Cat Getting Out of a Bag and Other Observations by Jeffrey Brown

Cat Getting Out of a Bag and Other Observations by Jeffrey Brown is, to put it simply, the greatest thing ever. It's literally a bunch of random, hilarious, and adorable cat videos, in the form of 9-panel (or occasionally 18-panel) comics, instead of actual videos. That's the whole book.

Cartoonist Jeffrey Brown has created over 30 books, about all sorts of different subjects. He even released a follow-up to this book, called Cats Are Weird: And More Observations. This man has way too much time on his hands, and that's why his work is brilliant.

Orc Stain by James Stokoe

The world has been overrun by orckind for a million millennia. Kingdoms rise and fall in a matter of months—or days. The world is chaos, but chaos is all the world's ever known.

However, one day an orc rises to power—and doesn't fall back down. He manages to unite kingdoms never thought uniteable, and conquer lands never thought conquerable. Timeless borders are abolished; ancient lands are littered with the corpses of any who stand in the way of the southern world's new tyrant. Nothing can escape the wrath of the Orctzar.

Far up north lives our protagonist, a one-eyed orc nicknamed "One-Eye". (None of them have actual names, but the greatest are given numbers post-mortem.) One-Eye likes to stick to his own business—busting locks, and surviving. He lives in a part of the world that's mostly at peace—or as much at peace as a province filled with orcs ever could be—doing what he can to stay out of trouble.

Unbeknownst to One-Eye, the Orctzar has learned from an ancient prophetess that in order to find an object of great power that he seeks, he must find an unspecified one-eyed orc in the north. Eager to obtain this object, and be supreme ruler of the entire world, the Orctzar sends multitudes of troops to round up every one-eyed orc in the northern hemisphere of the planet. One-Eye obviously wants nothing to do with these goings-on, and hightails the hell out of there.

This is the premise to the first volume of Orc Stain by James Stokoe, a beautiful, crazy and vulgar graphic novel about a brilliant and insane world. Stokoe is the creator, writer, artist, colorist, and letterer. Seeing as this is a top-quality graphic novel with incredible art, hilarious writing, and an tremendous amount of worldbuilding, that is mightily impressive.

Stokoe takes us on a highly fantastical tale though incredibly intricate lands, full of strange creatures and odd whatnots. It's a very unique concept, and the amount of content packed into this book (168 full-color pages) is impressive. The fact that it was all created one man is awe-inspiring. If this seems like something you'd be interested in, definitely check it out.

Caution: Orc Stain contains adult content and is intended for mature readers.

The Circle Series: Visual Edition by Ted Dekker

If you know me, you probably know I've been a Ted Dekker fan for a long time. Some of his stories I can't stand, while others are simply amazing. One of Dekker's most well-known works is his Books of History Chronicles, which ties several of his series and standalone novels together. That all started with the Circle Trilogy, released back in 2004. It was the Circle that introduced readers to the wondrous fantasy world of Other Earth, and it set the foundations for many spectacular stories to come.

The Circle Series: Visual Edition contains the complete graphic novels Black: The Birth of Evil, Red: The Heroic Rescue, and White: The Great Pursuit, based on their counterpart novels of the same names. The fourth and final novel in the literary series, Green: The Beginning and the End (or Green: The Last Stand) has not yet been adapted into graphic novel format. This is fine, and actually a good thing, because it works better as the standalone sequel to three of Dekker's series, and should only be read after reading all of its predecessors.

The Visual Edition is surprisingly pretty good. I actually liked the art style once I got used to it. It still follows the same story as the novels, of course, but it feels largely abridged. This is needed, so that it will even fit in comic format, but it doesn't feel like it tells the full story. It would be confusing and probably cheesy to people who have not already experienced the story.

My biggest complaint with the Visual Edition of the Circle Series is that it's not a good place to start the story for those who have not read the novels. Because the creators had to skip a lot of content, the plot feels slightly rushed and confusing. In addition, my favorite scene from the novel White was removed altogether.

In conclusion, it's a fun and cool way to revisit the world of the Circle, but only to those who have already experienced the trilogy. I would not recommend it those who haven't yet taken the plunge.