Meanwhile...

The above image is maybe my second favorite one from Luke Ramsey's challenging but fairly awesome new book, Intelligent Sentient? (my first favorite? That's at the top of this post at Robot 6). At first glance, it's just a guy with a comically huge and elaborate gun, the sort you might seek Rocket holding on one of Skottie Young's covers for his Marvel series Rocket Raccoon. Closer inspection, however, reveals that the various guns are all taped and/or tied together to form one big, elaborate gun. I like the little rock-throwing slingshot at the top, but the foremost  of the "bayonets," the one that would be most likely to poke you if he jabbed his gun at you, is probably my favorite detail.

I reviewed Intelligent Sentient?, along with Lucy Knisley's Displacement, at Robot 6 this week; you can read the post at the above link. They are both beautifully drawn and are both gun reads, but it's hard to imagine two books more different in visual or narrative style. So why did I review them both in the same column? Um, well, they were both released in February, so I felt like I was running out of time to discuss them in a timely fashion, and, well, I couldn't choose between which to highlight, so I highlighted them both. Check out the piece and, if those sound like things your interested in—honestly, I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't be interested in Knisley's short travelogue/memoir—check the books themselves out.

I also reviewed Toon Books' latest volume of the late, great French cartoonist Fred's Philemon adventures, The Wild Piano, the title sequence of which is fantastic, at Good Comics For Kids this week. This volume is a bit stronger than the previous one, but given the fact that it rather closely follows the events of the original, you'll want to start with Cast Away on the Letter A (Any decent library should carry both).