There are two issues with comics that most of us face – lack of space and money to buy all the comics and graphic novels that get our attention. Every trip made to my library I look for something new or different. Two books I recently found and enjoyed for different reasons are Jaime Hernandez’s The Education of Hopey Glass and A Tale of Sand by Jim Henson, Jerry Juhl, and Ramon Perez. If you want a character driven story there’s nothing quite like A Love and Rockets story. At one time I was a big L & R fan but drifted off and then stayed away mostly because the idea of all the changes the characters went through seemed overwhelming. Nonsense, right? That’s what I thought after seeing this book on the shelf just waiting to be read! Catching up on Hopey and Maggie even a little made for great reading and Doyle is gay!? Who knew?
The book that took me by complete surprise is A Tale Of Sand published by Archaia at the beginning of the year. There is a story but the art is what makes this book a thing of beauty! Inspired, inventive, lyrical are words that come to mind, but, really you just have to experience the art first hand by holding the book. Yes, digital is all the rage, and one day I’ll start buying digital books and comics because of storage concerns, but this is a book that makes the case for print. Having a copy of Sand is big incentive to cull some unused books from my shelves! The following images are just a few that stood out to me. You can read a sample at Archaia.
The vertical purple stripe to the right in the image above is a handy elastic ribbon marker!
