Kaoru Mori loves history—you don’t create a comic about the silk road in the 19th century on a whim. The bride of the title is Amir, a young woman who has just married a boy seven years her junior as part of an arranged marriage. Even for the time and place it’s a big age […]
Shannon Fay
Posted inArts + Music
Freakonomics
If you haven’t yet read Freakonomics, the bestselling 2005 book about how economics plays a part in our daily lives, don’t worry. Now that it’s been made into a documentary you can cheat and just watch the movie instead. Cheating is one of the issues the film delves into, as well as the importance of […]
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Daytripper
Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá are Brazilian twins whose distinct art style has added flair to several comic-book series. With Daytripper, the twins take on art and writing duties to create a graphic novel that is beautiful and thought-provoking. The book, about an obituary writer living in Sao Paulo, meditates on life and death in […]
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La Quinta Camera: The Fifth Room
Natsume Ono is a manga artist who can shift her art style from cartoony to detailed depending on the subject matter. For La Quinta Camera, the story of four middle-aged bachelors living as roommates in Italy, she goes the cartoony route, keeping things simple but expressive. The graphic novel is laid-back and episodic with much […]
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Fall Arts at a glance
EVENTS & LITERARY AUTHORS Hal-Con November 12-13,hal-con.com The great thing about Hal-Con is not just that it brings big names in sci-fi and fantasy to Halifax but that it also gives local institutions a bigger stage to spread the geek word. Like last year, Hal-Con’s 2011 convention is a mix of Halifamous and Hollywood famous, […]
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The Plane Story
While on a plane ride, Kevin’s father tells him about his experiences working in the advertising industry in the 1950s. During the course of his story he reveals that the woman Kevin thinks of as his mother is actually his stepmother. The rest of the graphic memoir follows Kevin as he sets out to find […]
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No Touching at All
No Touching at All is a one-volume manga about an office romance between a young gay man and his straight boss. While not a completely believable gay love story (it’s part of the “yaoi” genre in Japan that’s aimed at women, rather than gay men), the characters still ring true, being both selfish and selfless […]
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Special Exits: A Graphic Memoir
In her graphic- novel memoir, Special Exits, Joyce Farmer recounts the final years of her father’s and stepmother’s lives. As their health and mental capacities deteriorate, their daughter, Laura (a stand-in for Farmer), spends more and more time looking after them. Farmer doesn’t shy away from depicting the realities of looking after aging parents, devoting […]
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Serenity: The Shepherd’s Tale
Though Firefly went off the air in 2002, Joss Whedon has managed to keep the ’verse alive not only through a movie but also in several comic book spin-offs. The latest one, Serenity: The Shepherd’s Tale is written by Whedon and his brother Zack and focuses on Shepherd Book: a man of god with a […]
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How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less
Israel’s Birthright program has been running for 11 years, offering free trips to Israel to young Jewish people around the world. Sarah Glidden recounts her trip in this graphic novel memoir, using simple but pleasant artwork to capture situations that are often complex and ugly. Glidden is a relatable and friendly narrator, interjecting her own […]
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Cropsey
When was the last time you watched a documentary with a good jump scare? Filmmakers Zeman and Brancaccio investigate a series of child murders in their hometown of Staten Island and end up making a film more creepy than most recent horror fare. While a man is currently in jail for one of the murders, […]
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A Drunken Dream
In the 1970s, Moto Hagio was part of a wave of female Japanese comic-book creators whose work helped define shojo manga (girls’ comics). Fantagraphics Books has collected 10 different short stories of Hagio’s in one volume, along with an essay and a lengthy interview first printed in The Comics Journal. The stories reflect the effect […]
