Holiday Gift Guide: Amanda’s Suggestions

In the Limelight

Holiday Gift Guide: Amanda’s Suggestions

December is the time of year when gift-giving is on our minds as we hunt for the perfect presents for friends and family. If you are seeking gifts for the comic book lovers in your life, the Gemstone staff would like to offer some interesting suggestions of trades and graphic novels that they might enjoy. In this case, the selections come from our Associate Editor Amanda Sheriff.

Gotham City Sirens – Book 1
By Paul Dini, Guillem March, Tony Bedard, and Andres Guinaldo
DC Comics; $24.99

In Gotham City Sirens, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, and Poison Ivy ‒ the three most popular villainesses of Gotham ‒ get together for hijinks and shared hideout. That’s right, the ladies take the spotlight. What’s not to love?!

Initially published in June 2009, the story is set after the events of Heart of Hush, Batman R.I.P., Final Crisis, and Battle for the Cowl. Catwoman is suffering from limitations after Heart of Hush and is saved by Poison Ivy. They go back to Ivy’s new hideout where Harley Quinn is also living, prompting Harley to suggest that they team up.

Ivy and Harley try to coax Catwoman into telling them the identity of Batman, they interact with Riddler, face Hush, Harley deals with her dysfunctional family, Ivy is framed for murder, and Catwoman encounters her unstable sister.

Gotham City Sirens is very entertaining. It’s quintessential comics with great action, interesting story, beautiful, vivid art, and a variety of panel designs. All three of the ladies have strong personalities and each is tested – facing their own weaknesses and insecurities. Of course, they end up fighting each other often enough, but collectively, they stick together.

With a Gotham City Sirens movie in the works, now is a great time to read the source material before any plot points are ruined by spoilers.

Joyride ‒ Volume 1
By Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, Marcus To, and Irma Kniivila
BOOM! Studios; $9.99

Joyride begins with rebellion and the promise of adventure. The Earth is covered by a bubble called SafeSky because people believe that the real sky is filled with dangerous aliens. They are convinced of this through the propaganda that saturates their lives, via the world government, Triumvirate.

That’s when the adventurous Uma and her unfailingly loyal best friend Dewydd – who also has a huge crush on her – decide to breach SafeSky and explore the universe. While escaping they are unintentionally joined by security guard Catrin, causing immediate tension with Uma. From there, they visit an alien mall, wander into a quarantined zone, and explore an uncharted planet.

But, Joyride is more than just a light, adventure sci-fi story. That’s the tone of the first few issues, and it’s very entertaining. The characters are likeable even when they don’t like each other, and the art and colors are creative with designs that harken to other sci-fi material, while also producing some fresh character and setting designs.

Joyride travels beyond the lighthearted tone with some heroic stories, acts of sacrifice, and real, relatable relationships. In the beginning, the reader is tempted to predict where characters will end up, but instead are continuously surprised by revelations and development that happens in refreshingly organic ways. This title was in my top three favorite comics of 2016. No contest.

Lady Killer – Volume 1
By Joëlle Jones and Jamie S. Rich
Dark Horse; $17.99

Josie Schuller lives in 1960s upper middle class, white-collar bliss. Her husband adores her and has a good job, her children are healthy and happy, and she is an accomplished assassin. Yes, you read that right.

She appears as the perfect stay at home mother in a time when suburban portions of America were cookie-cutter and squeaky clean. But, in realty Josie is a contract killer who indiscriminately takes on missions to murder whoever is on her dossier. Some of those jobs do get plenty messy – think Kathleen Turner in Serial Mom – which makes the book a bit shocking.

But what really stirs the reader, is that Josie actually loves her family. She’s not devoid of emotion, she cares very much and wants to make them happy, and keep them safe from the other side of her double life. Granted, that gets difficult when she starts having problems with her employer, not to mention her suspicious, cantankerous mother-in-law.

Lady Killer is a good read for anyone who appreciates dark humor and breaking stereotypes. The story is wonderfully bizarre, and the art combines sharp angles with sterility of the setting and complete messiness of Josie’s life – and her kills.

Mockingbird ‒ Volume 1: I Can Explain
By Chelsea Cain and Kate Niemczyk
Marvel; $17.99

Bobbi Morse, a/k/a Mockingbird is an Agent of SHIELD, a former Avenger, and now solo heroine. It starts with a nice issue of introductory material, then quickly she and Lance Hunter are infiltrating the Hellfire Club. From there she encounters a preteen who has developed powers, and there’s also some dog-sitting.

The first arc of this limited series was framed in a really cool way. In the debut issue, we see Mockingbird enduring tests for her mental and physical health. It keeps jumping forward week by week with the same tests, yet each time she goes, we get a teaser about that week’s predicament. The issues that follow fill in those gaps by showing us what happened between the pages. This makes the debut issue a perfect bookend, because after finding out why she was dressed like a dominatrix, you’ll want to reread the beginning to search for what you might have missed.

This book hooked me because it was written by Chelsea Cain. Though she was new to comics, Cain is an accomplished novelist and columnist. She wrote a shocking, intelligent crime novel series (starting with Heartsick) that pushed psychological boundaries without being too gratuitous and provided a new kind of killer villain.

Her work on Mockingbird did not disappoint. The tone is very different from those novels – as it should be for this type of story – but her articulate style, biting wit, and wonderful storytelling capabilities made it just as great.

The Walking Dead ‒ Volume 1: Days Gone Bye
By Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore
Image Comics; $14.99

I know, this seems obvious – everyone and their mother has heard of The Walking Dead. But, it’s the type of story that can entice and attract non-comic readers, particularly those who are fans of the TV show, those that like horror, and those who appreciate stories that explore psychology and sociology.

The protagonist of the ongoing black and white comic book series is Kentucky Police Deputy Rick Grimes. It opens with Rick getting shot while on duty, then waking up from a coma weeks later to learn that a zombie apocalypse has begun and it appears that he is the last man alive.

That is proven incorrect fairly quickly when he meets fellow survivors Morgan and his son Duane. Miraculously, he even finds his wife and son, Lori and Carl, who have become part of a group of survivors. They are involuntarily nomadic, searching for a home protected from the walkers, and soon learn that the most dangerous foe in the zombie apocalypse is actually other humans.

Zombie stories aren’t exactly new territory. What makes The Walking Dead so interesting is that unlike other zombie apocalypse narratives, it doesn’t end after surviving the first major attack. It continues beyond that point, delving into long-term survival tactics, complications in group dynamics, the changing sociological landscape, psychological damage from extreme violence, balancing the need for survival with a sense of morality, and the blunt fact that the people who will survive the longest are likely the absolute most dangerous. Whether intrinsically or overtly, it makes readers question how far good people can go to survive and protect their loved ones when the world has effectively ended.

-Amanda Sheriff

Stay tuned for more holiday gift suggestions from Gemstone’s comic-loving staff.

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