Super Hero Themed Books for You

Fearless and Fantastic! by Sam Maggs
Genre: Non Fiction | Middle Grade | Graphic Novel
Length: 128 pages
Published on 18th December 2018 by DK Publishing
Purchase*: Amazon | Wordery
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Sam Maggs: Website | Twitter | Goodreads
Received for free from the publisher whilst sponsoring an event in exchange for an honest review

Synopsis: More than 50 incredible female Super Heroes from the Marvel Comics universe inspire girls and women of all ages to be powerful, passionate, and persistent.

From Captain Marvel and Wasp to Storm and Shuri, this beautiful book profiles dozens of aspirational female comic-book characters, all of whom use their intelligence, strength, kindness, and courage to help others and save the world. Fierce fan-favorites such as Gamora, Squirrel Girl, and Black Widow feature alongside lesser known faces from all corners of the Marvel comic-book universe. Young girls will discover modern, diverse heroes they can relate to and look up to, including America Chavez and Kamala Khan. Featuring a foreword by Marvel Comics writer Kelly Thompson, DK’s Fearless and Fantastic! is the ultimate tribute to Marvel’s most powerful women and girls, and a treasured gift for comic fans.

Illustrated with stunning comic-book artwork, and featuring inspiring quotations, each short biography is carefully curated to focus on the character’s key abilities and achievements. With four chapters based on personal qualities– Determined, Daring, Compassionate, and Curious–this book for girls and women of all ages will create new fans of comics, as well as inspiring comic-book creators of the future.

I’ve already spoke about the Feminist Icons event I attended where DK sponsored it and I got this book.

I had a great time and figured it was due time that I picked it up as a nice break between novels I’ve been speeding through.

Fearless and Fantastic! Female Super Heroes Save the World is the perfect book to give to any younger reader interested in Super Heroes.

Particularly any girls who feel theirs no place for them in the nerdy kind of world.

This is a great collection of Female comic book characters and is broke up into different sections; determined, daring, compassionate, and curious.

All traits that any one of us can possess.

The layout of this book is the same throughout – a large illustration of the character on one side and her name, a quote, and paragraph or two about them.

Its written in a very accessable manner and often relates the characters to real life by talking about the pets they cared for, their regular day to day jobs, and what they achieve even without super powers.

The illustrations are all beautiful and whilst I’ve indicated this is great for youger readers and new fans I do also see this being a staple book for any long time comic fan too!

Whilst reading I also enjoyed tabbing any pages that featured my favourite heroes so it’ll be good to look back on in a few years and see if my opinions are the same.

4 stars / 5 stars

Super Graphic by Tim Leong
Genre: Non Fiction | Adult | Graphic Novel
Length: 196 pages
Published on 1st July 2013 by Chronicle Books
Purchase*: Amazon | Wordery
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Tim Leong: Website | Twitter | Goodreads
Received as a gift for Christmas a few years back

Synopsis: he comic book universe is adventurous, mystifying, and filled with heroes, villains, and cosplaying Comic-Con attendees. This book by one of Wired magazine’s art directors traverses the graphic world through a collection of pie charts, bar graphs, timelines, scatter plots, and more. Super Graphic offers readers a unique look at the intricate and sometimes contradictory storylines that weave their way through comic books, and shares advice for navigating the pages of some of the most popular, longest-running, and best-loved comics and graphic novels out there. From a colorful breakdown of the DC Comics reader demographic to a witty Venn diagram of superhero comic tropes and a Chris Ware sadness scale, this book charts the most arbitrary and monumental characters, moments, and equipment of the wide world of comics.

To follow theme I decided to pick up an older non fiction book that is also focused on super heroes.

Super Graphic is a collection of infographics based on a wide variety of comics and graphic novels.

I really liked the layout of this book as each infographic had a title and a little bit of text to explain it. This allowed for easy skipping should the pages be on a comic you had 0 interest in.

There was also a nice variety of stats used, some were a bit more personal and humorous wheras others were very factual.

Whilst I did enjoy this and can see it being an enjoyable read for some its definitely for an older audience than the first book mentioned and if you’re not big on statistics it might be a pass for you.

As mentioned, humour was dotted throughout. Sometimes the design of the infographic reflected a heroes mask or logo and sometimes the information included adult humour like “shoots white sticky stuff”. Hey its about Spider-Man you filth.

My favourite two are the ones that I’d actually love to see updated versions of: The Punisher’s Kill Count and Power Publishers.

The first because I’d love to see the recent Netflix series added to it and the secomd because I think it’d be really interesting to see how publishing has changed since 2013.

Overall a nice read to flick through but its unlikely I’d re-read it.

3 stars / 5 stars

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