The Non-Adventures of Wonderella by Justin Pierce

The Non-Adventures of Wonderella

Wonderella is a terrible superhero. She drinks, she ignores crises, and she'll endorse anything for a buck. This send-up of superheroes sees Wonderella fighting the likes of Hitlerella and Jokerella (or not, depending on what's on tv), failing to save her sidekick Wonderita from peril, and causing more problems than she solves. Readers who enjoy Wonderella will also enjoy R.K. Milholland's Super Stupor.

The Non-Adventures of Wonderella is online at nonadventures.com. Read from the beginning here.

Appeal: Superheroes, irony, parody, science fiction, humor

Art: In the style of paper cut-out cartoons like South Park or Monty Python. Parodies superhero designs

Text: Mature, non-sequitur, allusions to current events

Pierce, Justin. "The Non-Adventures of Wonderella." nonadventures.com. Web. 4 May 2014.

Something*Positive by R.K. Milholland

Something Positive

Following the lives of three friends in Boston--Davan, PeeJee, and Aubrey-- and their assorted friends, family, and enemies, Something Positive is sarcastic, cynical, and sometimes touching. The characters age in real time from the comic's 2001 debut to today. Davan dates many unkind women before moving back home to Texas and eventually marrying a newer character, Vanessa. PeeJee holds a number of unpleasant jobs, and now lives in Texas with Davan, helping to care for his witty, Alzheimer-diagnosed dad Fred. Aubrey started a successful phone sex hotline catering to nerds and gamers, and adopted a child with another character, Jason. The characters encounter little oddities like Davan's semi-liquid cat Choo Choo as well as everyday concerns like the Christian haunted house where Fred stages an impromptu protest. 

Something Positive is available at somethingpositive.net. Read from the first comic here.

Appeal: Sarcasm, cynicism, family relationships, adult relationships, work humor

Art: Realistic, it improves over time but the style is consistent. 

Text: Dark humor, conversational, mature

Other: R.K. Milholland writes two other comics: Super Stupor, a dark parody of superheroes, and Rhymes With Witch, watercolor illustrations of very dark children's cautionary tales. Both are available from somethingpositive.net.

Awards: Something Positive won the Web Cartoonists Choice Award for Outstanding Character Writing in 2005, and for Outstanding Dramatic Comic in 2006. 

Milholland, R.K. "Something Positive." somethingpositive.net. Web. 4 May 2014.

El Goonish Shive by Dan Shive

El Goonish Shive

As the author describes it, this is a "strange comic about a group of teenagers and the bizarre, often supernatural, situations that they face". Tedd and Elliot are typical high schoolers-- except that Tedd's dad works at a secret government agency devoted to covering up the existence of magic and aliens and brings home alien technology for Tedd to modify. By contrast, Elliot can only summon a number of martial arts-based fighting spells--until he accidentally gets turned into a girl and accidentally clones himself trying to turn back. 

Soon after that, Elliot, Ellen (the clone), and Tedd befriend Grace, an alien-squirrel-human hybrid lab escapee; Nanase, Eliot's former girlfriend and martial arts partner; Justin, another martial artist with a crush on Elliot; Susan, an aloof classmate who can summon magic hammers; and Sarah. Sarah is normal. This comic ranges from funny to dramatic as the characters handle high school, changing relationships, evil teachers, evil laboratory experiments, and evil magic-users. Readers who enjoy Percy Jackson and the Olympians will enjoy the magic, drama, and action of El Goonish Shive.

It is available at EGScomics.com. Read it from the beginning here.

Appeal: Fantasy, magic realism, science fiction, action, drama, high schoolers, queer representation

Art: Develops over time from 

Other: El Goonish Shive began in 2002 and is ongoing as of May 2014. Its name comes from Dan Shive's inability to summarize the comic in a short title. The "goon" comes from a high school nickname, the "Shive" is the author's last name, and the rest is gibberish conceived of in Spanish class.

Shive, Dan. "El Goonish Shive." egscomics.com. Web. 4 May 2014.

Aya by Marguetire Abouet and Clément Oubrerie

Aya

Aya is a serious-minded 19-year-old living in the Ivory Coast in the 1970s. It's a time of prosperity for the country, and everyone wants a piece of the pie. Aya tries to give her friends good advice and resigns herself to helping them manage the fallout of bad choices. In this first book of six, for example, Aya helps her friend Adjoua raise her newborn son as they try to prove his paternity so that Adjoua's boyfriend will marry her. Aya joins in the parties, and the gossip around her but always with an eye toward her future. This is a realistic, funny, soap operatic story about middle-class life from a talented storyteller.

Appeal: Ivory Coast, Africa, family relationships, adult relationships, drama, humor, high school plus

Art: Caricature, cinematic

Text: Conversational, vernacular, argumentative

Other: Aya was originally published in French. The comic was adapted into an animated film in 2012, co-directed by the authors.

Awards: Aya won the Angoulême International Comics Festival Prize for First Comic Book in 2006, the Children's Africana Book Award in 2008, and several Glyph Awards.

Abouet, Marguerite. Oubrerie, Clément. Dascher, Helge. Aya. Montréal : Drawn & Quarterly ; 2007. Print

W Juliet by Emura

W Juliet

Ito Miura wants to be an actor. She's in her high school's drama club, and puts her family training as a martial artist to good use on stage. Makoto Amano wants to be an actor too, but as the only son in his family, he is obligated to run the family dojo. Makoto's father will only allow Makoto to become an actor if he can use his acting skills to successfully impersonate a girl for the two years remaining until high school graduation. 

Naturally, Ito finds out Makoto's secret on the first day of school. Now Ito and Makoto have to hide all sorts of secrets from friends and family, especially after they start dating! Together they must work hard to become better actors and to avoid the obstacles that block their path. This is a touching, realistic, and humorous look at family relationships, working toward a dream, and dealing with uncertainties and insecurities about the future.

Appeal: Action, intrigue, family relationships, theater, drama, high school girls, first relationships, romance, humor

Art: Clean lines, grayscale, character-focused, emotional

Text: Conversational, intimate

Other: W Juliet was originally published in Japan from 1999 to 2003. It has also been adapted into a series of drama CDs.

Emura, William Flanagan, and Mark McMurray. W Juliet. San Francisco : Viz, 2004. Print.

Gon by Masashi Tanaka

Gon

Gon is a very small dinosaur who escaped the extinction that killed all of the other dinosaurs. Gon wanders wherever he pleases through the paleolithic era, napping, eating, and terrorizing other animals with his ferocious strength and unlimited durability. No animal can defeat Gon, and none can hope to stop him from doing what he wants, whether it's stealing a lion's lunch or taking over a bear's cave to nap in. Gon might, on a whim, save a defenseless creature from a predator, or beat up whomever crosses his path.

Appeal: Dinosaurs, animals, fighting, power fantasy, elementary school boys

Art: Black and white, realistic and exaggerated

Text: Gon is entirely wordless.

Other: Gon was published in Japan from 1992 to 2002. It has been made into two video games and an anime.

Awards: Masashi Tanaka won two Eisner Awards for Gon in 1998: Best Humor Publication and Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Material.

Tanaka, Masashi. Gon. La Jolla, CA : WildStorm Productions, 2007. Print.

Pregnant Butch: Nine Long Months Spent in Drag by A.K. Summers

Pregnant Butch: Nine Long Months Spend in Drag

When A.K. Summers first decided to get pregnant, she was worried about pregnancy's effect on her identity as butch: pregnancy is strongly tied to femininity, ties which Summers has worked her whole life to break. This is the exploration of the outside and internal pressures on her gender identity that being a pregnant masculine female creates, as well as being a universal pregnancy story. Summers asks big questions and doesn't always find the answers:

"Does it matter if pregnancy is a wrong state for me? So what if I don't find it deeply satisfying to get in touch with my essential womanhood? Isn't it all right to permit some disjuncture to intrude on one's sense of self?"

Appeal: memoir, pregnancy, lesbians, gender

Art: impressionistic, black and white, stereotyped

Text: Narrative, vernacular

This is Summers' first full-length graphic novel. She has previously published comics online through Activate Comix.

Summers, A. K. Pregnant Butch: Nine Long Months Spent in Drag. Berkeley, CA : Soft Skull Press, 2014. Print.