Best Comic of the Week:
Ginseng Roots #8 – Since Craig Thompson started this series, which explores his childhood helping farm ginseng, but also stretches like the fine tendrils of a root, into all sorts of other things, I’ve been impressed with this book. This issue is particularly touching, as Thompson gives it over to Chua, the Hmong farmer we met in the last issue, and his story. Last time, we saw how Chua’s childhood contrasted with Craig’s, and now we see what adulthood has been like for him, as he followed his father into the industry. Chua’s father passed about five years ago, and the loss has been huge for Chua and the local Hmong community. Parallel to this is the continued shrinking of ginseng in the region, as farming it becomes ever more difficult and expensive at the same time that it becomes ever harder to find people willing to put in the long hard hours the root requires. There’s an elegiac quality to this whole series, but especially to this i
X of Swords: Recovering What’s Been Lost
X of Swords is by – W: Jonathan Hickman, Tini Howard, Leah Williams, Benjamin Percy, Vita Ayala, Gerry Duggan, Ed Brisson, Zeb Wells; A: Lienel Francis Yu, Pepe Larraz, Carlos Gomez, Viktor Bogdanovic, Matteo Lolli, Rod Reis, R.B. Silva, Stefano Caselli, Joshua Cassara, Phil Noto, Carmen Carnero; C: Sunny Gho, Marte Gracia, Israel Silva, Matt Wilson, Edgar Delgado, David Curiel, Nolan Woodard, Guru-eFX, Rachelle Rosenberg; L: Clayton Cowles, Joe Caramangna, Cory Petit, Ariana Maher, Travis Lanham, Joe Sabino; D: Tom Muller is a story about love, like all the best X-Men stories. This is why it excels so beautifully, because it honors the emotional core of its characters and themes of found family and protecting the weak. The newly-collected crossover event is about what our heroes will sacrifice to recover lost love – in a contest of swords, the sharpest are the ones that pierce the heart. Tini Howard, Jonathan Hickman, Pepe Larra
Best Comic of the Week:
Strange Adventures #8 – Things have been slow in this series from time to time, but now, as the Pykkt invasion of Earth reaches critical levels, we get closer to learning some truths about what happened during the war on Rann. Tom King started suggesting early in this series that Adam Strange might have been lying about that war, and it looks like we might get to see what really happened very soon. Having Mitch Gerads and Evan Shaner trade art duties on this book was a brilliant decision, and I find myself more intrigued by this book than ever.