Shannon's Pick of the Month

Stitches

2010 Eisner nominee!  One day David Small awoke from a supposedly harmless operation to discover that he had been transformed into a virtual mute. A vocal cord removed, he had not been told that he had throat cancer and was expected to die. Readers will be riveted by his journey from speechless victim to his decision to flee his home at sixteen with nothing more than dreams of becoming an artist. Stitches will transform adolescent and adult readers alike with its deeply liberating vision.

I wasn’t sure what to think when I picked up this book, but I was immediately drawn in by the artwork. Thankfully, the story ended up being as good as the art. While I wouldn’t call this a happy story, it does have a generally uplifting ending. It’s a fascinating read for anyone interested in the complexities of familial relationships.

Picks of the Week

 MEMOIR #1 Of (6)

Writer BEN McCOOL (CHOKER) teams up with artist NIKKI COOK (Girl Comics, DMZ) for this six-part tale of mystery and memory loss. Lowesville is a small town in the American Midwest, peaceful and quaint. But one morning the population awakens with no idea of who they are, where they are, or what's happened. The town's memory has been completely erased. All except for one man... He remembers everything.

 WOLVERINE & JUBILEE #1 (OF 4)

STRAIGHT OUT OF THE PAGES OF X-MEN AND RIGHT INTO THE JUGULAR! Jubilee is about as far away from the ideal X-Man as it is possible for a 17-year-old minty fresh vampire to be. While the X-Men try to find a way to give her as normal a life as is inhumanly feasible, her decidedly abnormal vampire cravings will not be denied. Between that and her newfound powers, she's winning the fights but not the popularity contests among most of the other X-Kids. Most...but not all. And just when Jubilee starts to think that there is no place for her anywhere, a group of vampire women make her an offer she can't refuse. It seems like the perfect solution...unless Wolverine has anything to say about it!

 INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #500

GIANT-SIZED ANNIVERSARY ISSUE! Three generations of Starks face their ultimate foe, seventy-some years in the future while, in the present, Spider-Man joins Iron Man as he tries to fill in the blanks of his missing memory. What if amnesia was a weapon? What if the smartest man in the land had ten nightmares that all came true? Who is the son of Tony Stark? What's inside of the rings? The future starts now, for the Marvel Universe's favorite futurist. The Eisner-award-winning series makes a four-hundred-something-issue leap and raises a glass of non-alcoholic champale in salute to Ol' Shell-head! By Matt Fraction (THOR, UNCANNY X-MEN, CASANOVA) and Salvador Larroca (UNCANNY X-MEN, FANTASTIC FOUR), with special guests Howard X, Y and Z!