Wildful is a beautiful graphic novel about getting yourself lost in the woods. Or, I'd say, about deep ecology, immersion in the environment, and biophily. It at once takes a posthumanist view (avoiding anthropocentrism and decentering human ego) and yet argues a deeply humanist viewpoint, that losing ourselves in the Wild is a way of recovering our best selves. Specifically, it's a book about biophilia as a salve for grief. It is a sparsely dialogued, in fact mostly wordless book in landscape format (for wide vistas), toned in warm sepia, and drawn naturalistically rather than cartoonishly.

​I hadn't known about the author, Kengo Kurimoto, til I picked up this book on a whim at my local library. Kurimoto is a game designer (LittleBigPlanet; Dreams) and animator, and Wildful is his first graphic novel. Its organic look differs from the obviously digital artwork that tends to dominate his website (though if you dig deeply enough, you'll find analog as well as digital treasures there, in plenty). Kurimoto highly values unmediated sensorial experience and close, patient observation, and he prioritizes drawing from life rather than using cartoon schemata. In Wildful, the results are rather stunning. This is a book about patiently, patiently, observing the natural world and finding yourself changed in the process. 

The plot, in outline, is simplicity itself: A young girl named Poppy and her dog Pepper accidentally discover the wild woods behind their house, where they meet a new friend, Rob, whose loving, unhurried appreciation of the environment rubs off on them. Over the course of several days hanging out with Rob, Poppy begins to notice and question more, and to luxuriate in her surroundings. She comes to experience the natural world more deeply. Poppy longs to bring her Mum out to the woods with her, but Mum, who is still grieving the loss of her own mother, is depressed, withdrawn, and housebound. The book's resolution brings Mum out of the house and involves an overnight kip in the woods. 

The story is that basic. There are four characters: three humans, one dog. We don't learn much about the circumstantial details of their lives. We come to know very little of Poppy's family or backstory, and next to nothing about Rob's other than the fact that he finds solace in the woods. What matters is the process of their shared discoveries and the adventure in perception and empathy that they undergo. On the level of paraphrasable content, or abstracted themes, Wildful is, again, simple, or it's the kind of thing we are tempted to call simple — but as an experience, it's stunning.

You owe it to yourself to experience this.

Vera Brosgol is one of my favorite artist-authors in the children's graphic novel field. She's back with a new book, her first graphic novel since 2018, and it's a doozy.

Plain Jane and the Mermaid is a feminist fairy tale about outward appearances versus inward self-worth. It's also an inventive, and occasionally spooky, phantasmagoria that takes place almost entirely underwater. Jane, a "plain" young woman of apparently few prospects, dives into the deepwater world of selkies, sea monsters, and mermaids in order to rescue (?) Peter, a mermaid-stolen man with whom she thinks she has fallen in love. She hardly knows the guy, but he is beautiful, and she has asked him to marry her. Marriage is Jane's one hope, because, as the last survivor of a household without a male heir, she is about to be turned out of her home by a distant and uncaring cousin:

A mysterious crone magically grants Jane the ability to survive underwater, and so Jane takes off in pursuit of her hoped-for husband. In the meantime, Peter is wooed and pampered by a trio of mermaids, little suspecting what they may have in store for him. Things turn dark(er) when Peter learns what it is that mermaids actually do with humans, but meanwhile Jane develops a comical yet genuine friendship with a seal who turns out to be a selkie, and her plainness (if that's what it is) no longer matters. There are twists and surprises en route, and the story ends delightfully, with a sense that various dangling loose ends have been tied up, or tied together, in unexpected but apt ways. It's the kind of well-engineered book where nothing goes to waste, and small details glimpsed along the way turn out to be openings (or deepenings).

Brosgol's story-world is cruel. Parents and peers judge and shame; rivals tease and bully. Plainness of face and stoutness of body are condemned. Appearances count, and mirrors are threats. Beautiful people get unearned perks and learn to rely on them, while ordinary, unlovely people are expected to scrape and crawl. Social outliers are sacrificed for the comfort of the socially advantaged. Women get the short end of most everything, and predation and hunger rule. Some readers may be taken aback by the harshness of this world, but to me it seems honest enough. Some may be alarmed by certain terrible comeuppances that are meted out. The story is tough. Moreover, some undersea scenes are scary, as when, on a sunken ship, corpses come groaning to life and close in on Jane, or when a giant anglerfish almost snaps her up in its jaws, or when a mermaid bares her teeth. Brosgol isn't scary in quite the same way as, say, Emily Carroll (whose take on mermaids is positively terrifying); she pushes only a little at what middle-grade books usually allow. But she does push. Me, I love these moments of risk-taking. Her graphic novels always play for keeps, and that wins me over.

So, Plain Jane is a recognizable Vera Brosgol book. Yet Brosgol deserves credit for making each book look and feel a little different. Plain Jane doesn't look that much like Anya's Ghost or Be Prepared (they don't look that much like each other, either). This one feels a bit rawer in the rendering, I'm guessing deliberately, but at the same time uses a full color palette, courtesy of color artist Alec Longstreth — a great cartoonist in his own right, and a great graphic novel colorist. He does a lot of heavy lifting here. (It's a shame Longstreth's name isn't on the title page where it should be. Though the back matter reveals some of the coloring process, and Brosgol praises "Alec" effusively, you have to read the fine print to find his full name.) 

Despite surface changes in style, Plain Jane boasts Brosgol's usual distinctive character designs, expert timing, and gift for small shocks. This is clear, classic cartooning. The book is not the revelation that Anya's Ghost was, but it's thrilling. Its roughly 350 pages pass too quickly, a fierce, lovely dream. The final affirmation of Jane's self-worth is not surprising — in that sense, the book ends where most of us would want it to end — but the trip is full of little gemlike touches.

Vera Brosgol really is a gift, you know?

Wow.

At last, my wife and I have been able to see the exhibition Wild Things Are Happening: The Art of Maurice Sendak at the Skirball Cultural Center here in Los Angeles. The show opened on May 23 and will be on view through September 1. 

Again, wow. Anyone interested in children's literature, picture books, the book arts, illustration, cartooning, comics, or artistic collaborations across media should hightail it to this exhibition, which  is an artistic treasure house as well as moving testimony to Sendak's life and loves. It is stunning.

I've seen originals by Sendak on exhibit before, including book dummies and finished illustrations, but never have I seen so much prepublished work, autographic work, and personal art by him before. The exhibition gives a powerful sense of Sendak at work, of his creative processes (for example, his everyday "fantasy sketches," such as in the detail below) and of the handmade nature of his art. 

This same intimacy comes through in the exhibit's evocation of Sendak's childhood, family, and relationships. If Sendak's work often has a tender, almost wounded autobiographical quality, the roots of that can be seen in the many family portraits and self-portraits gathered in the show (the first image in this post consists of details from three Sendaks drawn by Sendak!). Family, culture, and childhood environments loom large in the exhibition, which imparts a close and confidential feeling. I've known for a long time that many of Sendak's works were crypto-autobiographical (scholarly readings of, say, In the Night Kitchen almost always take that line), yet this show somehow makes that fact feel real and urgent. 

The show itself partakes of this veiled biographical quality, as the first installation or environment appears to be a family sitting room with a fireplace, sofa, chairs, drawing table, and bookcase, and then again a small curtain in one corner, which I imagine would be good for putting on puppet shows. From here, the exhibit draws you toward self-portraits, childhood memorabilia, and family lore, juxtaposed with published works that draw on that history. I fell for this right away, which is to say I fell under the exhibition's spell.

While highlighting the personal nature of Sendak's work, the show reveals some of his influences (Fuseli, Caldecott, Disney, McCay) and honors many of his collaborators, such as Randall Jarrell, Arthur Yorinks, Ursula Nordstrom, Ruth Krauss, Carole King, Frank Corsaro, Art Spiegelman, and Tony Kushner. Sendak's various overlapping art worlds, from the page to the stage, are well represented. The more than 150 artifacts on view suggest a life that combined art, intense, meditative privacy, and yet sociability and deep, enduring friendships.

This is simply a great show. If you can get to see it, do! And know that there is a substantial companion book as well, edited by Jonathan Weinberg.

Paul Bunyan: The Invention of an American Legend is another TOON Graphic that juxtaposes a compelling comic with carefully curated (front and back) editorial matter. In this case, the introduction and back matter are not just instructive supplements but pointed rejoinders to the comic, and essential to the book's overall effect. Noah Van Sciver's comic takes up 36 of the book's 52 pages, but the remaining pages are emphatically not filler. What we have here is a package that both burnishes and yet undermines the "legend" of the faux-folkloric lumberjack, Paul Bunyan, with Van Sciver casting a skeptical eye on how the legend was promulgated while the other features remind us of what the legend hides. It's a great and startling project. I wish it had been among the Kids nominees for this year's Eisners, and was glad to see it among the finalists for this year's Excellence in Graphic Literature Awards (which is what reminded me to write about it here).

Noah Van Sciver has become one of my favorite cartoonists. He is a terrific humorist and memoirist (his hilarious autobio comic, Maple Terrace, was one of my favorites from last year). What's more, he is one of the US's best and most prolific creators of historical and biographical comics (his brave book Joseph Smith and the Mormons is just the iceberg's tip). Paul Bunyan feels like it's right in his wheelhouse. The story, a fiction inspired by fact, takes place in Minnesota in 1914 on a westbound train, as lumber industry ad man William Laughead regales his fellow passengers with yarns about Paul Bunyan, "the best jack there ever was" and the epitome of the industry's clear-cutting zeal. Laughead's crazy, mythmaking anecdotes have the zestful absurdity of tall tales, and Van Sciver knows how appealing such tales can be. A shameless fabulist, Laughead imagines Bunyan as an unstoppable giant-sized version of himself. He meets challenges posed by skeptical listeners with a game face and ever-escalating bunkum. Van Sciver portrays him as folksy, funny, a bit desperate, and basically a shill. More critical perspectives are provided by other characters, especially a disillusioned lumber industry vet. The art is lively and joyous, but also insinuating, and the textures (drawn in ink but then colored digitally) are trademark Van Sciver. This is beautifully organic and readable cartooning. 

You could say that this is Van Sciver's project (the indicia assigns the copyright to him and TOON), but the elements provided by other creators are vital. Those elements, from Native writers and artists, decry the "seizure of homeland" and environmental devastation spurred by America's rapacious lumber industry, and champion forms of history and knowledge obscured by the aggressive expansionism of the Bunyan myth. Lee Francis IV (Pueblo of Laguna), well-known as an advocate for Native comics, provides a wisely ambivalent introduction. Deondre Smiles (Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe), critical geographer and academic, supplies an informative and well-illustrated essayistic postscript about the links among colonization, land theft, and deforestation. Marlena Myles (Spirit Lake Dakota), a multidisciplinary artist, provides essays, a bilingual, Dakota and English map, and strikingly stylized illustrations and endpapers. There is a meeting of talents and perspectives here that suggests careful project management (by editor Tucker Stone and editorial director and book designer Françoise Mouly). The whole definitely exceeds the sum of its parts. 

Paul Bunyan is the kind of project I've come to expect from TOON: distinctly individual, yet collaborative; personal, yet proactively curated by an expert editorial team. More than further proof of Van Sciver's historical imagination and cartooning chops, it's a multifaceted group effort, the kind that is needed when you're demythologizing and debunking an entrenched bit of Americana. It's a short read, but excellent, and I find myself paging through again and again with admiration.

Over the past two weeks, the Denver-based nonprofit Pop Culture Classroom has announced the winners of this year's Excellence in Graphic Literature (EGL) Awards. This marks the 7th annual round for the EGL prizes (founded in 2017). 

First, on June 4, the group announced the winners in eight categories, that is, both fiction and non-fiction winners for Children’s (Pre-K to 4th grade), Middle Grade (5th to 8th grade), Young Adult (9th to 12th grade), and Adult (eighteen years and older) books. At the same time, they announced the finalists for their two big prizes that are not age-leveled, the Book of the Year and the Mosaic Award (which focuses on diversity and inclusivity). 

Here is the full list of 2024 EGL winners:

The EGL process does not include public voting, except for a promised "Reader's Choice Award" to be decided by "a public online vote" (I could not find more information about that). In general, the EGLs are decided by professional juries, with the fiction and nonfiction works in each age category judged by a separate jury. Once the category juries have decided upon their finalists and winners, the Book of the Year and Mosaic Award finalists are announced. Those two awards are then judged by the assembled jury chairs in tandem with an EGL Advisory Board (whose current makeup I have not been able to ascertain). Typically, the winners in the several categories also loom large among Book of the Year and Mosaic Award finalists.

The EGLs tout their "clearly defined and transparent process," which apparently relies upon rubrics. I gather that all the age categories are ranked according to common criteria and a consistent four-point scale, while the two big awards are judged somewhat differently. The process gives the appearance of orderliness and predictability, though not all categories have been awarded in past years; perhaps the process is still evolving. The yearly juries seem to have a fair degree of turnover. (For more on the judging criteria and process, see here.)

Ever since the EGLs were announced, I've been on the fence about them. The awards aim to help teachers and librarians identify those comics that "best advance literacy, learning, and social connection—particularly in educational settings," which to my mind sits awkwardly alongside the nominal emphasis on literature, a term that has usually implied a degree of artistic autonomy if not an ars gratia artis stance. The juries seem to consist solely of librarians and educators (past advisors have included publishing pros, comics retailers, and a very few creators). It's a bit puzzling, though potentially a plus too, that the EGL finalists tend to be so different from those of other comics awards, such as the Eisners. There's nothing wrong with that, or with awards that pay attention to educational value (consider for example the NCTE's Orbis Picture Award for children's nonfiction, or the ALA's Geisel Award for beginning readers). But the "graphic literature" tag seems odd when paired up with what appears to be a language-arts approach whose horizons are primarily academic. 

Ah well. This tension (or what I perceive as a tension) is not new. Maybe it's at the root of what we call children's literature.

It may be that I'm simply too biased toward the notion of artistic autonomy to get comfortable with the EGL criteria. That's on me. In the meantime, reviewing this year's list of EGL finalists has gotten me to check out some new books — which is the whole point, right?

(To get the full benefit of the EGLs, check out the whole list of this year's finalists!)

Punk Rock Karaoke, a YA graphic novel, is a high-spirited valentine to punk and Black queer music-making. It's also a love letter to Chicago (the author's home base) and community. The plot follows three recent high school grads, Ariel, Michele, and Gael, and their hopes for their struggling punk band, Baby Hares. Mostly it's about Ari and her crisis of faith, as she falls out with Michele, her best friend, and seeks comfort and encouragement in the arms of another musician, a local punk legend. At first this guy seems to care for her, but in the home stretch we learn otherwise. The story turns into a parable about cultural appropriation and exploitation, as well as a tribute to the sustaining power of friendships.

Graphically, the book is a gas. Bianca Xunise values expressiveness at least as much as conventional narrative clarity, and draws vivaciously, explosively even. This is distinctive work. Drawing for the extended graphic novel format seems to free Xunise up and take them beyond their well-known work in Six Chix and various online outlets (I first saw their work at The Nib). Xunise tucks in many visual asides, or telling details, about Chicagoland, and man, can they convey the energy of friends making music together:

So, there are many visual delights in the book.

Story-wise, alas, I'm not convinced. Punk Rock Karaoke rigs its plot to make a Point, and to me that point was obvious and predictable about a quarter of the way in. Spoiler alerts are needless, as you can see the twists coming. Though the energy of gigging and moshing is undeniable (and infectious), the novel's depiction of life in a band feels unreal. Despite a stated focus on community, Punk Rock Karaoke becomes a standard rock 'n' roll story about "making it," and it feels like wish-fulfillment rather than a hard-hitting YA novel. Its politics are vague. Beyond a neighborhood fair (where the Baby Hares play a crucial gig), the plot stays narrowly focused, favoring Ari's perspective. Inevitably, her fling with an exploitative outsider brings disappointment and bitter wisdom.

In this case, wising up means sticking with your buds and resisting cooption —​ but this message feels defensive and narrow, and the book contradicts itself. Xunise champions, rather than examines, the usual punk attitudes about being authentic and not a "poseur," and yet the conclusion demands that the Baby Hares get noticed by an industry mogul who thinks they have potential (a trope familiar from countless backstage musicals). The story finally falls into a heavy-handed allegory about appropriation in which the characters serve as mouthpieces. I found all this simplistic, and longed for less rigging, more questioning. Punk Rock Karaoke ​has lively cartooning on its side, but to me its lessons feel predetermined rather than earned.

On Friday I reviewed this year’s Eisner Award nominees for Kids (roughly, middle-grade readers). Today I turn to the nominees for Teens, that is, Young Adult books (see my post of May 17 for an overview of all young readers’ categories). Once more, I’ve tried to describe every book fairly, while signaling my favorites. The Teens category is amazing this year!

Of course, this is all about getting ready to cast my votes before the June 6 deadline! (For info on voting, see here).

​​Blackward, by Lawrence Lindell (Drawn & Quarterly).
Four friends run a club for queer, nonbinary, and otherwise “alternative” Black folx. With the help of a bookstore owner, they organize a Black zine fest to build community, while fending off online hate from reactionary, homophobic voices. Blackward is a hilarious, high-spirited mash note to zinesters, organizers, and the kind of friendship that creates new cultural spaces. It’s also a knowing satire of Black community frictions. Lindell’s cartooning is quirky and wild, and sometimes strains to its limits. Yet he uses repetition and braiding to great effect, and the characters are great. I bet this book will change lives. 

​Danger and Other Unknown Risks, by Ryan North and Erica Henderson (Penguin Workshop).
Like Mexikid, this made my TCJ Best-of list. Since then, I’ve read many books I wish I had read earlier, so if I were writing that list now, it would look different. This book, though, would still be on it. A brilliantly engineered fantasy about a transformed, postapocalyptic world, Danger offers an adventure in thinking. It rewires a conservative premise (saving the old world) into something wiser (welcoming in the new); ultimately, it’s about embracing change rather than clinging to an idealized past. Ingenious, dizzying, moving, and gobsmackingly drawn by Henderson, this one has captured my heart, and my vote. 

​Frontera, by Julio Anta and Jacoby Salcedo (HarperAlley)
In this blend of realism and magic, a young man, Mateo, slips across the Mexico-US border and crosses the Sonoran Desert, aided by the ghost of another man who died during that crossing almost seventy years earlier. The Border Patrol, vigilantes, and dehydration stand between Mateo and his goal, and he nearly dies, though he gets, and gives, help along the way. Frontera’s magical-realist plot works to refute nativism, as Mateo’s quest conveys complex truths about the geography and politics of the border. The climax, however, is generically heroic and feels forced. Graphically sharp, with stylized naturalism and expressive colors. 

​Lights, by Brenna Thummler (Oni Press)
The third and final volume in the Sheets series (unknown to me until now). A benign ghost is haunted by his inability to remember his own past, and why he died; his two living friends, eighth-grade ghost-hunters, help him recover those memories, while renegotiating their own complicated friendship. Delicately drawn and colored, Lights is also brilliantly written, filled with subtly observed moments of social negotiation and moral decision-making. Thummler is wise to the ways we typecast other people, limiting who they can be, yet the ending poignantly turns stereotype on its head. Stunningly good (and another one I’d vote for).

​Monstrous: A Transracial Adoption Story, by Sarah Myer (First Second)
In this memoir of intercountry adoption, Sarah, a Korean child of a white family living in rural Maryland, struggles against racism, social ostracism, and bullying – and her fear of her own explosive anger. Frankly, given the unrelenting cruelty shown here, I often felt that her violent outbursts, or moments of fierce self-defense, were justified. Graphically, Monstrous is bold, imaginative, and sometimes frightful; drawing, for Myer, is clearly a high-stakes act of self-invention. Yet the story is anchored by retrospective text that seeks to narrate her experience calmly, from a stance of mature judgment, which softens its impact. Still, powerful work. 

My Girlfriend’s Child, Vol. 1, by Mamoru Aoi, translation by Hana Allen (Seven Seas)
In the first volume of this ongoing manga, a high schooler’s unplanned pregnancy upends her life, tipping her into indecision and emotional turmoil that she cannot share with anyone else, even her sympathetic boyfriend. Aoi’s visuals are sensitive and devastatingly acute. Pensive, almost dreamlike, and marked by long wordless passages, the storytelling balances a sweet, idealized style against unyielding facts. Conversations are muted yet quietly agitated; visual metaphors are understated but fraught. The evocation of anxiety, tenderness, and naivete is overwhelming, and the sense of isolation often harrowing. No preaching here, just minutely observed and heartbreaking drama. I’ll be back.

Some final thoughts: I like to treat comics of all varieties, and from all spaces, as cousins, and the comics world as a continuity. I maintain an interest in comics of just about every kind, and I try to follow comics publishing in several sectors. Yet I must admit, it is now impossible for me to “keep up” with comics in the US in any comprehensive way. The Eisner Awards of today, despite their roots in comic book fandom, represent an attempt to spotlight many different kinds of comics, and I appreciate that. Every year I see signs of progress toward greater inclusivity, as well as signs of strain.

As a former judge, I can attest that focusing on and weighing so many different kinds of comics is a huge challenge. The Eisners are not guild awards; the US comics field is not a united (much less unionized) industry, and, as my colleague Benjamin Woo has pointed out, there really isn’t any such thing as a single “comics industry.” Nor is there a single comics community – the Eisners represent, and speak to, several different communities. The job of the judges, each year, is to craft a ballot that acknowledges that complexity and seeks out excellence of many different kinds.

Honestly, I never read so many comics, in such a brief span, as I did when I served as a judge back in 2013. It was joyous work, but hard.

But I know that thinking about the Eisner nominees always gives me a better sense of what’s happening in the field (fields?). And I know that I greatly enjoy this custom of picking out at least a few categories and trying to get up to speed. My favorites in the Teens category are Lights and Danger and Other Unknown Risks, but I’ve enjoyed the whole process.

Congratulations, nominees, and thank you, judges!

Yesterday I reviewed this year’s Eisner Award nominees for Early Readers. Today I turn to the nominees for Kids, which I assume means roughly middle-grade readers, around 8 to 12 years old (see my post of May 17 for an overview of all young readers’ categories). Once again, I’ve tried to describe every book fairly, while acknowledging my favorites. I’ll be back soon with a third and final post about the nominees for Teens. 

This is all about getting ready to cast my votes before the June 6 deadline! (For information about voting, see here).

Buzzing, by Samuel Sattin and Rye Hickman (Little, Brown Ink)
A book for our time: a neurodivergent Bildungsroman, plus a paean to creative and queer community, in the form of a Dungeons & Dragons-like RPG that gives the protagonist, a young man with OCD, a group of nonjudgmental friends with whom he can be free. He just has to persuade his anxious mother that playing the RPG will be good, not bad, for him. OCD is a familiar topic in disability-themed comics, but Buzzing does something new. Intrusive thoughts are cleverly represented through visual metaphor (a swarm of bees, buzzing), while the cartooning is lively and the cast delightful. Vivid!

Mabuhay! by Zachary Sterling (Scholastic Graphix)
A Filipino American brother and sister struggle to balance assimilation pressures at school with filial obligations at home. Forced to work on their family’s food truck, they are alienated and resentful – until their family must unite to, I guess, save the world? This acculturation fantasy starts with everyday complaints and embarrassments, then lurches into magic and monsters inspired by Filipino folklore. Sterling’s elastic, manga-flavored cartooning shows his expertise in animation design: characters are distinct, and emote hugely, with broad expressions. The action is frenetic; the plot feels juryrigged. The lessons in filial piety are rather on the nose, I think. 

Mexikid: A Graphic Memoir, by Pedro Martín (Dial Books for Young Readers).
This memoir made my Best-of-2023 list for The Comics Journal. Young Pedro, his many siblings, and mom and dad make an epic road trip to the family’s ancestral hometown in Mexico, there to reunite with his grandfather. Americanized Pedro is often startled by what he learns on the way. Exuberant and graphically tricky, with many inventive, diagram-like pages, Mexikid is a loving tribute to family in all its quirkiness and complexity. In the home stretch, Martín shifts, convincingly, from hilarity to grief, tenderness, and new depths. I’m teaching this in the fall, and it’s my strong favorite in this category.

Missing You, by Phellip Willian and Melissa Garabeli. translation by Fabio Ramos (Oni Press)
Neotenic cuteness (think Bambi) vies with hard-won lessons about grief and letting go in this gorgeous, disquieting book. A family nurses a wounded fawn back to health, even as they cope with the loss of one of their own. Caring for the deer seems to heal their own hurts, yet they know the deer must someday go back to the woods. Prepare yourself for the inevitable parting (and note, along the way, the deer’s own sad backstory, its own remembered parting). Garabeli’s sumptuous watercolors and elegant pages boost the already considerable power of this of course manipulative, yet beguiling, heartwringer. 

Saving Sunshine, by Saadia Faruqi and Shazleen Khan (First Second)
Feuding twins, sister and brother, make peace during a family trip to Key West. There they learn to care for each other, even as they nurse an enormous loggerhead turtle that lies ailing on the beach. As Muslims from a Pakistani American family, they share a history of struggling against racism and Islamophobia, which informs both their quarreling and their reconciliation. Rendered in digital watercolor, with some lovely, open pages, this book at first leans into adult-centered didacticism (these kids need to learn a lesson), but happily brings nuance and sympathy as it goes. So: predictable arc, but surprising details. 

Some final thoughts: I'm surprised that Dan Santat's A First Time for Everything was not nominated in this category. It is contending in the category of Best Graphic Memoir, though. (Interestingly, most of the nominated memoirs this year could be considered either middle-grade or YA books.)

I obtained all of the above books from the Los Angeles Public Library, save one, Missing You. My sense is that graphic novels published by the children's imprints of the "Big 5 (Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster) are easy to find in LAPL. Unsurprisingly, so are books from Scholastic, the market leader in children's GN publishing. With other presses, or children's imprints that are not so well known, I had trouble; for example, I could not find a couple of nominated books from Oni Press.  

We know that the middle-grade graphic novel is (besides manga) the busiest and most profitable sector in US comics publishing. It is also a sector that produces a lot of formulaic work. Reigning themes in middle-grade comics perhaps reflect reigning themes in children's book publishing, period: social negotiation among friends, acculturation, loyalty to family and culture, displacement, loss. Often an adult-centered didacticism clings to books with these themes: I note that the young protagonists of Mabuhay! and Saving Sunshine complain about their parents' decisions, but there is never any suggestion that the parents might need to question their choices (what parents do is not up for debate). When reading middle-grade comics, I often have a feeling that I know just what is happening, and what prosocial messages are meant to be reinforced. I get impatient with that feeling.

That said, I've enjoyed reading almost all of this year's middle-grade nominees. To me, the most interesting ones by far are Buzzing and Mexikid, as they are the most formally inventive. It happens that they are also the ones that most clearly resist the thumping didacticism I'm complaining about. Not coincidentally, they have the most complex adult characters as well (though props to Missing You for showing adults and children grieving together). 

This year's Eisner Award nominations were announced on May 16, and my last post here was a rundown of the nominees in certain categories, especially those focused on young audiences: Early Readers, Kids, and Teens. Since then, I've been requesting books from the Los Angeles Public Library so that I can read all the nominees in those three categories before the June 6 deadline for voting.

Award competitions are inevitably biased and troublesome, I know, but as I said last year, I appreciate the heuristic value of this yearly exercise. When the Eisner noms are announced, I start gathering books like crazy! The process keeps me in the swim of things (as a former Eisner judge, I like to stay involved). I note that last year LAPL was able to supply me with most of the nominees, and the same has been true this year; young readers' graphic books appear to be well represented in my public library. 

This post, the first of three, focuses on the Early Readers nominations, which I have finished reading as of today. I've tried to describe each nominee fairly, while spotlighting my favorites. Posts on the Kids and Teens categories will follow soon. 

​Bigfoot and Nessie: The Art of Getting Noticed, by Chelsea M. Campbell and Laura Knetzger (Penguin Workshop)
Two cryptids – Bigfoot, who cannot get noticed by the world, and Nessie, who would rather not be – form a mutually affirming friendship. Together, they make art when no one is looking, bonding over spontaneous creative risk-taking. Yet their friendship is tested when Bigfoot achieves the fame he hungers for. This is one of those cartooned books that looks simple on the surface but is restlessly designed and dense. Knetzger’s bright, candy-colored pages are elaborate and multilayered, sometimes perhaps to the point of confusion; a spread of the two friends drawing chalk art is a wonder. A fragile conceit, lovingly rendered.

​Burt the Beetle Lives Here! by Ashley Spires (Kids Can Press)
Burt, a June beetle, thinks it might be best to get out from under his leaf and find a more permanent home. It turns out that what works for carpenter ants, tent caterpillars, wasps, or cathedral termites doesn’t work for him. As Burt bounces from one slapstick moment to another, trying out different things, the bland, omniscient narration keeps informing him (and us) about what he and other critters need. Crisp digital cartooning and subtly varied layouts (most pages have fewer than four panels) serve both the humor and the science lesson. Format-wise, this reminds me of a TOON book.

​Go-Go Guys, by Rowboat Watkins (Chronicle Books)
Thumping iambs and breathless running text lend a lockstep rhythm, but also surprises, to a rollicking picture book about revved-up “guys” who cannot go to sleep (but end up going to the moon). The art is at once wild and decorous: full of energy, yet within safe, neat bounds. Watkins’ drawings (seemingly pencil and watercolor, but perhaps also digital?) have the delicacy of Arnold Lobel, but then again, his screwball humor recalls James Marshall. The book is perhaps not as anarchic as it wants to be, but I dig the sudden lunges and dynamic layouts. A great read-aloud, I bet.

​The Light Inside, by Dan Misdea (Penguin Workshop)
This pint-sized book (5.75 x 5.75 inches, 32 pages) tells a gentle, wordless story about a child with a jack-o’-lantern head who travels through a spooky landscape to recover his stuffed animal, taken by a black cat. Creepy things turn out to be benign, and adversaries turn out to be helpers. The story has an almost beatific calm despite the Gothic trappings. Misdea, a New Yorker cartoonist, prioritizes design and simplicity (his uncle, Patrick McDonnell of Mutts fame, has been an inspiration). The book’s small pages somehow make room for between three and seven panels each, with perfect clarity. Charming.

Milk and Mocha: Our Little Happiness, by Melani Sie (Andrews McMeel)
Collected strips about two bears and their pet dino, from the heavily merchandised social media phenom MilkMochaBear. These characters began as stickers for the LINE app – emoji, basically – and have since spread. The comics strike me as ideal for Instagram: short, spare, and cute, in the kawaii sense, with a whiff of Sanrio. But are they for early readers? They read as humorous valentines for adult couples: bite-sized comic affirmations of love and domesticity. Often, they involve social media (the bears are continually on their phones). The humor depends on routine and slight nuances. I confess, this nomination puzzles me.

Tacos Today: El Toro & Friends, by Raúl the Third, colors by Elaine Bay (Versify)
My emphatic pick in this category, this vibrant, positively Kirbyesque explosion of energy boasts super-cool characters and restive page design. A diverse cast of anthropomorphic critter-kids from “Ricky Ratón’s School of Lucha” gets mucha hambre and goes out for tacos, though they don’t have the dinero to pay. A demonstration of their lucha skills saves the day. Raúl the Third draws up a storm here, with a punky, inky roughness that translates beautifully into digitally finished pages (OMG, Bay’s colors!). Mingled Spanish and English text, and myriad background cues, make this a multicultural bonanza inviting read-aloud interaction and conversation. Fantastic.

Some final thoughts: This category feels more adventurous this year than it did last year. My emphatic faves are The Light Inside and especially Tacos Today, but most of the books are interesting, and several of them are visually daring. I continue to be interested in the way this category makes room for picture books, which is an important, underacknowledged format for children’s comics. That's encouraging.

BTW, I did not know any of these books before the Eisner nominations were announced. I found all of them save one (Milk and Mocha) through LAPL. ​

The nominations for this year's Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards (celebrating work published in 2023) were just announced yesterday. ​Of course I'm already looking up and bookmarking things I want to read, with a big thank you to judges Ryan Claytor, Chris Couch, Andréa Gilroy, Joseph Illidge, Mathias Lewis, and Jillian Rudes!

I always learn from, and of course debate, the Eisner nominations. Unsurprisingly, there are always some choices that leave me bewildered and omissions that make me sad. But I know what this job is like from the inside out (having served as an Eisner judge in 2013). It's not easy. Yes, it's delightful work, but it's heavy, and it's not casual. It takes a lot of negotiation. Props to the judges for making the tough calls and shining spotlights on so many deserving works.

Below are the nominees in the three categories of special interest to KinderComics, that is, those focused on young readers: Early Readers, Kids, and Teens. I've also noted two other categories of special interest to me that I think are particularly strong this year, Best Graphic Memoir and Best Academic/Scholarly Work. Where possible, I've linked the title of each work to a publisher's webpage, FYI. 

In the weeks ahead, and especially prior to the June 6 voting deadline, I hope to read and comment on many of the nominees in Early Readers, Kids, and Teens categories. Thus far, I've read only a few. I have requests out at my local branch of LAPL for as many of these books as I can get! I've found that bingeing on the Eisner noms each year is a great learning experience!

Best Publication for Early Readers
​I'm ashamed to say that I haven't read any of these yet!
​​

• Bigfoot and Nessie: The Art of Getting Noticed, by Chelsea M. Campbell and Laura Knetzger (Penguin Workshop/Penguin Random House)
• Burt the Beetle Lives Here! by Ashley Spires (Kids Can Press)
• Go-Go Guys, by Rowboat Watkins (Chronicle Books)
• The Light Inside, by Dan Misdea (Penguin Workshop/Penguin Random House)
• Milk and Mocha: Our Little Happiness, by Melani Sie (Andrews McMeel)
• Tacos Today: El Toro & Friends, by Raúl the Third (HarperCollins/Versify)

Best Graphic Memoir
This is the category I'm most prepared for this year, having read four out of the six noms so far. I'm interested to see that several of these could also be nominated in young readers' categories.
​

• Family Style: Memories of an American from Vietnam, by Thien Pham (First Second/Macmillan). A wonderful book, again part of my Best of 2023 list. I reviewed it here on June 28, 2023.
• A First Time for Everything, by Dan Santat (First Second/Macmillan)
• In Limbo, by Deb JJ Lee (First Second/Macmillan). Another great one that I reviewed here, back on June 27, 2023. It also made my Best of 2023.
• Memento Mori, by Tiitu Takalo, translation by Maria Schroderus (Oni Press). I haven't read this one yet.
• Sunshine: How One Camp Taught Me About Life, Death, and Hope, by Jarrett J. Krosoczka (Scholastic Graphix). Nor have I read this one.
• The Talk, by Darrin Bell (Henry Holt). And yet another that made my Best of 2023.

Best Academic/Scholarly Work
A fantastic group this year! Innovative and important work all round.
​

• Asian Political Cartoons, by John A. Lent (University Press of Mississippi)
• The Claremont Run: Subverting Gender in the X- Men, by J. Andrew Deman (University of Texas Press)
• Desegregating Comics: Debating Blackness in the Golden Age of American Comics, edited by Qiana Whitted (Rutgers University Press)
• If Shehrazad Drew: Critical Writings on Arab Comics, by George Khoury-Jad (Sawaf Center for Arab Comics Studies and American University of Beirut Press)
• In Visible Archives: Queer and Feminist Visual Culture in the 1980s, by Margaret Galvan (University of Minnesota Press)
• Super Bodies: Comic Book Illustration, Artistic Styles, and Narrative Impact, by Jeffrey A. Brown (University of Texas Press)

I won't begin to make predictions about which books and creators will win. Suffice to say that my reading for the next few weeks will be interesting!

PS. Among the Eisner noms I've read lately that didn't make my Best of 2023 list, but I wish had, are Mexikid; A First Time for Everything; Bill Griffith's Three Rocks: The Story of Ernie Bushmiller; K. Wroten's Eden II; Tillie Walden's Clementine, Book Two; ​and Kelly Sue DeConnick et al.'s Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons.

PPS. Among things I dearly wish had made the Eisner ballot? Noah Van Sciver's Maple Terrace; Wes Craig's Kaya; Ryan Holmberg's translation of Tsuge's Nejishiki; Ryan North et al.'s Fantastic Four; Craig Thompson's Ginseng Roots; Tom King and Elsa Charretier's continuing Love Everlasting; Tom Kaczynski's Cartoon Dialectics #4; Joe Kessler's The Gull Yettin; Seth's Palookaville #24; Chantal Montellier's Social Fiction; and Daniel Clowes's Monica. Insert a big Schulzian SIGH here for all of these. <3