teenagers living drama-filled, complicated lives. A lot of drama.

Another thing SMMA has in spades: a whole mess of awesome fan art. And the occasional guest strip, such as the haunting "Ephemeros" from Matt Forsythe:

While it's hard for me to pinpoint a favorite in anything these days, as my love for comics, art, writing, etc. grows and I see the awesome in and throughout so many things, character-wise I do have a soft spot for Trevor (Everlasting Boy is pretty cool, too):

Trevor, being doing bad things

In some ways SMMA reminds me of Lev Grossman's novel The Magicians, which riffs on the Potter books with a heavy does of The Chronicles of Narnia mixed in, making something unique and magical all its own (it's late as I write this, puns are acceptable). Among other things, I see connections between the character Penny from Grossman's novel and my boy Trevor. Though Penny is a bit more extreme, and obnoxious. If you want to know how much more, I suggest you check out the book.

Speaking of books, Ms. Tamaki has recently said there will be a collection somewhere down the line, but first she has to finish a graphic novel she is working on with her cousin. She's promised bonus strips for that, and I'm sure it will be worth the wait. In the last year or so she's released a couple of mini-comics, each with its own extra content. I believe the first one is sold out, but the second one just debuted a couple of weeks back in time for this year's MoCCA Fest--where she was guest of honor--and I think you can still nab that one if you hurry.

And if you don't get one of them, or you're new to SMMA, just take a leisurely trip through the archives  of SuperMutant Magic Academy and enjoy. Here's a few to get you started, have fun:

 

 

SuperMutant Magic Academy is © Jillian Tamaki

COMICS! The 3 Snake Leaves by Emily Carroll

 Emily Carroll is a lovely cartoonist from Vancouver, British Columbia. I discovered her a few years ago when I clicked on a link to her comic "His Face All Red"--sadly I don't remember where exactly that link was, but, thank you to whoever posted it!

From that point on I was a fan. I love her style, color palette, and the way she presents stories online. She also did one of my favorite pieces of SuperMutant Magic Academy fanart (a comic which I'll gush about another time). Her latest is up now, an adaptation of one of her favorite fairy tales, done as a part of an assignment she gave to her students and which she decided to participate in. Make sure you follow both threads, the princess' story and the prince's, at the bottom of the first page.

Enjoy:

 The 3 Snake Leaves is © Emily Carroll

Dark Horse Motion Comics: Usagi Yojimbo

One of my favorite comics has gotten a bit animated, courtesy of the fine folks at Dark Horse and Geek & Sundry.

I started reading Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo back during its run at Mirage Studios, not too long before it moved to Dark Horse Comics. Sakai's rabbit ronin had something for me that most of the other anthropomorphic comics born out of the 80s black & white boom did not, mainly story, humor and heart. It was a more or less serious tale with funny looking animals, rather than another Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle knock-off working some other gimmicky angle (like, say, Geriatric Gangrene Jujitsu Gerbils. Yes, that's a real comic. Yes, I bought it. Yes, it's horrible, let us speak of it no further). 

In recent years I've fallen out of reading monthly comics, but last year I began picking up a few new titles, including Rachel Rising, which I talked about not too long ago. That made me miss some of my old regulars, including this one. So, I'm about to embark on a massive Usagi Yojimbo read/re-read, starting with the Fantagraphics Books collections--where the first regular, ongoing series was published--and working my way up to the most recent story, catching up on all the the tales I missed the first time around.

Hope you like this short tale, and if so, give the comic a try!



And a bonus! A horrendous copy of an aborted Space Usagi animated series, interesting to see what could have been if Usagi's futuristic counterpart would've made it to the small screen.

COMICS! Rachel Rising by Terry Moore

Note: I originally posted this back in October of 2012, I am posting it again (unchanged) since I have revamped the blog a bit for the New Year.
 
I've been a fan since fairly early on in Terry Moore's first major comic series Strangers in Paradise. There Moore explored the lives of Francine and Katchoo, and their friend David, in a complicated love triangle set against a thriller-type story of political infiltration and shadowy organizations. But that's not this.

Neither is Echo, Moore's second series. In Echo, he took a turn to the SF side of life and followed photographer Julie Martin as she became entangled in a mystery surrounding a new kind of battle suit, one which bonds to her, despite the fact that the government wants it back.

So what is Rachel Rising? It's Terry Moore's third self published series, and this time he's raising the dead.

It's not spoiling anything to tell you that Rachel Beck, the titular character, is introduced in the series as a corpse rising from the ground. She doesn't realize she's dead, or really know what's happened to her (and neither do we), all she feels is an overwhelming need to get home.

As she begins to realize not everything is right in her world, home doesn't offer any answers. She can't remember what happened the nigh before when she went out with her best friend Jet. She goes out into town and is told she isn't Rachel by one of her neighbors. And her aunt, who works in the morgue, thinks she's dead and just a hallucination.

Add to the mix a mysterious woman who appears atop buildings looking down at Rachel with a devilish smile, a little girl who has gotten herself in a lot of trouble, and a growing body count, Rachel starts to realize her life is not the same. Starting with the fact that she shouldn't have one because she's not breathing.

During the story Rachel, her aunt Johnny and Jet are trying to figure out what happened to her as she begins seeing things no one else can. Other pieces of the puzzle are given to the reader, but they only deepen the mystery and ask more questions (and answer few). Things come to a head, or rather a crash, as the car they're in rams into a truck and another death occurs. But in Rachel's world, that's doesn't stop you from getting up.


After reading the first six issues I am completely hooked. I was hooked on the first, really. The opening story arc is complete with issue six, and a collection called Shadow of Death is already available.

I suppose the highest compliment I can give it is the fact that I pick up the monthly issues as they come out, as opposed to waiting for the trade collections. I haven't regularly collected a monthly comic for more than a decade, but I'm enjoying the heck out of this one and don't want to wait and don't mind the expense.

Terry Moore is a man who has managed to do what few artists can, not get stuck in one genre, or one series. He has produced two amazing series so far, and Rachel's Rising has now been added to that list.

Rachel Rising is © Terry Moore