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Editor’s Choice :: Remember Us to Life

Remember Us to Life: A Graphic Memoir by Joanna Rubin Dranger book cover image

Remember Us to Life: A Graphic Memoir by Joanna Rubin Dranger
Ten Speed Graphic, April 2025

Told through a genre-defying blend of illustrations, photography, and found objects, Remember Us to Life chronicles Joanna Rubin Dranger’s investigation into her Jewish family’s history, spanning time, space, and three continents in search of her lost relatives. As discolored photos are retrieved from half-forgotten moth-eaten boxes, Joanna discovers the startling modernity and vibrancy of the lives her family never spoke about — and the devastating violence that led to their senseless murders.

Winner of the Nordic Council Literature Prize, Remember Us to Life recounts Joanna’s family’s immigration from Poland and Russia to Sweden and Israel, where her relatives found work, marriage, and community, blissfully unaware of the horrors to come. Interweaving these anecdotes and stories are historical accounts of the persecution of Jewish people in Germany, Poland, Lithuania, and Russia prior to and during World War II, as well as the antisemitic policies and actions of the supposedly neutral government of Sweden, Joanna’s home country. Joanna’s unflinchingly brave and intimate portrayal of one of history’s greatest tragedies will capture and break readers’ hearts.

[Editor’s Choice posts are not paid promotions. These are selected by NewPages to spotlight titles we want to share with our readers.]

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The Everyday Life of Cyclops

Guest Post by Kevin Brown.

Cyclopedia Exotica, the latest graphic novel by Aminder Dhaliwal, begins as a series of encyclopedia entries explaining how cyclops (or cyclopes, spelled both ways throughout the work) and Two-Eyes have interacted over time. Dhaliwal imagines a world where cyclops not only exist, but their history has combined with those of the Two-Eyes, referencing mythological works, but planting this relationship directly in the contemporary world.

Continue reading “The Everyday Life of Cyclops”

A Delightfully Spooky Treat

Guest Post by Lawrence Scales.

Even if you’re an avid reader of graphic novels, The Dylan Dog Case Files won’t be on your radar. Yet it’s billed as a book with over fifty-six million copies sold. That’s your first clue: it should be. The decades long Italian series about “nightmare detective” Dylan Dog and his Watson, cast as Groucho Marx (literally), is still releasing new issues. Overseas, Dylan Dog, created by Tiziano Sclavi, is sold in one hundred page black and white editions for a few American dollars.

Stateside, the only English copy of Dylan Dog’s cases— dealing with everything from zombies to invisible men— is this trade paperback collection from Dark Horse Comics released in 2009. The Case Files is a seven hundred-plus page tome containing several stories, with cover art by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola. It’ll set you back fifty dollars used. But it won’t be a penny wasted. The first story, drawn in a style akin to Egon Schiele, is the 1986 classic “Dawn of the Living Dead.”

The Case Files is the best drawn depiction of a pulp movie genre from Italy known as giallo. Like much Italian fare of the time, giallo was as known for its slashers and prog soundtracks as much as it’s looseness with copyright.

Likewise, The Case Files is a fast read that goes down like the best popcorn flicks. In print the best comparison would be Tales from the Crypt. Even horror fans unfamiliar with giallo will find a comforting familiarity with the material. The Dylan Dog Case Files may have a niche audience. But for those of us who fit within it, this collection is a delightfully spooky treat with some real scares.

The Dylan Dog Case Files by Tiziano Sclavi. Dark Horse Comics, April 2009.

Reviewer bio: Lawrence Scales is an artist living in Philadelphia. When he isn’t making art, he’s daydreaming about cats. You can find his work here and here.