My 2020 Reading Stacks #13: The Finale

The Seeds and Slaughterhouse-Five.

Two of the best graphic novels of 2020.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

At the beginning of each year I spend weeks writing year-in-review entries that cover the gamut of my entertainment intake, including capsule reviews for all the books and graphic novels I’ve read. I refrain from devoting entries to full-length book reviews because 999 times out of 1000 I’m finishing a given work decades after the rest of the world is already done and moved on from it.

As time permits and the finished books pile up, I’ll be charting my full list of books, graphic novels, and trade collections I’ve read throughout the year in a staggered, exclusive manner here, for all that’s worth to the outside world. Due to the way I structure my media-consumption time blocks, the list will always feature more graphic novels than works of prose and pure text. Novels and non-pictographic nonfiction will pop up here and there, albeit in a minority capacity for a few different reasons. Triple bonus points to any longtime MCC readers who can tell which items I bought at which comic/entertainment conventions we’ve attended over the past few years.

And now…it’s readin’ time. Again. One last time for 2020.

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My 2020 Reading Stacks #8

Wonder Woman Stargirl!

Women ruling the multimedia superhero world, and the strongmen they allow at their side.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

At the beginning of each year I spend weeks writing year-in-review entries that cover the gamut of my entertainment intake, including capsule reviews for all the books and graphic novels I’ve read. I refrain from devoting entries to full-length book reviews because 999 times out of 1000 I’m finishing a given work decades after the rest of the world is already done and moved on from it.

As time permits and the finished books pile up, I’ll be charting my full list of books, graphic novels, and trade collections I’ve read throughout the year in a staggered, exclusive manner here, for all that’s worth to the outside world. Due to the way I structure my media-consumption time blocks, the list will always feature more graphic novels than works of prose and pure text. Novels and non-pictographic nonfiction will pop up here and there, albeit in a minority capacity for a few different reasons. Triple bonus points to any longtime MCC readers who can tell which items I bought at which comic/entertainment conventions we’ve attended over the past few years.

And now…it’s readin’ time. Again.

Continue reading

Why Marvel’s “Unbeatable Squirrel Girl” Is Super Unbeatable

Squirrel Girl!

In Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #1, our hero prepares to juggle her super-hero life with her big move to college. With the support of friends like Tippy, she’ll be fine as long as she doesn’t sign up for too many credit-hours.

Meet Squirrel Girl. Unless you’ve already met. Either way: Squirrel Girl!

Squirrel Girl was the joint invention of Spider-Man’s co-creator Steve Ditko and author Will Murray, who previously ghost-wrote dozens of Destroyer novels but this one time in the ’90s had an itch to do something different. That plan came together and Squirrel Girl is unquestionably different from Remo Williams. In 2015 someone wise at Marvel Comics promoted her to the front lines and she now stars in her own ongoing series, the optimistically named Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.

Right this way for more Squirrel Girl samples!