Super-assertive Cool Female Black Protagonists in Comics

In his recent review of Mark Haven Britt's Full Color, Tom Spurgeon remarks:

...one can count the number of super-assertive cool female black protagonists in comics history on one healthy foot and another foot ravaged by frostbite...

I took this as a challenge, and came up with:

• Agent 355 (Y the Last Man)
  
• Amanda Shane (Amanda & Gunn)
  
• Amanda Waller (Suicide Squad, Checkmate)
  
• Martha Washington (Give Me Liberty, etc.)
  
• Misty Knight (Daughters of the Dragon, Heroes for Hire)
  
• Monica Rambeau (NextWave)
  

Help me out: Who am I missing?

New Library Comics: Week of July 23, 2007

Here's a list of the comics we added to our library collection last week:


Brown, Jeffrey (Jeffrey David), 1975- Feeble attempts. /Marietta, GA : Top Shelf Productions Inc, 2007.

Crécy, Nicolas de, 1966- Glacial period /New York : NBM, c2006.

Drawing the line. /[Toronto?] : [s.n.], 2004.

J.J. Sedelmaier Productions, Inc. J.J. Sedelmaier Productions, Inc. /[White Plains, N.Y. : J.J. Sedelmaier Productions, Inc., 200-]

Lonergan, Jesse. Flower and fade /New York : NBM ; London : Turnaround [distributor], 2007.

Ottaviani, Jim. Quantum entanglement, spooky action at a distance, teleportation, and you : a.k.a the official G.T. Labs guide to teleportation via quantum entanglement and spooky action at a distance (including a brief but helpful section on why, perhaps, you should not try this at home) /A² [i.e. Ann Arbor], MI : G.T. Labs, c2003.

Raging Rhino Productions. Erotic screams : a catalog of the wicked, twisted & bizarre. /Hollywood, Fla. : Raging Rhino Productions, 1993- vol. 1 no. 1

Talbot, Bryan. Alice in Sunderland /Milwaukie, OR : Dark Horse Books, 2007.

Toffolo, Davide. Il re bianco /Bologna [etc.] : Coconino press, [2005]

Zap comix. San Francisco, CA : Last Gasp. nos. 2-3

Zero zero. /Seattle, WA : Fantagraphics Books, c1995- no. 2

Monkey Covers

Sunday is Monkey Covers day here at YACB. Because there's nothing better than a comic with a monkey on the cover.

Pirates vs. Gorillas? It's hard to tell who to root for on the cover of Tom Strong #32.

(Standard disclaimer about pirate-fighting gorillas not really being monkeys applies.)

Image courtesy of the GCD. Click on the image for a larger version.

Review: Flower & Fade

Flower & Fade
by Jesse Lonergan
NBM/ComicsLit, $13.95

It's a pleasure to sometimes find a graphic novel I'd heard nothing about from a creator I knew nothing about, and have that comic turn out to be quite good. Jesse Lonergan's recent Flower & Fade is just such a graphic novel. It tells the story of a relationship--one between protagonist Kyle and his pretty neighbor Erika--from beginning to end, starting with the initial infatuation and hitting all the beats through to the bittersweet end.

Lonergan tells his story through a series a vignettes, each leading off with a title and a date over a six month period. There are no thought balloons, but Lonergan has a way with both dialog and emotions expressed through body language that gets across how the characters are feeling and relating. The art is an important part of the story; it may appear simple at first glace but really isn't, and Lonergan does a good job at pacing and moving the eye through the story; he also makes a great use of using blacks and contrast to set the tone.

Most importantly, Flower & Fade has a ring of truth about it. Many times I saw episodes from past relationships of my own being reflected in the story I was reading. It may not be a world-changing graphic novel, but Flower & Fade succeeds quite well in what it sets out to do.

Rating: 4 (of 5).

YAFQ: Omnibuses?

Today's Yet Another Friday Question concerns the latest craze in trade collections: omnibuses, those massive collections of previously collected comics.

From Runaways & New X-Men hardcovers to Star Wars & Buffy paperbacks to massive Palomar & Locas hardcovers of L&R material, omnibuses are a great way to get a lot of material you like under one cover. Many people will even buy material they already own just for the convenience of having it in one place.

Our question for you all today is:

What new omnibus edition would you like to see published?

I'd like to see an omnibus collection of Matt Howarth's various Bugtown material. It's all one connected narrative, but it was published in so many disparate places and much (if not most) of it is out of print. I'd gladly slap down a wad of bills for a nice hardcover.

How about you?

Update: Both John Jakala & David Welsh recently addressed this topic!

Shameless Friend Promotion

Pal Sara Ryan has not one, not two, but three new comics coming out, just in time for ComicCon:

Click is a story that fills in the gap between her two well-received YA prose novels. It's drawn by Dylan Meconis (who also drew the recent Wire Mothers from GT Labs).

Einbahnstrasse Waltz is a stand-alone story about a high school orchestra trip to Europe, drawn by Cat Ellis (an animator making her sequential comics debut).

And there's the third issue of her irregular ongoing Flytrap, with art once again by Ron Chan.

Sure I'm biased, but I'm sure they are all three fabulous. If like me you can't make it to ComicCon, there should be online ordering info available soon.

New This Week: July 25, 2007

"In brief" is now the default format for New This Week. Highlights instead of a more exhaustive list. Hope it's good for you!


Run, don't walk, down to the comic store today and get yourself a copy of the first volume of the reissued Gon, Masashi Tanaka's wonderful manga from DC/CMX. Seriously, this is up there with Yotsuba&! as one of my favorite fun mangas of all time. Heck, I'm buying it again and I already have the first editions!

Avatar have the first issues of two new Warren Ellis comics: Black Summer (which actually started with a 'zero' issue) and Doktor Sleepless. Just ignore the multiple covers.

A new issue of Buffy, a stand-alone issue about the pseudo-Buffy from that Angel episode, and the last penned by Joss himself for a while.

Wait wait, two issues of All-Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder in the same year?!

And on the same day as a new issue of Queen and Country?!

After too long of an absence from sequential story telling, Mark Crilley returns with the first volume of his new Miki Falls GN series.


So get thyself to thy local comical shoppe!