Voting

1. Shubeik Lubeik, Deena Mohamed (Pantheon); as Your Wish Is My Command (Granta)
2. Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons written by Kelly Sue DeConnick, art by Phil Jimenez, Gene Ha and Nicola Scott (DC Comics)
3. 三体漫画：第一部 / The Three Body Problem, Part One, adapted from the novels by 刘慈欣 (Liu Cixin), written by 蔡劲 (Cai Jin),戈闻頔 (Ge Wendi), and 薄暮 (Bo Mu), art by 草祭九日东 (Caojijiuridong) (Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House)
4. The Witches of World War II written by Paul Cornell, art by Valeria Burzo (TKO Studios LLC)
5. Saga, Vol. 11 written by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Fiona Staples (Image Comics)
6. Bea Wolf, written by Zach Weinersmith, art by Boulet (First Second)

Pre-reading thoughts

• Saga again? I get people love it, but meh. It is usually pretty good.
• If The Three Body Problem is not in English, I’m going to have to judge it on pretty, which, actually, that isn’t such a bad thought anyway. Certainly I’ve historically voted things low if they are poor contrast and hard to read.

Summary afterwards: I think of myself as a reader of graphic novels, and I could see why these had been nominated, but argh, it was such a slog to get through this category.

commentary (and occasional storygraph links)

• reading started from the top - Bea Wolf - I had hopes just from the title, and also because First Second (while there are issues with the company) has a strong track record of publishing stories I enjoy. Provided is an excerpt, which means that there is no storygraph link. Pdf rather grainy, 30 pages, lots of that is intro. This is all of chapter one, which introduces the conceit - poetry like Beowulf, but the story about the kids of a community. I kinda liked it, but I was also kinda bored. I am not the target demographic. 3/5
• Saga - as implied above, I’m not a fan of this series, but I’ve read a lot of it because it keeps getting nominated. 160 pages (according to storygraph; actual is 154) is a bit of a slog (thoughts before reading). and complicated political sagas aren’t my thing. DNF (explanation), tentatively rating it as 3 /5 because the colours are good and it is mostly readable
• Shubeik Lubeik - 529 pages! My initial thought was not great for reading in pdf on the laptop, but better than trying to see the text on the ipad. Turned out that it was better to move it to the ipad, although that was still a bit small, because the formatting meant that the story starts at the end of the document, and it doesn’t scroll well. Three linked stories, centred around a street kiosk owner trying (and succeeding) to sell three (legitimately acquired) wishes. A mix of colour and black and white, I struggled in reading. 4 /5 review
• The Witches of World War II - I have Paul Cornell pigeonholed as ‘not my kind of thing’ but I can’t actually name anything they’ve written so ???. I don’t recognise the other two names. Bit bemused that storygraph has this as published in 2021, but whatever. 160 pp. Really like the colours on the opening pages; nicely war time. Doesn’t work well on a laptop screen, because there are a number of full page images. I’m a bit lost as to what is going on — I suspect too much in the images. Having finished but not read the ‘fact and fiction’ section - eh, it was a bit convoluted and confusing. Not bad, but also, not fabulous. 3.5? Fact and fiction section did help some; keeping the rating at 3.5 review
• Three Body Problem - I haven't read the original novel, so I have no thoughts on the adaptation of the story. However, I found this visually very dark (presumably to reflect bleakness on the part of the characters / setting /story?) which made it really hard to read. Overall, interesting, but to some extent it gets its ranking (currently 2 of 5) because I disliked it less. I did find that it made a dramatic tonal shift late in the piece, which really worked for me. This is getting 4, for being mostly interesting, and for having an art style that worked other than being difficult to read.review
• Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons - very pretty, reasonably well done origin story, some themes I’m a bit over, but also, I read it in a single sitting and didn’t really notice the length. 4/5. This is going to pip Three Body Problem for second, because it was so much more readable — vibrant colour palette and crisp lines so I could track what was going on. Also really really good character design so I could actually keep track of many many characters. review