Lucas Blogs About Books

OH! MY! GOD! The eyes of TJ Eckleburg represented Galactus this whole time! That's right, it's another one of those Hypothetical Reader-less blog posts. Let's just jump in:  Vol. 12 – To All the Squirrels I've Loved Before  collects the four final issues of Ryan North and Derek Charm's The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl  (colors by Rico Renzi, covers by Erica Henderson). I'm not gonna make any bones about it, this has been my favorite comic book of the last few years and I'm sad that I won't get to read any more of it. But let's talk about this collection before we get any farther. Doreen Green (aka the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl) is looking for her friend Brian Drayne (secretly the reformed supervillain turned superhero Brain Drain — look he's a brain and eyes that are kept alive in a jar sitting on top of a robot body. Turns out that nobody's seen him for a few days, however, Doreen has been receiving a series of texts that appear to be p...

Too bad I don't have a van to airbrush this on. So, what's this book's dea — again? C'mon, Hypothetical Reader, this is the penultimate volume of my favorite comic book. Can we drop the "Hypothetical Reader hates Squirrel Girl" routine. I am only as you write me. Oh, right. Anyway, it's The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol. 11 – Call Your Squirrelfriend  written by Ryan North, drawn by Derek Charm, and colored by Rico Renzi. Wanna talk about it? Fine. So, this volume starts off with a single issue story where Kang the Conqueror (a time-traveller who uses time travel and his 41st century technology to defeat his enemies) confronting Old Lady Squirrel Girl in a dystopian future. See, he's lured her into a building that he rigged to collapse on her forty years ago; only it doesn't collapse because the present day Squirrel Girl noticed the problem and fixed it in an earlier timeline. However, when Kang confronts her he's pertu...

You maniacs! So What's this book's deal? Well, Life is Too Short, Squirrel  is the tenth volume in Ryan North and Derek Charm's The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl  monthly superhero comic book. We open with the funeral of Squirrel Girl! That's a dramatic shift in the status quo! Well, it would be if this weren't a superhero comic. Oh, right, so she's alive? Well, a woman with a fish head and in indomitable spirit shows up to the funeral calling herself Bass Lass, and insisting that she be allowed to see video evidence of Squirrel Girl's demise. So, then Count Olaf isn't the only character on this blog who wears transparent disguises? No. Anyway, after the funeral, Squirrel Girl and her best friend Nancy visit her old pal Tony Stark (fun fact, the first Squirrel Girl comic was about her rescuing Iron Man from Doctor Doom), to try and figure out just who (or what) was in the coffin at Squirrel Girl's funeral. Eventually, it's revealed t...

More Squirrel Girl? More Squirrel Girl! All right, let's get this over with. You know, if you stopped treating these comic reviews as a chore they'd stop being one. You're not this obnoxiously chipper IRL, are you? Definitely not, but that upbeat attitude is what I love about this comic, as I have previously mentioned. But let's jump right in. Volume 9: Squirrels Fall Like Dominoes , more so than any previous volume of The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl , exemplifies the ethos of it's indefatigably optimistic hero. This volume finds Doreen Green (the aforementioned Squirrel Girl) worried about her new friend Sergei Kravinoff (better known as Kraven the Hunter). So along with her friends Nancy Whitehead (Doreen's roommate), Tomas Lara-Perez (Chipmunk Hunk), Ken Shiga (Koi Boi), Brian Drayne (Brain Drain), and Mary (Tomas's girlfriend), she invites him to go to an escape room. Little do they know that Jomo, the proprietor, is actually Mojo II — an obsc...

Huh, it's like a textbook about everything for grown-ups who aren't enrolled in a class. So, what's this book's deal? You remember those books from when you were a kid that explain how things work? Of course. So, this book is kinda like that but for grown-ups. It's sort of a wide-ranging guide to the basics of science, technology, art, and philosophy (various philosophical schools are pithily described by their attitudes toward high fives). Oh, and it's also a work of science-fiction. So it's non-fiction and science fiction? Yeah. The subtitle is "A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler." The author,  Ryan North , has an introductory note explaining that he found the text embedded in Pre-Cambrian rock, and that it appears to have been written by one Ryan North, a technical writer from a different timestream. The text itself claims to be a repair manual for an FC3000™rental time machine. Only the thing is, when you open up the s...

Squirrels in SPAAAAAACE!!!!!! So, what's this book's de—oh, fer cryin' out loud—another comic book? I know, right? Whatcha gonna do? I guess there's no accounting for taste, let's get this over with. So, the deal with The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Vol. 8 — My Best Friend's Squirrel  is that it collects Erica Henderson's final story-arcs as the artist on The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl . For some people, this may be a good thing, but I'm going to miss her cartoon-y style with its (I know it's a cliche for my comics reviews by now, but) expressive and dynamic faces and poses. The good news is that she's still been doing the cover art for subsequent issues. What a relief. Well, you're lucky that I'm discussing something I like, Hypothetical Reader, because I'm not going to let your snappish attitude ruin my good mood. Anyway, this volume finds Nancy Whitehead and Tippy-toe, the best human and squirrel friends of Doreen Green ...

So, what's this book's deal? Well, Hypothetical Reader, the deal with The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Volume 7 - I've Been Waiting for a Squirrel Like You  is that it's the seventh (eighth if you count the graphic novel The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Beats Up the Marvel Universe ) entry in Ryan North and Erica Henderson's  Eisner-award-winning  series about a super hero who eats nuts and kicks butts! Volume 7 finds computer science students Doreen Green (Squirrel Girl's alter-ego) and Nancy Whitehead (Squirrel Girl's roommate and best human friend) entering a programming contest that ultimately results in them winning a free trip to Marvel's Savage Lands where dinosaurs roam a tropical forest hidden in Antartica. Oh, and it includes an issue done up as a Zine with mini comics written and drawn by various Squirrel Girl characters featuring several guest artists. I hesitate to ask this, but aren't you kind of outside of the target audience for this...