Sequential State – the comics criticism archive of Alex Hoffman

Tag: review

  • Review: Dark Angels of Darkness by Al Gofa

    Review: Dark Angels of Darkness by Al Gofa

    Dark Angels of Darkness is a comic that’s been floating around my house for a few months now. I can’t seem to get it onto a shelf – that’s a good sign in my book-cluttered home. The comic is a recent release from Peow Press, and it’s a selection that falls well into their wheelhouse.…

  • Review: Spy Seal: The Corten-Steel Phoenix by Rich Tommaso

    Review: Spy Seal: The Corten-Steel Phoenix by Rich Tommaso

    I’ve been working and reworking a review of Rich Tommaso’s Spy Seal since the trade paperback came out in early 2018, and I still have trouble knowing what to make of its publication. The comic was the subject of a brief burst of commentary from places like Comics Beat and Bleeding Cool, who saw the poor…

  • Review: Onibi: Diary of a Yokai Ghost Hunter by Atelier Sentō

    Review: Onibi: Diary of a Yokai Ghost Hunter by Atelier Sentō

    One of the things that still plagues the “comics market” is the way creative work gets categorized. This is especially true if that work doesn’t neatly fit into any one category.  This is even worse with translated work, and is a major issue for Onibi: Diary of a Yokai Ghost Hunter.  Created by Cécile Brun and…

  • Review: Her Bark & Her Bite by James Albon

    Review: Her Bark & Her Bite by James Albon

    I’m still working through some older books I’ve been meaning to review; hope you have enjoyed the last few days worth of reviews. I’ll take a moment of privilege today and direct you over to Your Chicken Enemy, a site run by my colleague and friend Daniel Elkin. Dan is running a week-long feature called…

  • Review: Qoberious #1, by DRT

    Review: Qoberious #1, by DRT

    I’ve been holding on to Qoberious #1 since earlier this year, trying figure out what to make of it. The book came essentially out of nowhere fully formed, which defies my general expectations of comics-making. When a cartoonist publishes a graphic novel, especially when it’s a first graphic novel, there is often proceeding material, either…

  • Review: By Monday I’ll Be Floating in the Hudson with the Other Garbage by Laura Lannes

    Review: By Monday I’ll Be Floating in the Hudson with the Other Garbage by Laura Lannes

    Part of my goal for these next few weeks are to get back to some comics I read in 2017 and early 2018 but didn’t properly evaluate. For the next few weeks I will be trying to get in some writing I’ve been putting off over the last few months. October and November were hard…

  • Review: Ran and the Gray World vol. 1 by Aki Irie

    Review: Ran and the Gray World vol. 1 by Aki Irie

    The first volume of Ran and the Gray World was one of the first Japanese language books I ever purchased. It’s a series that has long held my fascination; the whimsical setting piqued my interest, its use of magic so completely different from other manga in the fantasy genre. And importantly, the cover is beautiful,…

  • Review: I Hate You, You Just Don’t Know It Yet by Nadine Redlich

    Review: I Hate You, You Just Don’t Know It Yet by Nadine Redlich

    Nadine Redlich has a playful style that I’ve seen popping up everywhere over the last 5-6 months. I loved her recent Google Doodle celebrating the birthday of Erich Ohser (aka E.O. Plauen), a famous German cartoonist (I reviewed a collection of his Father & Son comics here). Her illustrations in the New York Times and…

  • Review: Giant Spider & Me, Vol. 1-2, by Kikori Morino

    Review: Giant Spider & Me, Vol. 1-2, by Kikori Morino

    I’m fascinated by Giant Spider & Me, a recent release from Seven Seas. It’s genuinely unfathomable to me how a book like this got greenlit, because it’s about as unfocused a premise as possible. Giant Spider & Me is a grab bag of concepts; it’s a post-apocalypse setting, a slice of life story, a cooking…

  • Review: Eternal Friendship by Anouck Durand

    Review: Eternal Friendship by Anouck Durand

    (This review of Anouck Durand’s Eternal Friendship was originally published by The Comics Journal on March 14th, 2018. You can find the original review here.) From the perspective of a reader of comics, the graphic novel is a mature aspect of the world of book publishing. But the larger literary world is hesitant to put unique and…

  • Review: Incision, by HTMLflowers

    Review: Incision, by HTMLflowers

    It’s been hard to approach HTMLflowers’ latest work, mostly because of how ruthless and unsparing it is. I read Incision a few months ago and made this comment about a month ago. Grant Gronewold (HTMLflowers is his nom de plume) challenged me to review it. It took awhile, but here we are. Incision isn’t really…