#young adult comics

[afabstract]

Camp Spirit Review - Let it spirit you away

Elodie is ready for college but not for a two-month-long summer with unruly kids and unfamiliar faces. Read our review of 'Camp Spirit,' a fun graphic novel by Axelle Lenoir that takes you back to the 90s.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 5 out of 5. Summer camp is all about crazy kids, ghost stories, running, swimming, sweating, fighting, and, for the lucky few, falling in love. And, just like its title suggests, the graphic novel ‘Camp Spirit’ captures all the shades of spending a long summer outdoors, making new friends or foes, and adds in a dash of fantasy to the proceedings. I am officially a fan of the…

[lucdoodle]

"For old time's sake? We could- ah..."

[bruciemilf]

Dick becoming Robin at 10 is so interesting because hey, this is pretty much one of the world's youngest athletes who wanted to kill his parent's murderer with his bare hands.

He's also the same person who stays up too late watching cartoons and most likely falls asleep during fights.

The rogue gallery vs Robin but it's Harley carrying a sleeping Boy Wonder to her hyenas to watch over him in a cuddle nest, Ivy making a thorned protection shed around him, and Harvey covering him with his jacket while they wait for batman to come collect his boy

If he's running after Waylon in the sewers and trips, bruising his knees, Waylon will wait out Batman with him while offering him rat stew, " It's good for growth." Dick politely declines but appreciates the sentiment

Selina bribes him with late night milkshakes and sweet delights and takes him to animal shelters. She sends Bruce 10+ pics of Dick cuddling with homeless kittens,

She watches Batman toe the edge of insanity as his ward throws an Olympic tantrum because he was forbidden from adopting 20 cats and holy hell. This crime life is worth it.

Oswald teaches him to pick pocket and also educates him on bird care. Bruce asks him how his first solo mission's going,

" arrest him??"

Dick sends him a snap chat of a bird eating seeds from his hand like, " I can't the little guys are eating"

Mr. Freeze helps Dick with his physics homework while Bruce is quite literally on ice. He gets sick and can't patrol because it'd be irresponsible, but Dick is just having fun with the sirens

" Fun" means tying the Joker up like a pinata and beating the hell out of him while wearing a peach and mint facemask

[parvuls]

First + Last

[brucewaynehater101]

I'm bad at math, but is Bruce theoretically 38 years old when he goes into the time stream?

Hear me out (and canon likes to fluncate their ages, so this is my best guess without trying to account for birthdays):

Bruce becomes the legal guardian of 9 year old Dick when he's 23. That's a 14 year difference.

Jason becomes Robin when Dick leaves at 18. Jason is 13. That's a five year difference.

Jason dies at 15, and Tim becomes Robin at 13. That's a two year difference.

The age difference between Tim and Bruce would thus be 21 years.

Tim becomes Red Robin to find Bruce at 17.

That means that Bruce had to be 38, right? Why was I imagining him closer to 50?

Adopting so many kids must have aged him

[oifaaa]

New pitch for dc: don't let any of your characters age they all just stay the same age for atleast the next 10 years with the only exception being Tim Drake who will do so at the same rate as people usually age eg: one irl year = one Tim Drake year

[soranatus]

This Land Is Our Land: A Blue Beetle Story

Made by Jacoby Salcedo, Julio Anta, and Francesco Segala, releasing October 2024

Blue Beetle's YA graphic novel debut, will tackle contemporary issues well-known to the Latino community. Immigration and perceptions of border life and issues will be addressed, framing current events in a DC context. Contrary to the recent film, which takes place in Palmera City, Jaime will be operating in his hometown of El Paso, Texas, in a retelling of his origin story. 

[kumerish]

On The Gulf

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

This is the start of something new

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[peaches2217]

So we all know and love those two panels of Mario and Peach having dinner and then leaning in for a kiss from that one weird Club Nintendo comic, but I feel like the panels that immediately proceed them are just as cute and worthy of recognition, so please admire them with me.

[hijinxinprogress]

Young Justice is made up of snarky traumatized losers with terrible coping skills so whenever something bad happens or just mildly inconveniences them, they’ll just mutter something completely out of pocket

Any of them waking up in a gurney after a fight in response to ‘are you okay’: “I mean nothing will ever hurt more than the fact that my family will never know me as well as my friends do”

A villain giving some variation of the ‘we’re the same/we’re not that different from each other’ speech after doing some off the walls crazy ass scheme that harmed multiple people?

Cassie: it’s almost like being home

Cissie, nodding: and getting lectured by-

Kon, who only heard ‘lectured’ bc he’ll be damned if he has to pay attention to some villain monologue and Clark: -Superman?

Cassie and Cissie, imitating muscle man: My mom

Tim’s tech loses power for some reason while he’s doing research for a case?

“Okay cool, just die on me like my parents…no this is great”

A villain saying anything along the lines of ‘stop hiding’ or ‘where are you’ and a YJ member responding back “why are you more concerned with my whereabouts than my literal family?”

“Tim, where’s the evidence??”

“Gone like my parents for my entire childhood. Jesus, do I look like I know?”

Someone lies/betrays anyone in yj but particularly Anita or tim?

“Ooh, plot twist! I’m kidding, I’m always expecting someone to betray my trust”

“Is this the part where you reveal that we’re related???”

“I’m not saying I expected this but I kinda expected this…”

Anyone in YJ but particularly Tim and Bart in response to ‘how was your day?’:

“I don’t think I’ve ever really taken the time to process the death of my loved one(s)”

Anyone coping better than yj: “Are you…good??”

“Not really, no. Do you want an extremely detailed explanation for this cool thing I know?!”

A villain made an insult that hit a little to close home towards Cissie, Tim, or Cassie?

“The only person that’s allowed to make me feel like shit is my mom!”

“Thank you for that! God, it’s like talking to my mother.”

Bart gets hurt on a mission?

“Wow, that hurt almost as much as leaving my friends and family to their impending doom back home”

“Yikes, this is almost as bad as being stuck in the past with a family that wants nothing to do with me” 

“I’m okay, nothing hurts more than when I realized despite having a family, my friends make up my entire support system…”

[These are all comments made casually to the titans or justice league bc YJ are deeply concerning individuals that traumabonded and think they’re funny (they are) but really they’re just traumatizing their mentors/coworkers and friends/loved ones]

[phoenixcatch7]

Man, I want shapeshifter cap SO BAD.

I want to see a Billy that really leans into the wonder of the world, the million paths a child could take in their life.

I want to see a Billy that wants to try everything, at least once.

A Billy that looks at all the people who spit at him, deride him, pity him, dismiss him, ignore him, because he has no future, no prospects, a child in the gutter and say no. I'm going to grow up to be whoever I want to be.

And a captain marvel that says you're going to be amazing.

Billy taking the premise of captain marvels form - his ideal self, a blank slate for Billy to paint his bright colours, the person he wants to be deep inside - and dialling that freedom up to eleven.

A dancer, a dinosaur, a train conductor, a tiger, an ice cream maker, a butterfly, an astronaut, a shark, a college student, a Tamaranean, a mouse, a scuba diver, an elephant, a doctor, a moose, a race car driver, a dog.

A child wanting to see the world.

If you want to find captain marvel, well first you've got to try his comm, probably a couple times.

Then you've got to go to fawcett, hope he's there and not saving the yetis from a salamander invasion in a different dimension.

You've got to ask around, because it often goes by word of mouth here, no matter what technology you bring. Don't worry, it'll spread very quickly, but if you're in a hurry you can find his commemorative statue and leave an offering. No one knows if it really works, but it's a good way to pass the time and feel productive.

Soon, a face will peel out of the crowd. It's always familiar, but it's never the same one.

Wait for the flash of lightning in a cloudless sky.

And then you will find captain marvel.

[call-me-strega]

We don’t talk nearly enough about how Jason Todd was only NINETEEN (19) years old when he took over Gotham’s Underworld.

Like you guys, 19 is a freshman in their first year of college. From experience most 19-year-olds have no idea what they’re doing half the time at this age. Over half of them barely knew how to write a good essay much less manage a whole criminal empire.

Do you know how many logistics are behind running a criminal empire? I don’t but I imagine it’s a lot!

Can you imagine the amount of time management, asset management, inventory, delegation, communication, analysis and planning skills one would need to have in order to pull that off?

Can you even fathom the fact that Jason manage to disturb the gang hierarchy and social structure and take near total control of it in a matter of weeks(months)?

Because that’s not something a normal 19 year old could do.

I think it speaks to how incredibly intelligent and hyper-competent Jason is, something that often gets downplayed to focus on his violence and physicality.

[kitseaton]

Family game night with the woofs! 🎮

FULL SHIFT, a new YA graphic novel with Jennifer Dugan and @penguinteen, 2024

[booksinmythorax]

So you're an adult who wants to start reading for fun, but you don't know where to start

I'm a librarian, and I hear at least once a week from people who sheepishly tell me that they'd love to start reading for fun (for the first time or after a long break). Here's my best advice broken down into bullet points, but start here: there is no shame in being a beginner.

-Think about what you do enjoy and start from there. So you're not a book person. Do you like movies? Television? Podcasts? Music? Tabletop games? Video games? What other media do you like and what does it have in common? Make a little list and Venn diagram that shit.

Maybe you're into stories about fucked-up families (Sharp Objects, Succession) or found families (lots of realplay TTRPG podcasts, Leverage, Avatar: The Last Airbender) or fucked-up found families (various Batman media, Steven Universe, The Good Place). Maybe you mainly watch or listen to stuff for the romance (Taylor Swift music, The Best Man, Heartstopper) or the sci-fi horror (The Magnus Archives, M3gan, Nope) or the romantic sci-fi horror (Welcome to Night Vale). And hey, maybe you're not a fictional media person at all. What do you like? What do you want to know about? World history? True crime? Home improvement? Birdwatching? Gardening? Various animals and their behavior? Human psychology? Cooking? If it's a thing, there are books about it. Start there.

Think about why you started to dislike reading. Did an adult snatch a book you thought looked cool out of your hands and say "Don't read that, it's below your reading level/above your reading level/a comic, not a real book"? Did school give you an endless parade of miserable, bleak books and tell you they were universal stories about the human condition? Or did it maybe only give you stories with saccharine, unearned happy endings, or only show you stories about straight cis wealthy abled white kids, or keep you from reading entire books at all in favor of endlessly dissecting tiny passages out of context? (For some vindication, check out "How Teachers Make Children Hate Reading" by John Holt.) Did you have an older sibling or a friend who was better at reading? Did adults put you in competition with that other kid and make you feel like shit about it? Were you in a situation where you were good at reading in one language, or even more than one, but required to read in another that you were still learning? Did this make you feel like you were "behind schedule" or like you shouldn't read at all? Or was reading just harder for you than it seemed for other people? Did reading give you headaches? Did the letters or numbers seem to float around on the page? Was it hard for you to focus for long enough to get through a whole book? Did you need to learn to read differently than the kids around you could? Did adults punish you for this instead of helping you? (Look, I'm not a doctor, but if any of these apply to you, consider going to an optometrist, a psychologist, and/or a psychiatrist to talk about these things if they're persistent and interfere with your life.) Or maybe you're burned out on reading. Maybe you did an advanced degree in literature or writing or history or some other reading-heavy discipline and you're just tired. Maybe your professors or classmates got snobby about what constituted "literary" works and their good opinion didn't line up with what you actually enjoy. You get to be sad and angry about these things, if they happened to you. They're also clues to how to move forward if you'd like to read more, or enjoy reading more.

Give yourself permission to read whatever you want, in whatever way you want. Wanna start with young adult books? Middle grade books? Awesome. Many of them have stories that are sophisticated and complex. Starting with re-reading the first books you enjoyed reading could help jog your memory about why you initially found it fun. Hell, even picture books are a good start. Have you read a picture book lately? Those things are getting cooler every day. Comics and graphic novels? Those count as reading. Many of them are published for adults, though again, the ones published for a middle-grade or young adult audience are often complex and moving. If you're an anime fan, give manga a shot. The source material for many anime go deeper into the characters and stories, especially now that anime seasons are often truncated to 12 episodes for entire series. (The right-to-left thing is easier to get used to than you think, too.) Romance novels and mystery thrillers and science fiction and fantasy? Those count as reading. Many of the things you might have liked about the books you read as a child or a teenager are present in adult "genre" fiction, and many of the things you might despise about adult "literary" fiction (god, I hate that word, but that's another post) may be absent from those titles. E-books and audiobooks definitely count as reading, and they're often more accessible than paper books for some people. Anybody who tries to genre- or format-shame you is a dick and not worth talking to.

Go to your local library. All right, shameless self-promotion here, I'll admit it. But I promise you, if you walk into a library and say "I'm an adult, I stopped reading a while ago, and I'd like to start back up again but I need suggestions," you will make someone's day. I get asked for my opinion about books approximately once a month. I get asked how to use the printer approximately eighty-five times a day. I love helping with the printer and I'm saying that unironically, but my colleagues and I absolutely adore "readers' advisory" questions. If you come with the answers to the above questions about your preferred genres, formats, and reasons you'd like to read, it'll help the process, but most of us are trained to ask follow-up questions to get you the best possible book match. Do not apologize. You are not bothering us. It is literally part of our job. We want people to know that reading is fun, and you are a people.

[killerof1983]

i am my sole audience and 1940 billy seeing fnaf beatbox cracks me up just a smidge