Today’s stack: several comics from the big pile!
Mapmakers trilogy written by Cameron Chittock, illustrated by Amanda Castillo
This trilogy was originally published from 2022 to 2024, and I finally got around to reading the whole thing recently. The three titles in order are: Mapmakers and the Lost Magic, Mapmakers and the Enchanted Mountain, and Mapmakers and the Flickering Fortress. At the heart of the story is Alidade Rose, a girl who lives in the small village of Alden but yearns for something more. That frequently gets her in trouble with the Night Coats, who run the town and insist that everyone stay in their place.
But then, while lost in the forest, Alidade and her friend Lewis discover a magical hidden lodge that used to belong to the Mapmakers—and they discover an old map of their valley that didn’t line up with their own experience. Within the map is a Memri—a magical being that is tied to the land and this map—and the two friends soon find themselves on an adventure through the three books, seeking out other Mapmakers and figuring out what happened to all the other Memris.
The books are about building community and being honest and authentic—and the kids (and other young Mapmakers) soon find that the Night Coats had their own nefarious reasons for hunting down and destroying the old maps. It’s also about a group that rules through control and fear, who rewrites history to their own liking—something that seems pretty pertinent these days.
Zicky: Wrath of the Rat King written by Darin S. Cape, illustrated by Zeno Decrux and Hiorsh Gabotto
Zachary—known as Zicky to his family—has a secret: when night falls and he’s supposed to be sleeping, he travels through a portal to a magical realm, where he becomes a sword-wielding dynamo battling against the evil Rat King and his minions. The Rat King wants access to Zicky’s real world through the portal, if he can figure out how Zicky opens it every morning. In the meantime, during the day, Zicky is just a little kid with a binky around his neck, telling stories about his adventures to his parents and siblings, who just think he’s playing make-believe… until the dangers come crashing into their world.
This is actually based on stories that Cape and his two kids made up about a baby Zicky and his adventures, now brought to life as a comic book. It has some of the hallmarks of a kid-written story in it, with over-the-top action scenes and silly tropes, and it’s illustrated in a manga-inspired style with exaggerated facial expressions and lots of zoom lines. It’s billed as a book for ages 9+, though it’s also somewhat gory: Zicky beheads a rat minion with his sword within the first few pages. It also wasn’t entirely clear to me how old the real-world Zicky was supposed to be: he’s not in school yet, but he doesn’t entirely act or look like a toddler anymore. It’s definitely an imaginative story, though, and a fun example of a dad creating something with his kids and then bringing it to life.
Inbetweens by Faith Erin Hicks
Sloane and Ash are twin sisters who have dreamed of becoming animators ever since fourth grade, when they went on the Magic of Animation ride at Disney World. Now they’re in high school, and they have the opportunity to attend Ormindale College’s summer animation program. But Ash finds that animation is a little harder than she expected, and while Sloane uncharacteristically makes some friends in the program, she isn’t so sure that animation is what she wants to do after all.
Faith Erin Hicks is just so great at coming-of-age stories, about teenagers figuring things out about themselves and each other, and Inbetweens is another example of just that. It’s about two sisters navigating the shifts in their relationship with each other, and also about what happens when you meet kindred spirits who introduce you to new experiences. (The story is set in the early ’90s, and one of the other students introduces them to anime for the first time.) It’s also about disillusionment: one of the animation instructors is Ash’s hero—but although she absolutely adores his first movie (a very Iron Giant–like cartoon), she gradually realizes that he’s not actually such a great person and might not be the one whose advice she needs the most.
It’s also just a fun look at animation, something that I’ve always loved. Hicks has worked in animation herself, and has put a little of her own experience in Sloane’s and Ash’s story.
The Corus Wave by Karenza Sparks
Lorelei is a geology grad student, working on a thesis about an odd star-shaped fossil, when she finds an obscure reference to Havius Corus. Corus was a 19th-century polymath who apparently proposed some really weird theory about the universe that was rejected by the scientific community, and then died in obscurity, with his theory of the “Corus Wave” lost to history. Her only lead is an eccentric local archivist in a town where Corus had designed several prominent structures, and she and her housemate Eddie find themselves on a scavenger hunt that may finally reveal Corus’s abandoned theory.
This one was pretty fun—a little bit of mystery, a little bit of mystical thought, and a little bit Scooby-Doo style meddling. The book itself is in black and white, which is a bit of a shame because the colors on the cover are so striking, and the illustrations—which were created in Clip Studio Paint, according to the copyright page—do have a style that reminds me of early-2000s webtoons. I really enjoyed the story, though, and there’s a certain charm to the basic-looking font used in the speech bubbles and the simplified drawing style.
Disclosure: I received review copies of these titles. Affiliate links to Bookshop.org help support my writing and independent booksellers.
