Sequential State – the comics criticism archive of Alex Hoffman

Month: August 2015

  • Review: Unico, by Osamu Tezuka

    Review: Unico, by Osamu Tezuka

    Unico was one of the first books published through Digital Manga Publishing’s Tezuka Kickstarter program, and with its recent reprint from DMP in their Storm Fairy Kickstarter, I thought it would be reasonable to revisit a review of Unico I wrote in 2013.  The book, as a print object, is one of DMP’s best to date; I’ve complained about…

  • Manga is a tricky type of comic. There’s a higher barrier to entry due to the flipped pages, cultural cues that may not be easily understood or explained, and there’s a lot of chaff available on the market. It’s hard to know where to start. In this on and off again feature, I’ll be presenting…

  • Review: Mighty Star and the Castle of the Cancatervater by A. Degen Previous work by A. Degen has shown up on my 2014 “Comics that Challenged Me” list, and so when Koyama Press announced it would publish Mighty Star and the Castle of the Cancatervater as part of its Spring 2015 lineup, I was immediately…

  • Your 2015 SPX Nominees (And a Few Thoughts From Me)

    This year’s Ignatz Nominees were announced on Tuesday, and a large majority of the books selected this year are books I’ve reviewed. The Ignatz awards are juried by cartoonists and critics, this year by Lamar Abrams, Cara Bean, Robyn Chapman, Sophie Goldstein, and Corrine Mucha. But attendees are the people who vote for the winning…

  • Review: Weeping Flower Grows in Darkness by Kris Mukai I was delighted by Kris Mukai’s The Extremely Small Witch Bibi, Who Lives in Mrs. Sen’s Garden (my review of which you can find here), and I’ve been sitting on a copy of Mukai’s latest work, Weeping Flower, Grows in Darkness (Weeping Flower hereon in) for…

  • Spreads: Fütchi Perf by Kevin Czap I recently received my copy of Kevin Czap’s new book, Fütchi Perf. I can’t be an unbiased reviewer of this book (I wrote a pull quote for the Czap Books webpage) and I won’t be writing a full review for Fütchi Perf. But I think that you, dear reader, will…

  •  Review: Apartment Hunting by Alison Wilgus

     Review: Apartment Hunting by Alison Wilgus

    Alison Wilgus sent over a copy of her latest comic, Apartment Hunting, a full color 17 page fantasy comic book about Hanne, an apartment hunter in a fantasy world where apartments are giant boxy looking emu-like birds. Along for the ride is a young couple, Jokum and Vivi, who are using Hanne’s service to find…

  • Review: mini kuš! #31 It’s Tuesday by Amanda Vähämäki I’m still working through Kuš! komiksi’s latest batch of minis, and one I’ve been mulling over recently is a comic by Finish cartoonist and illustrator Amanda Vähämäki. North American readers will recognize Vähämäki from The Bun Field, an 80 page comic published by Drawn & Quarterly…

  • An Open Apology

    Hi. If you are seeing this post, either on my website, or in your tumblr dashboard, you follow Sequential State, a website dedicated to thoughtful reviews of independently published comics, small press books, zines, and manga, as well as interviews of cartoonists and feature articles on various happenings in comics. Earlier today, I was confronted…

  • Review: Vacancy by Jen Lee I first came across Lee’s comics via the web and Lee’s animated web comic Thunderpaw; a remarkably expressive view of the post-apocalypse through the eyes of two dogs, in bright colors. Vacancy, a book that exists in the same shared universe with its own set of anthropomorphic animals is Lee’s first…

  • Guest Post: Fox’s New Fantastic Four Is Going to Fail – Thoughts on Ultimate Fantastic Four and the Fantastic Family

     My good friend and cohost of Sequential Statement sequentialstatement, Nick Dutro, has put together a piece about the newly debuting Fantastic Four movie that comes out today. I’m happy to have him on the site; as always, if you have an interest in writing a guest post for Sequential State, please contact me at sequentialstate…