Grovel

Graphic novel news and reviews

Author Archive

Watching the Watchmen

By Andy • Oct 23rd, 2008 • Category: Preview

Here’s another book that falls into our “it’s not a comic but it’s about comics” category. In fact, it’s about the comic that many people regard to be one of the outstanding examples of its kind, certainly of superhero comics: Watchmen.
The book collects together much of artist Dave Gibbons’ work on the book, including character [...]



Puri Puri

By Andy • Oct 22nd, 2008 • Category: no-affiliate

UPDATE: Volume 6 out now.
Masato Kamioda is a fine, upstanding young teenager, looking for a career in the clergy. Enrolling at priest school however, he finds himself on a pilot program for mixed-sex religious education - the only boy in a school crammed with attractive young wannabe nuns and priestesses. Kamioda’s heart and soul might [...]



Robots

By Andy • Oct 21st, 2008 • Category: Coming soon, no-affiliate

The UK has a huge independent comic scene but one of the biggest problems facing up-and-coming writers and artists is getting their work published. Dave West and Colin Mathieson of Accent UK Comics have recognised this gap in the industry and are taking it on, publishing regular themed anthologies from a range of independent creators.
Robots [...]



Criminal 3: The Dead and the Dying

By Andy • Oct 20th, 2008 • Category: 2008, 4 stars, 5 stars, 5 stars, Brubaker, Ed, Crime, Criminal, Marvel Comics, Phillips, Sean, Review, Titan Books

The Dead and the Dying is the book in Brubaker and Phillips’ Criminal series where they really harness their mastery of modern noir. This is a book so bleak, cold and calculatingly twisted, it will have you clamouring for more. It’s all the worst things about life and the slog it can be to better [...]



Holy Sh*t! The World’s Wierdest Comic Books

By Andy • Oct 17th, 2008 • Category: Preview

Paul Gravett is back, this time with Peter Stanbury, casting his deep-thinking, analytical mind over some of comics’ biggest questions. However, despite the fact that scholarly Gravett is usually found pondering the cultural impact of manga or the link between superheroes and war-time propaganda, this book reveals his other side: a lover of comic books’ [...]



Jane Eyre: The Graphic Novel

By Andy • Oct 16th, 2008 • Category: no-affiliate

We didn’t think the Brontë sisters were the ideal candidates for having their stories turned into graphic novels. But then you could probably have said the same about Shakespeare 12-months ago, but it hasn’t stopped Classical Comics from publishing some great adaptations.
Jane Eyre is Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece, originally published in 1847 and already adapted many times [...]



The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle

By Andy • Oct 15th, 2008 • Category: Preview

Having started off as a series of novels before being turned into a TV series, the next step for Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files is a graphic novel adaptation. The series revolves around Harry Dresden, a part time detective and modern-day magician (that’s real magic, not David Blaine-style trickery), who is regularly given freelance work [...]



Smuggling Spirits

By Andy • Oct 14th, 2008 • Category: 2008, 4 stars, 4 stars, 4 stars, Action, Ambrosia Publishing, Fisher, Ben, Henderson, Mike, Horror, Review, Smuggling Spirits

The future of comics lies in the developing talents of today and, judging by the first volume of Smuggling Spirits, we could be seeing a promising future blossoming right here. This is a definite two-pronged attack on our senses, as Ben Fisher’s story and characterisation draws us in and Mike Henderson’s art grabs us by [...]



Fluffy

By Andy • Oct 13th, 2008 • Category: 2007, 4 stars, 4 stars, 4 stars, Dark Horse, Humour, Jonathan Cape, Lia, Simone, Lia, Simone, Review, Romance, Talking animal

Think of a story about a little fluffy rabbit that can talk and has a human personality, and you could end up in one of all manner of different directions. Simone Lia might appear, on first inspection, to have gone down a fairly standard if superbly executed road with Fluffy, a tiny talking rabbit in [...]



Bomb, The

By Andy • Oct 10th, 2008 • Category: Preview

This book collects the four issues of Steve Mannion’s mini-series The Bomb, a racey anthology of comic strips featuring gutsy, scantily clad heroines in unlikely situations. Described as a cross between Raiders of the Lost Ark and MAD Magazine, it features a range of Mannion’s characters including Fearless Dawn, Sea Goin’ Lil, Brownhole Jones, Helga [...]