GenX Comics

Warriors: Ravenpaw’s Path #2: A Clan in Need

Ravenpaw and Barley have been driven away from their farm by a group of vicious cats. Now the two loners must turn to ThunderClan—led by Ravenpaw’s friend Firestar—for shelter. Firestar takes them in and promises to help them take back their home as soon as possible, but ThunderClan is in great danger. BloodClan cats have been launching raids on ThunderClan’s territory and attacking Clan patrols. Can Ravenpaw and Barley help Firestar and his Clan fight off their enemies? And will they ever be able to get home again?

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Really Good!!!
This is a great Warriors manga book! It’s a graphic novel, with black & white pictures on every page. The story is really captivating, and this one was especially outstanding.

The story isn’t very long, only 100 some pages. The price is reasonable, for all the work put into the manga, the great illustrations, the interesting story, and the fact that you can read it over and over again (I always do!).

I highly recommend this book to Warriors lovers.

3 Stars This is a 112-page Graphic Novel
I bought this for my daughter and was disappointed when it arrived to find that it is a Graphic Novel. Now, if I had been sharper that day I ordered it, I would have seen what format it was by looking at the First Pages display on Amazon. We’ll keep it because my daughter likes it. But it seems overpriced at $6.99 for what is essentially a 112 page comic book.

5 Stars Cats, Action, & Adventure
Reviewed by Evan Weldon (age for Reader Views (05/10)

“Warriors Ravenpaw’s Path #2: A Clan in Need” by Erin Hunter is terrific graphic novel, and it’s packed with action. In the last book, Ravenpaw and Barley were attacked by rogues and had to flee their home. As they ran away it started to rain and they went to high stones for protection. When they were there, Ravenpaw got a sign from Starclan saying that if he went Thunderclan, they would help him. But, it turned out that they couldn’t help because Thunderclan itself was having problems with rogues. Will Thunderclan be able to defeat their enemies before it is too late to help Ravenpaw and Barley?

When Ravenpaw and Barley were visiting Thunderclan and asking for help, they witnessed one of the rogue attacks. The rogues, members of Bloodclan that Thunderclan had defeated moons ago, had come back to terrorize them. Barley knows something none of the other cats knows. Will his information be enough to help Thunderclan win the battle? Will the dangerous attempt to vanquish the rogues work or will it fail?

I would recommend “Warriors Ravenpaw’s Path #2: A Clan in Need” by Erin Hunter to people who love action, adventure and animals. Once I started this book, I couldn’t put it down until it was finished. The book left off on a cliff hanger, and I can’t wait for the next book!

5 Stars excellant
I buy the Warrior Books for my Great Grandaught who is 11. She enjoys them so much she reads them over & over. These stories are for someone who enjoys cats.

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Flight Volume Seven

(E) Kazu Kibuishi (W/A) Various Flight 7 is the latest volume in the acclaimed graphic novel series, a full-color graphic anthology of short stories by some of the hottest creators in the fields of comics and animation including JP Ahonen, Jason Caffoe, Michel Gagne, Justin Gerard, Paul Harmon, Kazu Kibuishi, Stuart Livingston. Katie Shanahan, Kean Soo, and many others.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Another great volume!
Flight Volume Seven is a beautifully illustrated book with amazing production value. This edition continues to meet the exceptionally high standards set by the previous volumes of Flight in both illustration and story telling.

4 Stars Flight 7 Soars
Fantastic art, great storytelling. Not perfect, maybe - even the best anthologies are still subject to personal preferences and expectations - but a lovely piece of work nonetheless.

5 Stars Extremely good
Maybe it’s because we just got this one but I really think this might the best flight so far. I am not ashamed to say the Snowball story made me cry like a little baby.

Sooooo. Good.

5 Stars Soars ….
If you like whimsical fairy tales, reinventing the world through wide eyed myths, and drowning in art that makes you tremble with pleasure this anthology is hard very very hard to match.

The stories were not always as satisfying as the art itself, but that being said what’s being done here is very important. It’s become a crucible distilling the best talent around to produce our own wonderlands that we could wander around pane after pane till we’re lost in these dream worlds.

I loved the laugh out loud whimsy in the Ninja tale, the reinvented mythology for Onere and Piccola, the incredibly tactile coloring and visuals of Sentinels, the mocking take on naivete of the fairy market et al.

5 Stars Once more, Excellent!

It is amazing that Kazu Kisbuishi is able to conjure so many talented individuals in 7 volumes. The growth of this book, from my first look at volume 1 is remarkable, and highly reminiscent of the 1980’s Marvel Epic magazine.

This edition includes:

JP Ahonen, Bannister, Jason Caffoe, Drew Dernavich, Michel Gagne, Justin Gerard, Cory Godbey, Grimaldi, Paul Harmon, Kazu Kibuishi, Kostas Kiriakakis, Stuart Livingston, Leland Myrick, Dave Roman, Katie Shanahan, Steven Shanahan, Kean Soo and Dermont Walshe

In no particular order my favorite stories this time include Kenneth Shuri and the Big Sweep. Who would have imagined a janitor/ninja? Fantastic look at a situation that just might be real, in the minds of our our cleaning staffs. Premium Cargo (Kostas Kiriakakis) is amazing! This is deep, emotional story telling at its’ best. Bravo! Fairy Market is a cynical look at toy marketing, thinly disguised. Sentinels is just cool, real cool. TT Challenge is a marvelous, nostalgaic look at bike racing that resonates a carefree spirit in me. I love this short tale.

Is this the best volume yet? What other tales will we see from these closet ‘comic book artists/writers’? I can hardly wait. This is the book that will define graphic fiction for large market buyers and readers.

Tim Lasiuta

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The Boys Volume 6 SC

It had to happen sooner or later: the supes get mad enough to go after the Boys. One of the world’s most powerful superteams decides to hit our heroes, all guns blazing, and the Female is the first to fall into their lethal trap. The sixth Dynamite collection of Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s The Boys is here, complete with a cover gallery.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars The Boys are back!
The Boys is one of my favorite ongoing series, I’m not afraid to admit it. I love the titular heroes, the caped villains, and the “over-the-topness” of it all. I’m also not afraid to admit that with The Boys Volume 5: Herogasm, I started to have my doubts. I’ve enjoyed Ennis’ work on Preacher Vol. 1: Gone to Texas, Punisher MAX, Vol. 1, and up to Volume 4 on The Boys, but Volume 5 was a bit much. Ennis seemed to sacrifice his wonderful characters and fantastic writing for page after page of debauchery.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s some pretty raunchy stuff in Preacher and earlier volumes of The Boys. However, it was nowhere near as depraved as what we saw in Herogasm. Copious amounts of nudity, sex, drug use, and even some implied rape overshadowed the characters, storytelling, and (in my opinion) affected the overall quality of the story.

I’m happy to say that The Boys Volume 6 SC is a return to everything I love about this series. We start things off with The Boys facing off against Payback, one VA’s premier superhero teams. Here’s where we get that over-the-top violence I was talking about. We also see what happens when our heroes go up against the big boys, reminding us they have only been dealing with small fry so far. There’s a nice nod to Moore’s Watchmen from Frenchie, the return of Soviet Superman “Love Sausage”, and we get some insight into Butcher’s frightening psyche as he takes on the capes single handedly.

But it’s the second story arch is what really makes this volume for me. Here, we get the secret origins of MM, Frenchie, and The Female and see how they joined the team. These are tales of heartache and injustice, fleshing out an already fascinating cast of characters. To me, Mother’s Milk’s was the most interesting. His tale revolves around his family’s battle for justice against Vought-American, AND his first hand account of the 9/11 attacks.

Frenchie’s is exactly the kind of silliness we’ve come to expect from the character. Mocking French stereotypes, the story includes lost love, bagette jousting, and a deadly croissant. I’m not entirely sure how much of the story is true (neither is Hughie and Butcher isn’t exactly forthcoming) as it is littered with Frenchie’s usual fantastical musings. The Female of the Species is another fun story, told through Frenchie, about the origins of the petite teen with an appetite for faces. Several references to the ALIEN films can be found here, and we see how Frenchie was able to tame the murderous woman.

Overall, this is a great book: Huge secrets are revealed, The 7 continue to bicker amongst themselves as trouble among The Supes is brewing, and a major obstacle is dealt with. Fans of The Boys would be foolish to miss this installment in the series, and fans of Ennis’ other series should start reading ASAP!

5 Stars The Boys Vol 6
“The Boys” continues to satirize and lampoon superhero books while simultaneously providing great characterization, dialogue and plot. Ennis does an amazing job of ratcheting up the tension as The Boys have drawn the ire from the man from Vought. Ennis finally shows what happens when the Supes become the pursuers. The Supes in this book Payback try to eliminate the Boys. But their lack of experience and skill causes them to fall apart, literally in some cases at the hands of team leader Billy Butcher. Ezquerra and McCrea did a good job illustrating the carnage but this arc would really have benefitted from Robertson’s artwork. However, he did return to the book to illustrate the second arc in this book. Robertson’s love for these characters really shines through and I was very happy that he was able to draw the origins since he is the co-creator. The origins were well done and ranged from heart breaking to the absurd and everything in between. Let’s just say that in the hands of Ennis a week old croissant can change the course of a man’s life. In its entirety the book is definitely establishing itself as canon for comic book readers.

3 Stars I Was A Little Disappointed…
This book remains as creative, shocking, character-driven, and as daring as ever. However, the origin stories left me a little cold and were so base in some respects that I felt numbed by them. All in all, I felt as if the book was treading water in terms of ongoing narrative. (And some of the art looked rushed.)

That’s the thing when comics get collected into trades: sometimes the assemblage helps the flow and sometimes it hinders it.

4 Stars the ‘Boys’ Volume #6
A far more interesting story than ‘Herogasm’ (’the Boys’ volume #5) with a couple of origin stories thrown in for three of the boys (two boys and a female to be precise). It would seem that Ennis has gotten all that pesky forshadowing they were trying to do out of the way and we get to go back to the Boys doing what they do best, namely beating up superheroes. There is plenty of plot, action and amazing artwork to keep you excited and eager for the next installment of ‘the Boys’.

*SPOILER ALERT*

There is no spoiler I just always wanted to write that.

4 Stars Backstories
The Boys get the backstory or origin story deal in this volume. It’s hard to tell if Frenchie’s is true or not but I suppose I wouldn’t expect anything less from him. Butcher does not reveal anything though but he shows he is the main man when he deals with Payback. Boy does he show them a thing or two. I’m looking forward to the next volume.

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Y: The Last Man, Volume 6: Girl on Girl

The latest volume in the gripping saga of Yorick Brown, an unemployed and unmotivated slacker that discovers that he is the only male left in a world inhabited solely by women after a plague of unknown origin instantly kills every mammal with a Y chromosome.Accompanied by his mischievous monkey and the mysterious Agent 355, Yorick embarks on a transcontinental journey to find his girlfriend and discover why he is the last man on Earth. This volume finds Yorick, Agent 355 and Dr. Mann traveling across the Pacific to Japan in pursuit of Yorick’s stolen monkey Ampersand, whose innards may hold the key to mankind’s future

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars One of the greatest stories in comics
I was turned on to Y The Last Man at work when I saw someone with the comic. I asked him what it was about and he told me. Being a fan of post-apocolyptica, I asked if it was any good. He looked straight into my eyes and said, “I don’t read crap, man.” If you looked at the guy, a stereotypical comic book/gaming nerd, you could tell he knew his stuff.

I went home and bought all the available graphic novels, 6 at the time. I have no regrets. I have since lent these novels to about a dozen people and they all loved it.

This comic perfectly blends action, comedy, sci-fi, romance, and drama together to create a world where women rule.

3 Stars Page Ripped!!!
The book was in okay condition. Some doggie-eared pages. But the one thing that keeps irking me is the fact that one of the pages looks like someone (or something) took a bite right out of it. Very upsetting.

4 Stars Story continues to impres!!
Yorick and his friends continue on their amazing journey now to Japan. The twists in this trade were all remarkable and Vaughan gives new details of this new ost-plague world that I never think of. I love it. I also really enjoyed the flashbacks to Beth’s past especially with Yorick. The art was on point as usual. Great stuff!

4 Stars Review of Vaughn’s ‘Y: Volume VI’
Another great volume, if a little short. This feels something like a calm between two storms, but its well-written, in any case.

5 Stars The Weight of Water
Yorick has some odd travel arrangements. Getting to dress up like a woman, wearing gas masks or odd costumes, putting himself through hell simply to hide that he isn’t the thing once known as “man.” but taking a trip in a box on a ship is one thing, and finding out that your bodyguard and your pet doctor are having relations is another. For yorick this seems to be a bad thing, too, because 355 and yorick have something that ties them together. Or at least they did, until they found themselves on a frieghter that has one secret out in the open and another riding just below the surface.

Y has been a great read from the beginning, and this is no exception. yorick seems to always get himself into situations he can’t handle alone, and he has to figure out exactly what is right or wrong in this new world ran by women. In this trip it is especially bad, because Y finds himself on a ship with a very attractive woman, and finds that they relate on more than one level. The only problem is that the person is not what she appears to be and neither is the ship, and Australia is one of the few places that has been keeping a navy in place to deal with things they deem threats. This is what i like about Y: it has art that is easy on the eyes, stories that make you wonder what you would do in this situation, and times when one wishes they cared about nothing beyond themselves. Y has already found out his sister would rather see him dead than still walking around, he has no idea what has happened to the woman he loves, and has seen how many countries would like to have a man to repopulate their dying flags. He is more valuable than he knows, and now he is running with something that is seen - in the eyes of something powerful at least - as worth less than a torpedo.

What a great thing to read.

If you haven’t gotten on the Y bandwagon yet, go to the first volume and start from there. Something has killed all the men in the world except for the one we know about, and that one has been through a lot in the last few books. The world has also changed and those changes are interesting - enough so that reading the books seems to take less effort than a reader would ever realize. Couple that with the fact that there is one other male, a little monkey that lived through it, and you can see why you have to find out things from the start. It is a good read and one that is not the world of the last man on Earth’s dreams.

I highly recommend it.

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I Kill Giants

Barbara Thorson, a girl battling monsters both real and imagined, kicks butt, takes names, and faces her greatest fear in this bittersweet, coming-of-age story called “Best Indy Book of 2008″ by IGN. Collects I Kill Giants #1-7.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Lovely, Wonderful, and One of a Kind
The very first giant, Ur, was the result of a union between the earth and sky. When he became too lonely from being the only of his kind, he tore himself apart, creating a group of other giants: swamp giants, mountain giants, frost giants, and, worst of all, titans. They’re unstoppable.

We know this because Barbara Thorson explains it just so. Barbara is waiting for the giants to come, at which time she will fend them off with her deadly hammer. It’s tough work, preparing for an oncoming invasion and being the sole person tasked with killing them when they arrive.

Barbara is a unique fifth grader, even aside from training to kill giants. She wears giant bunny ears, avoids talking to most of her classmates, has regular conversations with fairies, calls her P.E. teacher a bull dyke, and even slaps the school psychologist. She’s antisocial and proud of it, considering almost all the people she encounters to be stupid and annoying.

Only fellow student Sophia manages to crack Barbara’s thick shell, acquiring a place of trust and friendship that no one else ever has–or even tried to attain. The sweetness of the friendship is genuine, as are most of the relationships in I Kill Giants. Whether Barbara is dealing with her principal, her psychologist, or her sister (who is raising Barbara and her rarely seen brother), and even when the dialogue feels ready-made to fit a movie starring a sassy protagonist, the words have the ring of truth to them. Even when writer Joe Kelly pushes the dialogue to the brink, he pulls back just in time to ensure believability. Better yet, he sends in surprises to usher the story along in unexpected paths (anchoring it as he goes with some fun allusions; my favorite being one of the best movie quotes ever: “No fighting in the war room!”).

All along, we know this story is headed somewhere; we just don’t know where at first. Kelly holds his cards close to his vest for a good part of the story–even scribbling through lines of his own dialogue to obscure what’s really going on in Barbara’s life–but he pulls the curtain back just in time, confirming our suspicions without making us wait too long for the satisfaction of knowing, after all this, just what is going on with this character we’ve become so attached to.

That attachment is perhaps the best trick I Kill Giants, because it comes about so subtly and effectively. Like JM Ken Niimura’s frenetic but pitch-perfect art, Barbara’s personality is wild, jagged, and impossible to not get engrossed in. By the time we’ve finished our journey with Barbara, we’re stronger for the experience and so is she.

I Kill Giants is easily accessible for teens (the aforementioned bull dyke outburst is about the harshest the language ever gets, and the violence is frequent enough but never graphic), but it’s a true gem for adults as well. It, like Barbara, is lovely, wonderful, and one of a kind.

– John Hogan

5 Stars My Wife kills Giants!
I saw this book hanging out in the small Graphic Novel section of my local Library. I remember hearing a lot of buzz about the acclaimed Indie Comic (meaning a comic not published by Marvel or DC) I thought, WHat the heck a comic about killing Giants sounds excieting.

Shortly into it I felt cheated. This is just some annoying snot nosed little kid! What a cheap trick to suggest a violent adventure in the title of a series and follow it up with a whiney disrespectful Kur!

As I usually do even when disspointed I read on and in doing so became dissapointed in myself. The book was incredible and was moved to tears by its closing pages.

This books moved me in a way that has befor only occured in classic films and literature. I misjudged barbara, the artwork, and this story teller. After reading this I felt much closer to my wife who if you havn’t guessed, Kills Giants.

5 Stars OUTSTANDING…
Great publication. I’ve been collecting graphic novels for some years and I was surprised to find in “I Kill Giants” a refreshing, intriguing, and touching story that surely abroads the concept of graphic novels. I strongly recommend it for any collector but also for starting readers, since the power of this story lies in the analysis of human nature and fears. it also has a great price, so what are you waiting!?

5 Stars An incredible read
I think the thing that got me most about this was that I was never sure how the story was going to turn out. It keeps suggesting a predictable story line but it keeps changing all the way through, not quite delivering what you were expecting but something better instead. The art is a little difficult to begin with but really, really works well as you go on, playing a major part in the overall delivery. Truly captivating.

3 Stars Overrated
I enjoyed this Comic.

It had some extremely funny parts and was certainly above average, but overall I wasn’t as crazy about it as every other reviewer. I don’t really care about symbolism or a little girl learning to cope with loss. This comic needs you to be the sort of person who would look for “Graphic Novels for Intellectuals” to truly enjoy it.

By now I’m sure you’ve read the other people’s reviews where they tell you about Barbara living in her own world where she fights giants. She learns to be friends with someone, learns that love sometimes leads to pain and betrayal, and how to deal with death… Honestly the main character reminded me a bit of Lilo (of “Lilo & Stitch” fame).

While I’m not crazy about the manga-esque art I have to admit that it was appropriate for IKG and I did enjoy it.

The bottom line is that for me this comic really didn’t resonate… maybe it’s that I’m jaded or maybe it’s just that I’m not a little girl, but I didn’t feel as emotionally connected to this comic as you need to be to fully enjoy it.

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