Vampires, historical fiction, and religious fuckery? Count me in! I ADORE the art in this graphic novel, with line work that gave major old school etching vibes. The tricolor scheme of blue, pink, and red was fun, especially since it contrasted with the sinister storyline, though admittedly the pink and red colors were a little close together and I would've preferred a darker red.

The "inversion" of vampires being the good guys and the priest being the bad guy was fun, especially in light of how the graphic novel answers what love really is, what should you put your faith into, and who can you trust.

All this said, the plot was pretty predictable, but this is a debut graphic novel so there's that. My main complaint was that this almost went TOO fast and I would've liked the vampire speakeasy characters and their relationships among each other to be more fleshed out.

This was an incredibly essential read for me, since I grew up in a very shame-filled environment and find myself with issues with emotional regulation, negative internal dialogue, and more. This was a book written for therapists and I am NOT a therapist, but I was able to grasp a lot about what defines chronic shame, how it can show up in many ways in different kinds of people, and how clinicians can approach it with their clients. I found it helpful to consider how people like me essentially didn't get the appropriate kind of emotional connection from parents and other adults growing up, so we're having to undo a lot of emotional dysregulation that was never properly managed. The "treatment" tends to revolve around forming trusting connections with clinicians like therapists as a sort of training wheels to learn healthy communication, relation, and emotional regulation.

The language is a little technical, but if you are not a therapist (or similar) and you read it, I encourage you to take your time and read it when you're feeling emotionally open to it.

Wow, this was super fun. Total upgrade in plot quality from the Liu and Takeda team! This was shockingly funny for a horror graphic novel, and I loved the dynamics between all the Ting family members. Loved how this combined a haunted house, Eldritch horrors, creepy dolls, and more! The way this story utilized tropes around tight-lipped family members to reveal the Big Secret of This Story was clever. Also it was nice to see a story acknowledge the existence of covid.

Slight rating knock because at some critical moments the art and the writing were a little unclear. Can't wait to see where this goes, though!

Really beautiful collection of short stories that involve something "scandalous" in the eyes of church-goers. Philyaw's writing is precise and gorgeous and has lots of personality while remaining literary. A friend-shaped read for fans of Torrey Peters and Brandon Taylor.

A little more leftist than Snowpiercer, so I have started calling this "anarchist Snowpiercer". It's an odd novel in that it's highly allegorical, with lots of Biblical imagery as well as clear allusions to modern politics. Except for Nacho, all the characters felt like caricatures. I enjoyed the criticisms of the (presumably Catholic) Church and the amazing disability rep in Nacho. The magic realist elements were really fun. It was nice to see an ostensibly anarchist society of misfits function sorta kinda, though I struggled to figure out the main messages of the novel.

Lastly, I did not care for the anti-Asian racism, so fyi there's a decent amount of that around "the Chinaman".

Easily my second favorite Junji Ito work after Uzumaki. This is a raw take on how misogyny warps people's minds and relatonships, to put it mildly. I was expecting more of a continuous narrative; it becomes a little episodic for at least half of the manga, with the episodes getting more than a little repetitive. But you could argue the repetition is part of the point: women getting abused, killed, etc. happens over and over and over again and no one learns any lesson.

Meant to review this one a while ago, so that I could have more specific things to say, but this was devastatingly well-written, and it's a book I will never read again. There are chapters/stories that are horrifying and others that are paralyzingly sad, and there are yet others that are hopeful; it's a lot, but I loved how this was essentially a collection of loosely connected stories. It captures so much of the highs and lows of the human experience especially as it relates to how disease impacts society, but it did so in a way that also addressed slice of life aspects as well as larger-scale ones.

The ending was a bit of a letdown though.