Sequential State – the comics criticism archive of Alex Hoffman

Category: Features

  • Comics That Challenged Me In 2015: Part 3

    New week, new installment. The list is going to run into next week because I added another 10 books compared to 2014’s list. Hopefully you’ve checked out the other installments already posted. Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Complete List BORB by Jason…

  • sequentialstatement: Episode #6: 2015 Wrap Up  Alex and Nick talk about the Star Wars: The Force Awakens, then give their Top 5 comics of the year, as well as a comic that they weren’t able to connect with that everyone else seemed to love. Music by Today’s Man. If you don’t want to listen to…

  • Comics That Challenged Me in 2015: Part 2

    Another five entries off my list. We’ll take a short break on Friday for the latest episode of Sequential Statement, and then we’ll be back into the rest of the list next week. Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Complete List Time Capsule…

  • Comics That Challenged Me in 2015: Part 1

    Comics That Challenged Me in 2015: Part 1  Last year I decided not to write a 2014 “Best Of” list. I think that decision was a good one for me. I generally dislike the idea that any one book can be the consensus pick of any given year when there is so much art being…

  • Review: Palefire, Written by MK Reed, Illustrated by Farel Dalrymple In my quest to wrap up my 2015 reading I’ve been thinking about a book I received from Secret Acres earlier this year. On paper, Palefire seems like a no-brainer. It’s a collaboration between MK Reed, a talented comics writer whose work I’ve seen (if…

  • Review: A Year Without Mom by Dasha Tolstikova  Groundwood Books sent me a copy of their recent release, A Year Without Mom, earlier this year, and in the intervening time between then and now, I’ve been thinking about personal narratives. In this debut graphic novel, Dasha Tolstikova tells the story of growing up in Moscow…

  • Review: Brunch by Barbara Geoghegan  It’s December and I’m finally working through books I got at SPX this year. One of those is Brunch, a 12 page comic by Barbara Geoghegan. Brunch stands out from the rest of the books I got this Fall mostly due to its size; each page is a full 8.5”x11”,…

  • Review: Frontier #9 by Becca Tobin I mid-October I wrote a micro-review (on Twitter, of course, because blogging is hard) of Becca Tobin’s comic published through the Youth in Decline monograph series Frontier. In a series of tweets I mentioned some stray observations I had made, including some of the thematic elements I found intriguing.…

  • Review: Curveball by Jeremy Sorese  Let’s start with the basics. Curveball, the first major graphic novel release written and illustrated by Jeremy Sorese, is the loveliest print object with a spine to come across my desk this year. Nobrow has pulled out all the stops with this book; a lovely cover with smartly placed spot…

  • sequentialstatement: Episode #5: Our Ever-Changing Podcast Alex and Nick talk about the new Podcast format. Music by Today’s Man. Reviews of: Airboy – art by Greg Hinkle, story by James RobinsonHuck #1 – art by Rafael Albuquerque, story by Mark MillarFante Bukowski by Noah Van Sciver All-New All-Different Avengers #1 – art by Mahmud Asrar, Adam…

  • Review:  Sacred Heart by Liz Suburbia I’ve been mulling over Liz Suburbia’s recently released graphic novel published by Fantagraphics. A big softcover book, 312 pages of black and white comics, Sacred Heart is the kind of book you could hurt someone with if you had to. The root of the story is the tangled web…