Omega: The Unknown, by Jonathan Lethem

Omega is a somber sort of superhero comic.  It's a modern interpretation and homage to a 70s Marvel comic, but it doesn't feel very Marvel to me at all.  The book is surreal and sad, following a home-schooled and isolated teenager as he's vaulted into city life after the sudden death of his parents.  He is difficult to identify with despite his sympathetic circumstances. He speaks formally, misinterprets colloquialisms, and maintains a wary distance from most others.  I'm impressed by authors who craft characters this carefully, and keep their readers from liking them as much as we want to. 

When the book began, I wasn't sure if the "super" elements were real or hallucinated.  Even when the plot revolves around invading nano-robots and a mute alien protector, I couldn't help but feel that was background... incidental to this story of the hyperintelligent but confused and lonely boy.  I am torn between wanting to know more about  the previous life of the boy and that of his alien parallel, the Omega man, and being satisfied with a well-formulated narrative.  The elements that are left unknown feel right for the story.

Runaways: Homeschooling, by Kathryn Immonen & Sara Pichelli

Runaways is one of the few in-production comics that I'm currently reading.  It's a superhero comic so each of the teenagers has something unrealistically special about them.  Despite that, they're portrayed as fairly normal teens, and I love their interpersonal dynamics.  I'm still bitter about one death earlier on in the series, and while I generally dislike plot twists that bring the presumed-dead back, I find myself uncharacteristically hoping for just that.

Thanks again to my dear colleague for keeping me up to date on Runaways, lending me his copies of the new releases so I don't have to wait for my library's acquisitions & cataloguing departments to do their time-consuming magic before I can read them.

The Thieves of Ostia, by Caroline Lawrence

As a one-time student of Greek & Roman Studies, I've been thrilled to see this series inspire several children in my branch to learn about Roman culture and mythology.

The Thieves of Ostia is the first book of the seventeen-volume Roman Mysteries series.  It introduces a group of four friends who work together to solve the mysterious death of a pet dog.  I found the story to be predictable, but enjoyable, populated by likeable but fairly flat characters.  As this book represents Lawrence's first foray into novel-writing, I'm curious about whether her writing is stronger in later volumes once she's had a chance to develop her craft.

Ruby Lu, Brave and True, by Lenore Look

Ruby Lu, Brave and True was Lenore Look's first chapter book.  Since I fell in love with Alvin Ho a couple weeks ago, I've wanted to check out her previous series.

Comparatively, Ruby Lu feels like an early effort.  The narrative style  doesn't read as smoothly as Alvin Ho.  Ruby herself is curious, funny, and a realistic blend of brave and nervous, but she's not as convincingly complete or disarming as Alvin is.  Visually, the illustrations in Alvin Ho accentuate the text more dramatically than those in Ruby Lu.  Then again, I was thoroughly smitten with LeUyen Pham's clean expressive style, so I may not have given illustrator Anne Wilsdorf a fair chance.

In summary, Ruby Lu is promising, where Alvin Ho is stellar.  I love how Lenore Look's writing has grown over the last five years.

The Knife of Never Letting Go; The Ask and the Answer, by Patrick Ness

Todd Hewitt's birthday is approaching, and on that date he will be a man; the last new man in a village without women.  All girls and women on the planet died when Todd was a baby, stricken by a form of germ warfare that caused all men's thoughts to be audible... or so he was told.  But grim and dangerous truths are beginning to unravel the world that Todd knows.

The Knife of Never Letting Go is a tense read.  Todd and his new friend spend most of the narrative on the run or fighting for their lives, and it's exhausting to keep up with them.  Their confusion, exhaustion, and fear make for a convincing and compelling read, and this book has won a number of awards already.

When a whole book feels like it's approaching a climax, it's very hard to put it down. When the book ends with a gut-wrenching twist, a reader will be thankful to have the sequel already on hand.  I read straight through these two books, and am now waiting for the concluding volume which should arrive later this year.  The Ask and the Answer is less nerve wracking than The Knife of Never Letting Go, but maintains the tension that characterizes this series. 

The narrative voice is split between Todd and Viola, both being quite strong.  Usually, I find myself a little irritated when an author introduces a second narrator, but I love Viola and enjoyed hearing her thoughts.  Patrick Ness does a good job establishing his characters distinct voices; Todd's dialect only grated on me for a couple of pages before I settled into it's rhythm, and Viola's standard English is clean and strong.

Elements of the story that annoyed me a little: Todd and Viola are too good at everything, I can't buy that people in a sparsely populated survival culture would express this many political machinations, and supporting characters can be flat, inexplicably brutal, or lazily sociopathic.

Scott Pilgrim, by Bryan Lee O'Malley

I've been hearing raves about Scott Pilgrim for years, and after reading the first five volumes (the final volume comes out in July) I can see some of the appeal.  It's funny, and filled with stylized, over-the-top fight scenes that read like a teen daydream. 

Scott is a lazy slacker everyman who plays bass, shares a one-room apartment with his gay buddy, and can't hold down a job.  He is not a terribly sharp fellow, but manages to drift through life pretty comfortably.  Scott's persistence and nice-guy charm win him the attentions of the cute, mysterious Ramona, but he'll need to prove himself by defeating each of her seven evil exes if he wants to keep dating her.  While Scott is generally unskilled and oblivious, he shows some incongruous fighting talent and wits in battle.

My personal impression of the series is mixed.  I hold a grudge against Scott for his callous treatment of the highschool girl he's dating when he meets Ramona, and his oblivious slackerness irritates me.  However, the comic is a ridiculous romp through early adulthood and it works because it doesn't take itself too seriously.  I enjoyed the pop-culture references, descriptions of Toronto neighbourhoods, and the unselfconscious silliness.

I'm surprised there's no waitlist on these comics at my library yet, but they'll get very popular very fast when the film version hits the theatres in August.

Dumped, by Andi Watson

This short comic (56 pages) examines the relationship between Debs, a vintage store proprietor, and Binny, a collector of old scribbled-in books.  The characters espouse such different values that I found their newly-formed relationship implausible.   Perhaps if the story had been longer the author could have convinced me of his characters' motivations, but there is not enough depth in the writing to shepherd me past a vague dislike for each of the protagonists.