Alice Ever After
Dan Panosian, writer & artist (Wonderland); Giorgio Spalletta, artist (London); Fabiana Mascolo, colorist
BOOM! Studios, 2023

The publisher’s blurb describes this as a sequel to the Alice in Wonderland stories. While technically true–since the heroine is indeed the Alice of the stories, all grown up–this story presents a gritty, mostly realistic version of an adult Alice largely out of her element in Victorian England. Alice is struggling to obtain drugs to feed her addiction, which is the only way she can escape to Wonderland. While this makes for a dark, realistic explanation for that fantasy world, it also robs it of most of its characteristic whimsy. There’s certainly nothing whimsical about the real world, either. Alice’s father is a dentist who makes his living replacing teeth rather than fixing them, and he is not particular about where he gets them from. When she has herself committed to the asylum Sacred Heart Hospital for the un-well, she discovers all kinds of corruption.  After those discoveries get her enrolled into an experimental treatment (which has the look of a frontal lobotomy), her sister and a friend attempt a rescue. But they are too late, so the story has an extremely bleak conclusion. This is an odd one. It is fundamentally a story about Victorian society with its rigid social class divisions, but the Alice connection is an undeniable hook.

Manor Black Volume 2: Fire in the Blood
Written by Cullen Bunn & Brian Hurtt; line art by Brian Hurtt; colors & lettering by Tyler Crook
Dark Horse Books, 2022

There was a long wait between this collection and the first volume, so it is surprising that so much of this installment is devoted to history, although it is directly relevant to the situation in the present. A lot of it is devoted to Roman’s return home after World War II (which is presented visually in evocative black and white). He is faced with a very elderly father who appears to be losing his faculties, and who has taken up with a fire mage. Things escalate quickly when family members start dying by fire, and before long we find out how the family’s original manor burned down. It all revolves around the blood mage needing a fire mage to save his house, which echoes Roman’s current situation. On the final page we learn that Roman has another son. So, this is a rich chapter in the story, even if it does not advance the plot by very much.

Mister Mammoth
Matt Kindt, writer; Jean-Denis Pendanx, illustrator
Dark Horse Books, 2023

This graphic novel from Kindt’s Flux House imprint had a French edition, which indicates the stylistic feeling of the book. It is very European in tone, which suits Kindt’s story well. Mister Mammoth is a seven-foot-tall pacifist covered in scars (because he gets into scrapes, but won’t fight back). He is acknowledged as the world’s greatest detective–he often solves cases almost immediately, without any need for investigation–but he has a problem with his current case. It involves a soap opera actress, and his client seems to be hiding something. The investigation continues to lead back to his mysterious traumatic childhood, which is intimately tied to the client. The conclusion is that to commit a truly perfect murder, one must have no memory of it. The story reaches an enigmatic ending, but the resolution seems clear. Pendanx’s illustrations have the look of impressionistic water colors, giving a sometimes-brutal story a beautiful look. The collection concludes with a sketchbook and notes by Kindt and Pendanx.