Author: Greg McElhatton

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Ozma of Oz #1

Written by Eric Shanower
Based on the novel by L. Frank Baum
Art by Skottie Young
32 pages, color
Published by Marvel

Ozma of Oz was one of my favorite books when I was growing up. I’m not sure where our copy of the book came from, but I must have read it fifty or more times. The third Oz novel, it’s actually only the second one to feature Dorothy, who after a sea voyage comes awry ends up journeying to Oz’s neighboring country of Ev, as well as meeting her old friends again and embarking on a brand-new adventure. Quite frankly? I think it blows The Wonderful Wizard of Oz out of the water.

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Genkaku Picasso Vol. 1

By Usamaru Furuya
256 pages, black and white
Published by Viz

Usamaru Furuya’s Short Cuts is one of the strange, off-beat comics that Viz published in its PULP anthology back in the day, and which you still hear its fans talk about in hushed tones. It was silly, irreverent, and unpredictable, and a feature I always looked forward to. I’d never seen a comic longer than a one- or two-page gag strip by Furuya before, though, so Genkaku Picasso being translated into English felt like perfect timing. What I wasn’t expecting, though, was a bizarre mixture of "special powers to help others" mixed with pop psychology.

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Generation Hope #1

Written by Kieron Gillen
Art by Salvador Espin
40 pages, color
Published by Marvel

New comics in the X-Men family are a dime a dozen; often, with no warning, they just appear, seemingly spinning off characters at random. With Generation Hope, though, we’ve got two distinct differences from many other recent spin-offs. First, there isn’t an "X" anywhere in the title (although perhaps out of desperation, the logo creator put an X in Hope’s "O"). And second, this comic has actually spun directly out of a storyline, and appears to be moving forward with one of the big storylines happening in Uncanny X-Men and company. And so, as a result? I think this title has a real chance of succeeding.

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Locke & Key: Keys to the Kingdom #1-2

Written by Joe Hill
Art by Gabriel Rodriguez
32 pages, color
Published by IDW

I feel slightly late to the party with Locke & Key, now in its fourth 6-issue mini-series from IDW. I’ve been hearing great things about Joe Hill’s novels and short stories for a while now, and the praise didn’t stop when it came to his comics. But with so many comics, and already being way behind, I figured it wasn’t worth trying to dive in at the halfway point in a series scheduled to run 36 issues in all. A friend kept assuring me that I’d have no problem giving the new mini-series a try, though, and what I found was a book full of some truly creepy images.

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Korea as Viewed by 12 Creators

By Guillaume Bouzard, Byun Ki-Hyun, Catel, Chaemin, Choi Kyu-Sok, Igort, Lee Doo-Ho, Lee Hee-Jae, Park Heung-Yong, Mathieu Sapin, Hervé Tanquerelle, and Vanyda
224 pages, black and white
Published by Fanfare/Ponent Mon

Last year, I got a chance to read Japan as Viewed by 17 Creators and ended up finding it what I was hoping for—my own journey from one end of Japan to the other, told through a group of talented French and Japanese comic creators. This year, a companion volume, Korea as Viewed by 12 Creators, was released and I was hoping for much of the same. What I found, though, was a rather different book and not at all what I was expecting this time around.

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Incognito: Bad Influences #1

Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Sean Phillips
32 pages, color
Published by Marvel Comics

One of my absolute favorite comics last year was Incognito, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’s mini-series about a super-villain forced to live in a witness protection program. There were twists and turns galore, and in general just getting into the mind of Zack Overkill was a surprisingly interesting experience. Brubaker and Phillips have now returned to Zack with Incognito: Bad Influences, and now that the first issue is out? It’s not at all what I had expected from these creators.

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Kobato Vol. 3

By CLAMP
160 pages, black and white
Published by Yen Press

Several months ago, I reviewed the first two volumes of the new CLAMP series Kobato. At the time I felt that I was glad I had read them back-to-back, because after a slightly underwhelming first volume, things had picked up a great deal in the second and made me feel much more confident about the series. Now that the third volume is out, though? I feel like I’m left back in limbo on the series in general, and that this new installment isn’t a positive step forward.

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Morning Glories #1-3

Written by Nick Spencer
Art by Joe Eisma
32 pages, color
Published by Image Comics

I love the fact that, over the years, we’ve ended up with a subgenre of stories about teenagers involving evil schools and academies. There’s something about that natural mistrust that teenagers have towards adults that make it such an rich mine to tap, and Morning Glories by Nick Spencer and Joe Eisma is the latest comic to visit that well. So while the story itself isn’t something huge and crazy and new, it’s the choices that Spencer and Eisma are making that ultimately caught my attention.

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A Drunken Dream and Other Stories

By Moto Hagio
288 pages, black and white, with some color
Published by Fantagraphics

I never did read the issue of The Comics Journal that interviewed Moto Hagio, and printed one of her stories in English. I understand that it was that issue that convinced the rest of Fantagraphics to publish a "best-of" collection of Hagio’s work, though, and that it talked a great deal about her importance in helping define the shôjo ("girl’s comics") genre in Japan. Here’s what I do know, though. Going into A Drunken Dream and Other Stories blindly, it’s ultimately a book that sucked me into its stories and made me want to read a lot more of Hagio’s comics. A mixture of romance, science-fiction, and family drama, these ten story compilation is one of the strongest examples I’ve seen of the depth and breath that the shôjo genre can contain.

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Make Me a Woman

By Vanessa Davis
176 pages, color & black and white
Published by Drawn & Quarterly

Vanessa Davis’s comics are not, at a glance, the sort of experiences that would be universally understood. A love/hate relationship with Jewish boys, going to fat camp, celebrating the High Holy Days, a mother who uses slightly inappropriate and sexually tilted words. "That’s not me at all," you’re probably thinking. But what makes Davis’s comics in Make Me a Woman so good is that somehow, she makes everything relatable to the reader, no matter what their background. Boiling down the emotional experiences of each story to their core, there’s a lot to connect with. And more importantly, fall in love with.

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