Illustrated by Jen Wang
Anda gets invited by a guild runner to join up playing a MMORPG (Massive-multiplayer-online-roll-playing-game), Coarsegold Online, as a female avatar in an all female guild. She makes a friend in game and they take on missions that pay real money. Their missions are to exterminate gold farmers who sell in-game gold to players for real money. It’s a lucrative system that is a real part of most MMORPGs. Anda makes a friend with one of the gold farmers and finds out he’s a teen named Ah Duo (Raymond in English) from China. Raymond is the same age as her, but he's farming gold online as an actual paying job in China. He has health issues, and Anda convinces him that he needs to stand up for himself with his boss, but things don’t turn out well for Raymond. Anda discovers a darker side of world economics played out in her game, and struggles with how to really help her new friend.
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Yasmina is an aspiring young chef who fills her dad’s lunchbox with delicious and fresh foods. He works at a French fry eatery, but she insists on fresh ingredients that she often obtains from a neighborhood garden. That is, until a big conglomerate comes in, buys the land, and razes the gardens to plant potato fields. Yasmina resorts to stealing veggies and herbs from a neighbor’s garden on the roof of her building, but she’s eventually caught and made to stop. She tries to spend her meager savings on some fresh foods from the market, but she instead finds all the fresh ingredients have been replaced by potato crisps in bags, and her fellow townspeople are going nuts for them! Yasmina and her friends from the garden must get to the bottom of the mystery of these potato crisps and why they’re turning the townspeople into crazy animals, and her upstairs neighbor may have something to do with it all.
Vol 4: A Frenchman on Mars
Seraphin and his aethership make it to Mars and find a world teeming with strange life forms and weird versions of aetherite that solidify after you walk through a seeming puddle. Searching for the previous Prussian expedition turns up no survivors, including Seraphin’s father. But Gubbard reveals the true nastiness of his plan to get Seraphin and the others to agree to go to Mars in the first place, and it is steeped in deception! Seraphin is wounded and wakes up abandoned by his fellows. He stumbles upon what he thinks is a winged beast, badly injured, but still he feels the need to save the creature from being a feast to other beasts. The creature ends up being a prominent figure in a fractured Martian society, one half dying out, the other exiled to the desert. 
Vol 2: Murder on the Rockport Limited! by Clint, Griffin, Justin, and Travis McElroy, illustrated by Carey Pietsch
Your adventure zone friends are back with an Agatha Christie vibe. The three are officially part of the Bureau of Balance as "Reclaimers" - tasked with finding ridiculously powerful magical items and bringing them back to the Bureau to be destroyed. Their next assignment is to figure out where another reclaimer went wrong in obtaining one of the powerful magical objects. This lands them on the Rockport Limited, an express train with heightened security and relatively few passengers. They get assistance from Angus, the World’s Greatest Detective, and a fourth grader. Together, they must solve the murder mystery aboard the train, obtain the overpowered magical item, and have a hilarious time doing it. 
Eric Bittle is now team captain, and his secret boyfriend, Jack Zimmerman plays for an NHL team, the Falcons! Bitty and Jack have to navigate a long-distance relationship, and dating in secret starts to take its role on Bitty. He doesn’t want to jeopardize Jack’s career in a sport that is not known for being accepting of LGBTQ+ lifestyles. Slowly, the couple start to come out within their safe spaces, like to their friend group and a few other key people. Jack’s team manager believes the Falcons will be supportive, and she turns out to be right. Time marches on, and it’s suddenly Bitty’s senior year. He has a tough time breaking in one of the freshmen who can’t seem to come to terms with who he is. Bitty has to repair damage done to his relationship with his parents with the way they found out about Him dating Jack. When it’s time to write his senior thesis, Bitty’s supportive housemates disconnect the oven and warn every kitchen on campus not to let him come bake until his writing is finished. Not only does he have that looming over his head, but championships are fast approaching, and a win could validate everything Bitty has built and expressed over the last four years at Samwell.
Vol 3: The Knights of Mars
The Knights of the Aether are hiding out at Seraphin's grandfather's house in Brittany. Seraphin's father travels to London to a society of the best minds, a group he calls "The International Society of the Aether." He seeks to showcase aether ships and to recruit anyone willing to be an ally against the Prussian forces. But, their meeting is sabotaged, and Seraphin loses contact with his father. Meanwhile, King Ludwig's sister begs for more information about her brother's whereabouts, and she won't believe he is traveling to Mars. Then, the Prussian forces are upon them, and it will take everything the Knights have to outwit and escape them, on board a ship hurtling towards Mars! 
Vol 1: Here there be Gerblins, by Clint McElroy, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, and Travis McElroy. Illustrated by Carey Pietsch
Based on a popular podcast, Adventure Zone follows three heroes as they quest and roll for initiative. Warrior Magnus has an aptitude in pretty much everything, which both helps and annoys his companions. Takko is a kleptomaniac spell-caster who Often charms monsters and other characters. Merle is the typical treasure-obsessed dwarf with a cousin who has the inside scoop on a really great score. When a mysterious warrior shows up and every other word is censored, the trio has no choice but to go along with her. Mix in a dungeon master who keeps everyone on the straight and narrow by breaking through the top corner of panels periodically, you’ve got a recipe for hilarity! 
This latest installment in History Comics presents the events leading up to and including the accident of the Challenger. This is done through a group of four students and their teacher, set 400 years into the future, where the students are tasked with a history report on Challenger Day, a holiday commemorating the lives lost during the space craft's explosion. The narrative is comprised of four parts: history of the space program, where particular attention is placed on the Space Shuttle program in particular; the history of Challenger crew, where each member shares their biographical information through the use of AR technology in the students' classroom; the accident itself, presented by the teacher and given all due gravitas; and the Rogers Commission, told largely by Richard Feynman through AR again.
Vol 2: The Moon-King
After the dangerous runaway liftoff from the end of volume 1, the aethernauts, the professor, and the king make it to the moon. The ship has sustained some damages from leaving Earth’s atmosphere, and they’ll have to slingshot around the moon using the moon's gravity if they want to get back to Earth. However, the aether has other plans for them and pulls them to the surface of the moon. On the dark side of the moon, they will have 14 days of lunar daylight before descending into 14 days of lunar night. The lunar day brings about melted snow and provides a thin atmosphere, so the crew sets about repairing the ship. More discoveries on the moon help in repairs and preparing them to return without the balloon that helped them float in Earth’s atmosphere. But, many of these discoveries are too alluring for the king, and he decides to explore on while the rest of the crew returns to Earth. 
Vol 1: The Space Race of 1869
After a tragic science experiment claims the life of a family member, Séraphin his father find themselves in the castle of the King of Bavaria, working with a small crew on an engine powered by the legendary substance known as Aether. But there is more involved than just science and engineering in this tale of political intrigue and invention. Séraphin recognizes someone in the castle as a person who tried to sabotage everything, but none of the adults believe him. Instead, Séraphin and his new friends swear to protect the project and the King as the Knights of the Aether. |
About MeI've been reading manga and comicbooks for years. Now, I write reviews and other helpful things for School Librarians, teachers, parents, and students. Search this site
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