Monica by Daniel Clowes

I sometimes like to check out the underground scene and remember how pivotal it was in changing the comic narrative during the 1980s—especially Robert Crumb.

I was curious about getting to know Daniel Clowes’ work, and this book seemed like the perfect opportunity. Known for mixing the kitschy and the grotesque Lynch style, I found his work to be all about despair and anxiety in a very literary way, filled with dialog paired with absurd situations.

It is, by all means, an adult graphic novel, with adult themes such as sexual and emotional relationships, war anxiety, and violence—discussing those things in the style of the comics of the ’70s but with a postmodern twist.

Monica is a series of interconnected narratives that collectively tell the life story (or stories) of its title character. I could see how the genres mix and twist, taking us on a voyage through the past, the hippies, the kids abandoned, and the punk scene. It is both uniquely historical and deeply personal. The scenes all leverage different retro styles of comic-making—war, romance, horror, crime, the supernatural, etc.—but in this instantly recognizable way.

Now I might even check out his most famous project: Ghost World.

Monica is available on October 3, 2023.

Format: Hardback, 106 pages, FC
Price: $30
Age range: 18+
ISBN-13: 9781683968825
Genre: Adult Fiction, Graphic Novel, Literature

On a lighter note, this lovely compilation has just hit the shelves.

Macanudo: Optimism Is for the Brave by Liniers

I reviewed a prior Macanudo collection last year, and, as usual, I have nothing to do but gush over this master of the comic strip.

Beginning in 2002 in Buenos Aires, Macanudo steadily gained popularity around the world and has been appearing in US newspapers since 2018. Optimism Is for the Brave is the second of a series of volumes collecting Liniers’ groundbreaking strip.

There are so many wonderful characters with lives all their own in these comics: the penguins, the elves, the witches, the Mysterious Man in Black, Enriqueta and her cat Fellini, the boy with his imaginary monster friend called Olga, the random olives escaping murder, the interpretations of famous quotes in an illustrated form… and even the stand-alone stories. Liniers currently resides in Canada, where he teaches comics, and has been touring the US and Latin America with a band, drawing as Kevin Johansen sings.

The great thing about this homage to Patrick MacDonnell, Bill Waterson, The Far Side, and all the other classics is that it can sustain a variety of readers; my kid loves him, but any adult can relate on a different level as well. That’s why this would make a great Christmas gift.

Macanudo: Optimism Is for the Brave is available on November 7, 2023.

Genre: Humor Comic Strips Surrealism
Format: 176 pages; Hard cover FC
Price: $24.99
Age range: 10+
ISBN-13: 9781683968788

Now for a graphic novel that is a masterpiece of design and collage.

We’re All Just Fine by Ana Penyas | Translator: Andrea Rosenberg

This book was awarded the FNAC-Salamandra Graphic Novel prize in 2017 when it first came out in Spanish, and I am glad to say it hasn’t lost any of its charm with this translation.

A graphic biography, it is a tribute to both of the artist’s grandmothers during the 40-year-long Franco dictatorship and the generation of women who quietly soldiered through so many years of fascist rule in Spain.

It is hard to imagine what it was like for them, how Maruja and Herminia lived alone in their respective Spanish towns, how they got married, whether there was love in their marriages, and how they lived through their elder years. It is both a fascinating recount and an incredible work of art—each piece, each scene is carefully crafted with simulations of fabrics and textures characteristic of the period.

It is sad to watch how their children and relatives neglect them or seldom visit, and they tend to ignore how their mothers faced fascism, sometimes even hiding in plain sight the pamphlets and revolutionary ideas of their own kids from their very conservative husbands. The transition from an authoritarian, repressive Franco regime to a lively and liberating democracy was both freeing and frightening for women, only expected to be housewives.

Penyas is amazing. Her way of naturally conversing with her grandmothers while doodling, combining pieces of their lives as if they were embroidery, carefully placing signs and songs and the memory of how the Madrid movement radically transformed Spain’s society in the 1980s (Almodovar’s aesthetics are a strong influence) is masterful.

It feels like a strangely quiet graphic novel, although there’s certainly enough high drama in Spain’s political and cultural shifts in the late 1970s and ’80s.

This is a lovely tribute to the lives of both women, told from a distinctly feminist perspective.

We’re All Just Fine is available on February 28, 2023.

Format: FC, 112 pages; Hardcover
Price: $24.99
Age range: 16+
ISBN-13: 9781683965800

Finally, here’s a fascinating account of a Japanese zone before and after the war.

Okinawa by Susumu Higa | Translators: Jocelyne Allen, Andrew Woodrow Butcher, and Christopher Butcher

This is a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection about the Battle of Okinawa and the history of the island itself. Okinawa was the site of the most destructive land battle of the Pacific War. This archipelago is Japan’s poorest prefecture and the unwilling host to 75% of all US military bases in Japan.

I have been thinking a lot about war recently, past and present. I am reading Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adichie, which is about the Biafran War in Nigeria, as I feel that we must understand past wars to make sense of present ones.

Susumu Higa is so gentle in the way that he shifts delicately between Okinawa’s past and present, bringing together two collections of intertwined stories. The first collection, “Sword of Sand,” is hard to read at times, as the horror of the Battle of Okinawa cannot be overstated. Then we go to present-day “Mabui” (Okinawan for “spirit”), where the author explores American occupation through the eyes of a Yuta priestess.

This is a fascinating, complicated place, and the manga is fascinating as well. Identities, loyalties, dreams and hopes, humanity and violence speak truly beyond borders and across shores.

Okinawa is available on August 23, 2023.
Format: B&W, 544 pages; Hardback
Price: $29.99
Age range: 14+
ISBN-13: 9781683961185