From Abrams ComicArts and Top Shelf Productions, two new graphic novels are just the thing to help young people and senior citizens try to bridge the generation gap. Both stories feature youth encountering, interacting, and understanding folks of their grandparents’ age–and vice versa. From Abrams, Lifetime Passes follows an orphan named Jackie, who helps her aunt working in a senior housing center. When a nearby Disney-like theme park offers a strange way to get tickets, she and her friends stumble into getting to know people at the senior center better. From Top Shelf comesBetter Place, following a boy named Dylan who just moved to a new house, with no friends, and a mother who doesn’t have time for him. But his grandfather becomes his best friend, partnering with him to create a superhero duo–until his grandfather passes away. In the spirit of Over the Moon, Soul,The Mitchells vs the Machines, and Ghost Tree, these new books Lifetime Passes and Better Place may have everyone begin to understand what it’s like to be in someone else’s shoes.
We got our first peek at Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Ringshere at borg this past April. The new, full-length trailer reveals a plot that has the feel of Wu Assassins, and only a few days since the Snake Eyes trailers, with Raya and the Last Dragon in theaters and on video, and a new Kung Fu series airing on TV, audiences are getting new opportunities to watch AAPI actors shine. While you’re in the vibe, don’t miss the live-action Mulan, the historical horror zombie seriesKingdom, the action movie The Night Comes for Us, the fantasy wuxia seriesLegend of the Condor Heroes, the animated movie Over the Moon, the supernatural graphic novelGhost Treeand Stan Sakai’sUsagi Yojimbo, the overview of martial arts in the movies in Iron Fists and King Fu Kicks, and the Bruce Lee documentary Be Water. Long-time comics readers will know Shang-Chi as the Master of Kung Fu from the pages of 1970s Marvel Comics by Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin. Originally the son of Fu Manchu, the character was an attempt by Marvel to create a monthly like the Kung Fu TV series after they failed in their bid to get the adaptation rights.
Check out the new trailer below for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings:
We’re continuing our ten-year celebration of borg today with our favorite comic books. If you missed them, check out our Top 40 movieshere and our Top 40 TV series here.
We reviewed thousands of books and comics that we recommended to our readers since June 2011, and some even made it onto our favorites shelf. We don’t publish reviews of comic books that we read and don’t recommend, so this shortlist reflects 21 comics and creators we view as the Best of the Best.
Our borgBest of 2019 list continues today with the Best in Comics. If you missed them, check out our review of the Best Movies of 2019 here, the Kick-Ass Heroines of 2019here, and the Best in Television 2019here.
We reviewed comics from every major publisher this year, and were pleasantly surprised with all the new characters and content available. You’ll find both some new creators on the list this year and some fan favorites who keep making better comic books each new year.
Here are the best comic books for 2019:
Best Limited Comic Series (tie) –Sara by Garth Ennis and Steve Epting (TKO Studios) and Goodnight Paradise by Joshua Dysart and Alberto Ponticelli (TKO Studios). The new publisher TKO Studios began with a bang with these two incredible stories. Sara is what every fan of war comics hopes for, and Goodnight Paradise brings the realities of life in the 21st century to the comics page in a story that will stay with readers a long time.
Best Ongoing Comic Book Series – Ghost Tree by Bobby Curnow and Simon Gane (IDW Publishing). Haunting, mythic, and sweeping, this story of a man reflecting on his past and coming to terms with the present combines with Asian legend tropes to form an emotional and curiously funny tale. Sure to leave readers begging for more.
Best Sci-Fi Comic Series, Best Comic Book Writing – Ascender by writer Jeff Lemire and artist Dustin Nguyen (Image Comics). Lemire owned this category with two fabulous science fiction tales, both with strong female lead characters. Runner-up: Sentientby Jeff Lemire and Gabriel Walta (TKO Studios).
Few comic book stories this year presented both a unique idea and a perfect pairing of writer and artist. Previewed here earlier this year, IDW’s limited mini-series Ghost Tree is coming to comic book and book stores this week for the first time in a single, collected, graphic novel edition. Prepare yourself for a refreshingly slow-paced supernatural journey into the past for a young Japanese expatriate. His name is Brandt, and he is returning to the home of his youth because of a promise made to his grandfather a decade ago. He is drawn from the U.S. to his grandmother’s home in Japan, and a fated meeting in the woods nearby.
Evoking folk tales like Momotarō and Bao, writer Bobby Curnow (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and artist Simon Gane(Godzilla) painted a touching, engaging, and haunting snippet from Japanese culture, bridging two generations, with a tale steeped in the otherworldly realm of so many Asian legends. Like Kim Eun-hee’s Kingdom, it bridges genres. This is not horror, despite some mildly shocking imagery, but a story of possibility, connections, and learning from the past. It’s a journey of self-discovery for grown-up Brandt, but what more can he learn from his grandfather now that his grandfather is gone? Who is waiting for him in the woods and what does his grandmother know of it? Learning from mistakes and regret, a haunted tree, and an assembly of souls that are drawn to it, plus monsters, an old girlfriend, and disembodied samurai? It sounds strange, but it works.
The great color work is provided by colorist Ian Herring. If shades of green are your thing, this series is for you. Herring’s choices make for a great combination with Gane, whose artwork frequently pulls readers into a myriad of fascinating cultural settings. Herring’s limited palette of colors is the perfect soothing addition to Bobby Curnow’s story–all three combining to make a perfect book. Gane’s beautiful style is his own, but it evokes works we’ve seen from great comic artists like Moebius, Milo Manara, and 1980s Frank Miller.
Here is a preview of the new trade edition of Ghost Tree, courtesy of IDW Publishing:
It’s a comic book nearly two years in the making. Or maybe 27 years. And it may be the best single comic book issue of the year. But as strange as the tale between the covers, the story of its creators is stranger still. What you probably know is this: In 1984 Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird published a single issue comic called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Intended as a spoof-parody-mash-up concoction of Marvel’s Daredevil and The New Mutants, Frank Miller’s Ronin, and Dave Sim’s Cerebus, the book sparked something much bigger for readers, becoming one of the most popular franchises for a few generations of readers and cartoon watchers (not to mention the impact it had via toys and movie tie-ins). A couple unrelated–short-lived–parody spin-offs of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtlescame and went unrelated to Eastman and Laird, including Pre-Teen Dirty-Gene Kung-Fu Kangaroos and Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters.
What you don’t know is that eight years after the Turtles saw their first comic–in 1992–comic creators Shane Bookman and his brother Paul released their scrappy indie creation on the unsuspecting comic book universe: Radically Rearranged Ronin Ragdolls. Like Eastman and Laird, the Bookmans had their own share of ups and downs, tales of fame and fortune (evidently Eastman sold off his rights to the Turtles some 20 years ago, etc.). So in 2017 Eastman and writer David Avallone and artist Ben Bishop (with Troy Little, Brittany Peer, Tomi Varga, and Taylor Esposito) took the Bookmans’ story to Kickstarter, and nearly 1,200 backers brought in more than $100,000. Now it’s all done, first to tell the Bookmans’ story in a new monthly comic beginning this past week called Drawing Blood, and at the same time with a companion comic they created and discussed in their comic industry exploits, Radically Rearranged Ronin Ragdolls,Issue #1.
The result? Radically Rearranged Ronin Ragdolls is an idea as good as any Turtles tale you’ve read, and as finely crafted an origin story, full of action, top-notch writing, beautiful layouts, and exciting new characters: referred to as the Ragdolls (from the cat breed), they are three female cats who encounter gamma rays, cosmic rays, genetic mutagens, and who knows what other comic book superpower trigger was tapped, to become Tezuka, Otomo, and Miyazaki. Speaking, Ronin-trained, defender cats. Otomo is the most fearsome, Miyazaki speaks in Haiku poems, and Tezuka is a master tactician.
As you drift along through IDW’s new mini-series, Ghost Tree, don’t be surprised if the story evokes Japanese folk tales, like Momotarō or last year’s Oscar-winning animated short film Bao. Unlike so many comic book stories today, Ghost Tree is not an action-driven spectacle, but a refreshingly slow supernatural journey into the past for a young Japanese expatriate. His name is Brandt, and he is returning to the home of his youth because of a promise made to his grandfather a decade ago. And that takes him to a meeting in the woods near his grandmother’s home.
Writer Bobby Curnow (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and artist Simon Gane(Godzilla) paint a delightful, engaging, and haunting snippet from Japanese culture, bridging two generations, with a tale steeped in the otherworldly realm of so many Asian legends. Take Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo and merge it with something spooky that awaits in the forest–like something just this side of the dark of Kim Eun-hee’s Kingdom–and you’ll find the setting for Ghost Tree.
It’s a journey of self-discovery for grown-up Brandt, but what more can he learn from his grandfather now that he’s gone? Can he help the lost souls in the woods and take home lessons from his grandmother to solve his own problems? Learning from mistakes and regret, a haunted tree, and an assembly of souls that are drawn to it, plus monsters, and disembodied samurai? It’s no wonder the first printing of Issue #1 has already sold out in pre-orders. What prompted the advance sell-out? The description or that creepy character standing atop the cliff? Whatever the reason, the first chapter matches the hype. It’s coming to your local comic shop this week, and if you happen to miss it, don’t worry because the second printing is close behind.
Take a look at this preview of Issue #1 of Ghost Tree, courtesy of IDW Publishing:
