Graphic Novel

Tetris: The Games People Play

It is, perhaps, the perfect video game. Simple yet addictive, Tetris delivers an irresistible, unending puzzle that has players hooked. Play it long enough and you’ll see those brightly colored geometric shapes everywhere. You’ll see them in your dreams. Alexey Pajitnov had big ideas about games. In 1984, he created Tetris in his spare time while developing software for the Soviet government. Once Tetris emerged from behind the Iron Curtain, it was an instant hit. Nintendo, Atari, Sega―game developers big and small all wanted Tetris. A bidding war was sparked, followed by clandestine trips to Moscow, backroom deals, innumerable miscommunications, and outright theft. In this graphic novel, New York Times–bestselling author Box Brown untangles this complex history and delves deep into the role games play in art, culture, and commerce. For the first time and in unparalleled detail, Tetris: The Games People Play tells the true story of the world’s most popular video game.

Baddawi

Baddawi is the story of a young boy named Ahmad struggling to find his place in the world. It explores the childhood of the author’s father from a determinedly boy’s-eye view. Ahmed was raised in the refugee camp of Baddawi in northern Lebanon, one of many thousands of children born to Palestinians who fled (or were expelled from) their homeland during the 1948 war that established the state of Israel. Ahmad’s dogged pursuit of education and opportunity echoes the journey of the Palestinian people, as they make the best of their existing circumstances while remaining determined to one day return to their homeland.

Featured in WOW Review Volume IX, Issue 1.

Ghosts

Catrina and her family have moved to the coast of Northern California for the sake of her little sister, Maya, who has cystic fibrosis and Cat is even less happy about the move when she is told that her new town is inhabited by ghosts, and Maya sets her heart on meeting one.

The Nameless City

Every time it is invaded the City gets a new name, but to the natives in is the Nameless City, and they survive by not letting themselves get involved–but now the fate of the City rests in the hands of Rat, a native, and Kaidu, one of the Dao, the latest occupiers, and the two must somehow work together if the City is to survive.

Lowriders To The Center Of The Earth

Lupe Impala, Elirio Malaria, and El Chavo Octopus are now the proud owners of their own garage–but when a series of earthquakes hit their town and Genie, their beloved cat, disappears they find themselves traveling to the realm of Mictlantecuhtli, Aztec god of the Underworld, who is keeping Genie prisoner.

Dare To Disappoint

As a child in Izmir, Turkey in the 1980 and 90s, Ozge Samanci watched as her country struggled between its traditional religious heritage and the new secular westernized world of brand-name products and television stars. In Ozge’s own family, she struggled to figure out the place where she belonged, too. Her older sister was a perfect student, and her dad hoped Ozge would study hard, go to good schools, and become an engineer to find stability in their country’s uncertain economic climate. But Ozge was a dreamer and wanted adventure. Could she be a scuba diver like Jacques Costeau? Or should she become a world-famous actress? This touching memoir shows how Ozge dared to overcome both her family and her country’s expectations to find happiness by being an artist.

Fable Comics

From classics like “The Tortoise and the Hare” and “The Grasshopper and the Ants” to obscure gems like “The Frogs Who Desired a King,” Fable Comics has something to offer every reader. Twenty-eight fables from different cultures and traditions are wonderfully adapted and illustrated in comics format by twenty-six different cartoonists. Edited by New York Times bestselling Fairy Tale Comics’ Chris Duffy, this jacketed hardcover is a beautiful gift and an instant classic.

Beowulf

Graphic novel adaptation of the Old English epic poem, Beowulf. Now it is reinvented for a new generation with Gareth Hinds’s masterful illustrations. Grendel’s black blood runs thick as Beowulf defeats the monster and his hideous mother, while somber hues overcast the hero’s final, fatal battle against a raging dragon. Speeches filled with courage and sadness, lightning-paced contests of muscle and will, and funeral boats burning on the fjords are all rendered in glorious and gruesome detail. Told for more than a thousand years, Beowulf’s heroic saga finds a true home in this graphic-novel edition.