It’s a great week for new comics and I managed to make a dent in the pile that is still going to kill me when it inevitably falls over and buries me beneath a pandemic’s worth of arcs, galleys, and copies purchased with my own, hard earned, digitally-estimated worth not actually backed by anything other than some dude’s say-so. I know I usually screw around in these here introductions but I have a lot to cover and, also, I already spent two hours on this baby only to have WordPress yeet it into the ether and I really need to track down my contact lens order before I run out, so…

Across the Tracks: Remembering Greenwood, Black Wall Street, and the Tulsa Race Massacre by Alverene Ball and Stacey Robinson (Abrams/Megascope)

Did you learn about the Tulsa Massacre in school? Nor I, which is interesting considering one group of Americans murdered up to 300 other Americans and razed their city, Greenwood, Oklahoma, to the ground. Those who survived May 31 and June 1, 1921 were displaced and forced to live in a tent city until their homes houses and businesses were rebuilt but their home would never be the same.

Why were the citizen of Greenwood targeted? There’s an official reason. It’s bullshit.

The citizens of Greenwood were targeted because they dared not only to survive, but thrive, in the era of Jim Crow, while Black.

Long ago and far away? Where have you been for the last four years? Hatred and racism are alive and seething in America and if we don’t learn the full scope of our past, especially the ugly, nasty bits that have been swept under rugs and shoved between cushions and locked in vaults, then we don’t deserve to be here (whether or not we deserve to be here is another discussion entirely and the answer is, “no, probably not”). There are still three people alive who remember this travesty; at 100, 106, and 107 respectively, they testified before Congress on the Massacre’s 100th anniversary earlier this year. You owe it to them, to your neighbors and your friends, and to every Black American to educate yourself. So read this book and give it to your kids and then pass it along.

No more “history belongs to the victors” bullshit.

History belongs to everyone. Learn it. All of it. Period, end of story, fight me.

Boys Run the Riot Volume 2 by Gaku Keito (Kodansha)

People were screaming about Boys Run the Riot before Vol. 1 hit shelves and e-readers across the land (I got an arc and I was one of them)  and Vol. 2 is equally as deserving of the hype. Gaku is so honest in writing Ryo, showing the joys of coming out and finding one’s self along side the difficulties, the anxiety alongside with warmth and companionship. Finding one’s place on the LGBTQ+ spectrum is an ever evolving process and this is a book that understands that better than most, allowing its protagonist to stretch and prod and grow. And dating… well, that’s awkward for everyone, which is also important for teenagers to know. Alongside Ryo’s singular journey, he, Jin, and Itsuka are trying to grow their brand and force the fashion world to sit up and take notice. Fashion ™  isn’t impressed by three high schoolers, not until they swing a collaboration with one of Japan’s most popular YouTube influencers. That team up ends up having a price, though, one Ryo’s not sure he’s willing to pay.

The thing I love most about Riot is that, while one of the main story threads is Ryo’s queer journey, Gaku is careful to give his protagonist a full life. School. Friends. A job. Awkward teenage moments of all sorts. Do all of these things present challenges to Ryo within the framework of his transition? Yes, absolutely. Does he think about his transition every waking moment? No. Sometimes, he does classwork. Sometimes, he goes to karaoke. Sometimes, he drinks illicit beer, or demands a motorcycle ride, or hangs out in the park with Jin and Itsuka. Ryo lives. He has a personality and interests and quirks. He is a fully fleshed out human person and not a vague trope the author threw in front of a metaphorical bus so Gaku could make A Point or move The Plot.

59 days to volume 3.

The Breaker Volume 1 by Jon Geuk-Jn and Park Jin-Hwan (Ablaze)

I’m not 100% sure what’s going on in The Breaker yet but I am preemptively in love with it. We have a kid (Si-Woon) who is being bullied but has the heart of a hero and is brave enough to try to protect his friend, an assassin/extremely powerful martial artist (Chun-Woo) hiding out from the hit men who are after him in a high school where he’s posing as a substitute teacher (he is very bad at it), his… erm… well-endowed frenemy (Si-Ho) who might be there to help and might be there to hurt but is definitely there to be the worst school nurse on record and to cock-block Chun-Woo at every turn.

Gangesters. Vendettas. Mystical stuff. Martial arts. Sex jokes. Boob jokes. Dick jokes. Epic explosions. Confrontations to the death in abandoned buildings. More dick jokes. This book could not be any more my brain candy manhua jam if it tried. Can’t wait for vol. 2.

Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles by Fermin Solis (Self Made Hero)

I have traditionally been skeptical about “creative non-fiction.” If one wanted to write non-fiction, one should do that and if one wanted to be creative, then fiction was the way to go. Like the geographical anomaly that allows the North and South sides of Pittsburgh to touch one another for creative non-fiction to occur and work, there had to be some sort of occult ritual that involves a lot of blood and probably some chickens, some shouting, a demon or three, and a singularity.

Well, everyone check your chicken coops because I get it now.

You can’t really understand a person unless you understand their personality, the core that makes them who they are. Buñuel was a surrealist filmmaker. Surrealism is weird. Real weird. It logically follows then, that the people who created surrealist works needs must have had a streak of weirdness in them (this is not a criticism. I consider myself to be deeply, deeply strange and am quite proud of it). Writing a straight prose biography is never going to convey that aura of the bizarre and drive to dress up as a nun while directing pseudo-documentaries (as some ones apparently do).

A graphic biography, however, that lets one play with imagery and colors? That allows the character to break into dreams and visions the way characters in a musical break into song? Ah. Now were cooking with melted clocks.

I stand corrected.

Renegade Rule by Ben Khan, Rachel Silverstein, and Sam Beck (Dark Horse)

The Manhattan Mist have made it to the national tournament for their favorite VR game: Renegade Rule. Now they just have to make it past the imposter syndrome, crushes on members of other teams, bickering, and the their opponents to win the title and the prize.

This graphic novel is 100% delightful and unabashedly queer and uber girl-powered. I blew through it in one sitting because it was too good to put down and then I was sad when I finished because the was no more. How much does the world need more books like Renegade Rule? So much.

It has my new, favorite first page of a book ever. I immediately recommended it to at least 10 people and I plan to recommend it to many, many more. My reach is tiny but I plan on using it to yell about Renegade Rule. Do yourself and me a favor and go buy it so I don’t have to harpy screech at you and you don’t have to listen to me.

Tiger & Bunny Volume 2 by Sakakibara Mizuki, Nishida Masafumi, and Masakazu Katsura (Viz)

Listen, I like superhero shenanigans, especially when there’s a twist and as I mentioned last time, the twist in Tiger & Bunny is one of my favorites and one that doesn’t get nearly enough air time: how do supers survive in a “real” world. In Stern Bild, they sign on to a reality competition show and get corporate sponsorship.

When last we left our intrepid heroes, Wild Tiger (Kotetsu) and Bunny (Barnaby who does not like being called Bunny) had been forced into Hero TV’s first ever partnership by their corporate overlords. They were both pretty pissed. They’re still pissed but Kotetsu is trying real hard. Barnaby is being a dick, though we’re starting to get glimpses of why he’s a lone wolf and has the relatively typical, heroic phobia of Getting Close to Anyone. Seriously, though, people with Farah Fawcett hair shouldn’t hurl insults; someone get an electric razor and find out where that boy sleeps.

What I really love, though, are those slice of life moments. When Kotsetsu finds out it’s Barnaby’s birthday, for example, or when people meet up in the gym and decide weight training is much more fun if you spend the time gossiping about who’s screwing whom. Because guess what? Weight training is more fun if you spend the time gossiping about who’s screwing who. That’s why people have gym buddies.

Move over, Bruce. I have Fire Emblem and Blue Rose now.

Trese: Unreported Murders Volume 2 by Budjette Tan and KaJo Baldisimo (Ablaze)

Have you read vol. 1? Watched the Netflix anime? If yes, well done, go grab Unreported Murders, there is only more excellence to be had. If not, what the hell is wrong with you? I’m revoking your geek card.

Tan and Baldisimo have written some of the best stuff out there and I really hope that Trese’s popularity paves the way for not only more Trese and more from the two of them but for more manga from the Philippines. I mean, I will never get bored of comics from Japan but why stop there when there’s a whole big, giant world of books to explore (see The Breaker above, originally published in South Korea).

As horror and suspense go, though, I’m not sure it gets better than Trese. It’s dark (art wise and tone wise) and gory and squishy. The power some of the supernatural beings hold is terrifying even on a black and white page. And the fact that everyone from conjurer to cop to bystander accepts the presence of aswang and duwende as given, lives as though we’re the other who have invaded a world that belonged to someone else rather than vice versa, well… their confidence is much stronger than my doubt so who’s right and who’s wrong?

And what, exactly, is making that noise in under my bed?

Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Rebellions by Rebecca Hall and Hugo Martínez (Simon and Schuster)

Wake is a tapestry; a tapestry of graphic memoir and graphic history and we should all feel honored as hell that Professor Hall decided to share it with us.

I’m not going to say too much about it because this isn’t my story to tell. It’s Hall’s. The story of her journey and those of the women she excavated libraries and courthouses and her own soul to find. Women history had tried to erase, of whom only a name or a description remained but who deserved so much more and whose lives Hall reclaimed when no one else could.

Please read this book. And thank Professor Hall for all she’s done.

If you’re reading this, woohoo, we saved this time. Huzzah! Next week, biographies! Marilyn Monroe! Anna May Wong! Zola Neale Hurston! Robert Johnston!