REVIEW - Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes

By Bruno Savill De Jong — Over 30 years later, the events in Tiananmen Square still hold a powerful resonance. Those widespread protests seem particularly resonant given the current resurgence in support for Black Lives Matter. Even if Tiananmen Square’s demonstration are not exactly comparable, they still function as an important cautionary tale. Often the protests are only remembered for their tragic end, when the Chinese government violently dispersed the gatherings and continued to eradicate them from their official history. But in Tiananmen 1989, Lun Zhang, with assistance from journalist Adrien Gombeaud and artist Ameziane, provides a first-hand account of the inner-workings of the protests, detailing the political tensions within Beijing as youthful hopes for reform were dashed against the hardened and uncompromising state.

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A Radical Shift of Gravity - Graphic Novel Review

By Bruno Savill De Jong — As the first pages of IDW / Top Shelf’s graphic novel A Radical Shift of Gravity remind us, perspective is a funny thing. It begins with journalist Noah Hall interviewing people, finding how “where they were when ‘it’ happened” shapes their entire worldview afterwards. ‘It’ is an inexplicable selective “Shift” in human’s gravitational pull (other objects being unaffected), reducing it to roughly the same as the Moon.

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The Lab by Allison Conway - GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW

By Ariel Baska — This is a harrowing and relentless debut from Allison Conway, and it follows a newly-minted big-headed biped on a twisted journey through a sinister lab. Notably, the narrative is completely silent of commentary, except for the pathos wrung from our protagonist’s small, pained eyes. Those eyes are the first lights we see in the cross-hatched gray and black nothingness from which the vision of the lab emerges.

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