By avoiding cumbersome punctuation and the formality of capitalization, Reuben Jackson lullabies his way into treasured-voice status, quiet yet forceful. A jazz scholar and former curator with the Smithsonian’s Duke Ellington... Read More

Debates over whether or not animals are self-aware beings can get heated, and deciding that they are would require major legal and ethical changes in how they are treated. In "The Soul Life of Animals", Hanne Jahr takes a metaphysical... Read More

JP Ahonen’s "Belzebubs" collects the eponymous webcomics. Ahonen is a Finnish cartoonist and former musician who previously drew and co-wrote the graphic novel Sing No Evil, which combined music and the supernatural. With "Belzebubs",... Read More

Buddhism is the backdrop for metaphysical excitement in "Karma Police", a graphic novel that casts monks as thoughtful enforcers. Their goal? To ease suffering without violence, if possible—but if needed, to destroy evil spirits that... Read More

"Mallko and Dad" is the tender, honest, and life-affirming personal account of a father and his boy, who has Down syndrome. "Mallko and Dad" strikes quickly and with searing frankness, as Gusti writes: “Sometimes having kids is like... Read More

João Gilberto Noll’s "Lord" opens with a cryptic quote from Iain Sinclair: “The secret interiors of these post-human fortresses solicit conspiracy, acts of sexual transgression. Illicit exchanges between dealers.” Aging and... Read More

In Maria Capelle Frantz’s affecting, allegorical graphic novel "The Chancellor and the Citadel", the Chancellor, a mysterious hooded figure with seemingly magical powers, protects a city’s citizens from their enemies. In the process,... Read More

Nick Mullins strikes a resonant emotional chord with the exquisite, melancholic storytelling of his graphic novel This Wasn’t the Plan. The book collects three stories—“Phantom,” “Defrost,” and “Sink”—that channel the... Read More