psocoptera

Young Hag and the Witches' Quest, Isabel Greenberg, 2024 YA graphic fantasy, or possibly I mean middlegrade. Arthurian, but mostly centered on an original character and taking place after Arthur's death, with flashbacks being told as stories within the story that mostly focus on the female characters. I enjoy seeing people find new directions to take the Matter of Britain and I thought this was a good one. Also it was funny and made me laugh out loud a couple of times, and Greenberg has a really interesting art style, kind of intentionally childlike and sometimes scribbly, but really expressive. (And nice use of a limited color palate, and some neat scenery stuff with standing stones and a river, and a cute and funny baby.) I had Hugo-nominated this on the chance that I would end up wanting to have done that, and, yay, I did, good call past me.

Also I ended up reading this book partly on Hoopla and partly on paper (with reading glasses! they work!) which meant I could do a direct comparison of which felt like a smoother/easier reading experience. Digital comics interfaces have come a long way - Hoopla will show you the page, then each panel so you can read it, then the page again, and only got confused about panel order on a couple of two-page spreads - but I tried timing myself reading 20 pages each way and it was still faster for me to read on paper. (With reading glasses, because the lettering here is small.) It's useful to know that the Hoopla interface is a workable way for me to read comics, though!