Mike Spring
What’s New in Home Video & Pop Culture – December 11th, 2025
What a mix of titles we have this week! Everything from giant snakes to kids’ movies to Godzilla to erotic cinema to break dancing, and everything in between. It’s the true definition of ‘something for everyone’! Check out the full details below!
In This Week’s Column:
- Anaconda (4K Ultra HD + Digital Steelbook)
- Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie (Blu-ray + Digital)
- His Girl Friday (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray)
- Triple Threat: Three Films With Sammo Hung (Blu-ray)
- Wild Style (4K Ultra HD)
- Saga Erotica: The Emmanuelle Collection (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray)
- Beast of War (Blu-ray)
- Robin And The Hoods (DVD)
- Godzilla: Library Collection Volume 5 (Graphic Novel)
- Where There’s Smoke, There’s Dinner: Confessions of a Cartoonist Cook (Graphic Novel)
Anaconda (4K Ultra HD + Digital Steelbook)
Official Synopsis:
While travelling down the Amazon River, documentary film director Terri Flores (Jennifer Lopez) and her crew pick up grizzled snake hunter Paul Serone (Jon Voight), who claims he can help them find the lost Indian tribe they’re looking for. But it’s not long before Flores and her people are reluctantly along for the ride on Serone’s quest to capture a gigantic, man-eating snake. Ice Cube, Owen Wilson, Kari Wuhrer, and Eric Stoltz co-star in this slitheringly suspenseful action tale.
The Movie:
It’s funny to think that the original 1997 Anaconda was a surprise hit, considering that it starred Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Owen Wilson, John Voight, and a giant snake. Of course, at the time, it was one of J. Lo’s first starring roles after gaining some notice for her starring role in the biopic Selena, Ice Cube was still mostly known for his music more than for his acting, and Owen Wilson was largely still unknown. (The giant snake had had a few roles up to this point, but this was its first leading role.)
I’ve been a huge fan of Anaconda since it came out, and it’s one of those movies I re-watch every few years. I’m a huge creature feature fan, and Anaconda is a really well-constructed movie, with a plot that makes sense, characters that are at least somewhat interesting, good pacing, and a few twists and turns along the way. There’s some good CGI and some not-so-good CGI (It was 1997, after all), but by and large the snake effects, especially the practical ones, hold up well, and the film is a lot of fun.
Now, ahead of the upcoming new theatrical Anaconda film starring Paul Rudd and Jack Black, Sony has re-released the original film on 4K Ultra HD in a shiny new Steelbook case, and it’s a great addition to your collection.
The 4K Video/Audio:
The 4K Ultra HD presentation of Anaconda offers up a nice audiovisual upgrade. Image clarity is nice and sharp, and the print is free of any blemishes or artifacts, and that’s what you would hope for. The color saturation is solid, with some moments where some real vibrancy shines through, and the film has a nice, warm tone to it that gives it a lot of life. The surround soundtrack nicely bolsters music and dialogue, both of which sound great, while the action scenes take on new life and fill in the satellite speakers nicely. A very strong effort overall.
The Bonus Features:
- Commentary with Genre Expert Scott Harrison
- Interview with Director Luis Llosa
- Interview with Co-writer Hans Bauer
- Deleted & Extended Scenes
- Theatrical Trailers
Digital Copy Included: Yes
Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie (Blu-ray + Digital)
Official Synopsis:
DreamWorks Animation brings its smash hit streaming series to life as a big adventure in Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie! Gabby (Laila Lockhart Kraner) and Grandma Gigi (Gloria Estefan) set off on a magical road trip to Cat Francisco. But when her dollhouse is swiped by the eccentric cat lady, Vera (Kristen Wiig), Gabby embarks on a real-world rescue mission full of surprises, sparkles, and heart.
The Movie:
When I first saw the trailer for Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie, my first question was, “What the heck is Gabby’s Dollhouse?” With my kids long past the age of watching children’s programming, I’m not as dialed in as I used to be, and I had to look up what Gabby’s Dollhouse even was. It turns out it’s a kids’ show that airs on Netflix that has become incredibly popular. It was created by Blue’s Clues creatives Traci Paige Johnson and Jennifer Twomey, and it’s aired over 80 episodes over the course of eleven (admittedly shorter) seasons. The show is a hybrid of live-action bumpers and animated main segments, and that formula was carried over for the movie.
In the film, cat-lover Gabby hits the road with her grandmother only to lose her beloved dollhouse, which ends up in the hands of an obsessive cat lady. Gabby has to utilize all her cat-tricks to get it back. And that’s pretty much the gist of the story; it’s not a complex plot. The film has some good supporting actors in it, such as Kristen Wiig as the film’s ostensible villain, Gloria Estefan, and Jason Mantzoukis, but be aware that the movie is squarely aimed at pre-schoolers. There are interactive moments where your children will be asked to do things like hold hands and clap and sing, so it might get a bit loud when you have the movie on in your house. I suspect young children will love it.
The Bonus Features:
• Deleted Scene: “Vera Meets Cakey Cat”
• Gabby’s Dollhouse: Making the Meowvie!
• Pawsome Performances
• Meet the Clowder
• Kitty Cat Surprise Snack Box
• Cakey’s Pretzel Cabin
• Feature Commentary with Director/Story Writer Ryan Crego, Producer Steven Schweickart, Visual Effects Supervisor M. Scott McKee, Head of Story David Colman, and Head of Character Animation CJ Sarachene
Digital Copy Included: Yes
His Girl Friday (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray)
Official Synopsis:
One of the fastest, funniest, and most quotable films ever made, His Girl Friday stars Rosalind Russell as reporter Hildy Johnson, a standout among cinema’s powerful women. Hildy is matched in force only by her conniving but charismatic editor and ex-husband, Walter Burns (played by the peerless Cary Grant), who dangles the chance for her to scoop her fellow news writers with the story of an impending execution in order to keep her from hopping the train that’s supposed to take her to Albany and a new life as a housewife. When adapting Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s smash-hit play The Front Page, director Howard Hawks had the inspired idea of turning star reporter Hildy Johnson into a woman, and the result is an immortal mix of hard-boiled newsroom setting with ebullient remarriage comedy. Also presented here is a restoration of the 1931 film The Front Page, Lewis Milestone’s famous pre-Code adaptation of the same material.
The Movie:
His Girl Friday, the original screwball comedy makes its 4K Ultra HD debut courtesy of The Criterion Collection. Starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, this comedy directed by the great Howard Hawks is a remake of 1931’s The Front Page, both based on the play by the classic duo of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.
His Girl Friday (which sees Russell’s character changed to a woman from the previous film) really set the pace for a whole genre of classic comedy films, with its rapid-fire dialogue and flirty interplay between Grant and Russell. I’m a huge Cary Grant fan and always have been, and watching him and Russell throw it back and forth is dazzling. With a mystery driving the plot, crime drama, and plenty of comedy, it’s a magical mix that results in a film that’s almost too fast to follow sometimes, but is still an utter classic.
What makes this release so amazing is that it also includes the 1931 version of The Front Page as a bonus presentation on a second disc (Blu-ray, not 4K), so you get two movies for the price of one. With the extra movie and a ton of bonus features, this one is the must-have release of the week
The 4K Video/Audio:
As usual for Criterion, they’ve given His Girl Friday a ground-up restoration, and the film looks and sounds the best I’ve ever seen it. The film is a black-and-white affair, so colors aren’t a factor, but contrasts are stronger, the blacks are deeper, the shadow delineation is much clearer, and the overall image clarity is sharper than previous home video editions. The soundtrack options are working with limited fidelity due to the age of the film, but I certainly don’t hear anything to complain about; music and – most importantly – that rapid fire dialogue remain clear and present at all times. This is a top-notch effort from Criterion.
The Bonus Features:
- Interview with film scholar David Bordwell
- Archival interviews with His Girl Friday director Howard Hawks
- Featurettes from 1999 and 2006 about Hawks and actor Rosalind Russell
- Radio adaptation of His Girl Friday from 1940
- Program about the restoration of The Front Page
- Program about playwright and screenwriter Ben Hecht
- Radio adaptations of the play The Front Page from 1937 and 1946
- Trailers
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Plus: Essays on His Girl Friday and The Front Page by film critics Farran Smith Nehme and Michael Sragow
Digital Copy Included: No
Triple Threat: Three Films With Sammo Hung (Blu-ray)
Official Synopsis:
Presented here are three films spanning Hung’s career, from a supporting role in The Manchu Boxer to stardom in Paper Marriage and Shanghai, Shanghai. Just as the kung fu film seemed to be losing steam as the 1970s came to a close, a new generation of martial arts stars rose to the top of Hong Kong cinema. Amongst them were Yuen Biao, Jackie Chan and the irrepressible Sammo Hung, who found fame as the director and star of The Iron Fisted Monk, The Magnificent Butcher and Encounter of the Spooky Kind. Presented here are three films spanning Hung’s career, from a supporting role in The Manchu Boxer to stardom in Paper Marriage and Shanghai, Shanghai.
In Wu Ma’s The Manchu Boxer, Hung (who doubles up as the film’s fight choreographer) plays the villainous foil to a roaming martial artist who enters a boxing tournament to defeat a gang of bandits. Then, in the action comedy Paper Marriage, Hung stars as a down-on-his-luck Chinese boxer living in Canada who is paid to marry an immigrant from Hong Kong (Maggie Cheung). She wants to gain Canadian citizenship, but he just wants to keep the loan sharks off his back. Finally, in Shanghai, Shanghai, a young man (Yuen Biao) goes looking for his brother, a police officer, in the big city – and also finds himself embroiled with a ruthless gangster played by Hung
From traditional kung fu to romantic comedy to a tale of cops and crooks with shades of the “heroic bloodshed” films so popular in the 1980s and early 1990s, The Manchu Boxer, Paper Marriage and Shanghai, Shanghai exhibit Sammo Hung’s enormous range and chart his rise from supporting player to top-billed star. Eureka Classics is proud to present all three films.
The Movies:
Of the many Asian action stars out there in the post-Bruce Lee world, few have had a career as interesting as Sammo Hung’s has been. Sure, Jackie Chan and Jet Li have been more successful as movie stars, (and Donnie Yen may not be a household name in the U.S. but he’s a bona fide superstar in Asian countries), but Hung’s career has really traversed some interesting paths.
He started out as an actor, quickly moving into fight choreography, and then became an incredibly successful director, all while continuing to serve triple duty by appearing in front of the camera and doing fight choreography for select projects. So over the past five deacades he’s starred in hundreds of films, directed dozens of others with big name stars, and developed stunts and fights for even more. He’s also the only one of the aforementioned stars who had his own episodic television series in the U.S. – 1998’s Martial Law, a spin-off of Walker, Texas Ranger that ran for two seasons.
The new box set, Triple Threat: Three Films With Sammo Hung, from Eureka Classics celebrates some of Hung’s films as an actor, and while the selection of the films might be a little bit random, as a fan of Hung’s, I can’t complain. In the release, we get The Manchu Boxer (1974), Paper Marriage (1988), and Shanghai, Shanghai (1990). The Manchu Boxer is one of Hung’s earliest films and he only appears in a supporting role. It’s the weakest of the three films for me, not because Hung’s role is small but just because it’s so mired in ‘70s tropes and filmmaking styles. Which movie you’ll prefer between Paper Marriage and Shanghai, Shanghai will come down to personal tastes; I loved them both, but the comedy elements in Paper Marriage won me over just a touch over the more gritty Shanghai, Shanghai. Both are great films, though.
While I would have preferred a more chronological collection or maybe more of a “greatest hits” approach, I understand that Eureka may be limited by what movies they can get the rights to, and I still think overall this is an outstanding collection. A great pick-up for any fans of Asian action cinema.
The Bonus Features:
- Limited edition exclusive bonus disc
- Limited edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing on Sammo Hung
- New audio commentary on The Manchu Boxer with East Asian cinema expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival) and martial artist & filmmaker Michael Worth
- New audio commentary on Paper Marriage with genre cinema experts Stefan Hammond and Arne Venema
- New audio commentary on Shanghai, Shanghai with Frank Djeng and producer/writer F.J. DeSanto
- New interview with Paper Marriage director Alfred Cheung
- Trailers
Digital Copy Included: No
Wild Style (4K Ultra HD + CD)
Official Synopsis:
A unique hybrid of fiction and documentary, the story of lone graffiti artist Lee “Zoro” Quiñones trying to achieve success on his own terms.
In early 1980s New York City, independent filmmaker Charlie Ahearn and downtown artist Fred Brathwaite ventured uptown with the aim of capturing an exciting new underground scene that was happening in the South Bronx, a scene that featured graffiti artists, breakdancing b-boys and two turntables and a microphone. The result was Wild Style, and to many viewers it was their first glimpse of the musical and cultural phenomenon called hip-hop.
The story is brought to vivid life with support by Fred “Fab 5 Freddy” Brathwaite, Sandra “Lady Pink” Fabara and Patti Astor, and with historic music performances by such luminaries as Grandmaster Flash, Busy Bee, The Fantastic Five, The Cold Crush Brothers and The Rock Steady Crew. To create the score, Chris Stein (Blondie) would collaborate with Brathwaite to produce the actual breakbeats to be used in the film, an inspired decision that would provide a source of obsession among crate diggers for decades to come.
Endlessly sampled, imitated and debated, Wild Style is the truest portrait of the hip-hop scene during its early years, and remains one of the most important music films ever made. Arrow Films is proud to present Wild Style in an exclusive new 4K restoration with hours of brand-new bonus features, vintage interviews and featurettes.
The Movie:
When I watch movies, I always watch them for enjoyment first and anything that comes along with that is just a bonus. Like, you can tell me all about filmmaking techniques or narrative style or innovative direction or historical importance, but if I don’t enjoy a movie, then I really don’t care about any of that stuff. Now, that’s not a preamble to say that I didn’t enjoy Wild Style, because I did, but it is a movie that works much better as a document, a snapshot in time if you will, than it does as a narrative drama.
The film’s story follows a graffiti artist in Brooklyn in the early 1980s, and the plot isn’t particularly dep. The acting was mostly done by people who weren’t actors, and the script isn’t exactly literary genius. But what the film does is capture the raw, unfiltered feeling of the hip hop and graffiti scene of the 1980s, and with a pre-Times-Square-makeover New York as the backdrop, the film is fascinating just to look at. Even if the acting isn’t blowing you away, you’ll be too busy feeling like you just stepped out of a time machine into 1982 Brooklyn to worry about it.
This week, Arrow Video continues to blow me away with their top-notch releases by not only releasing the film on 4K Ultra HD but putting it all together in a package that includes tons of extra features as well as a bonus CD that includes even more audio extras. It’s a truly exceptional release!
The 4K Video/Audio:
Wild Style is a low-budget movie from over 40 years ago, but it looks better than it has any right to on 4K Ultra HD. It’s not like it suddenly looks brand new, but you’ll notice bright colors, a relatively sharp picture, and good contrasts. The soundtrack is the original mono soundtrack, but it does a good job of making sure the dialogue is as clear as can be and the music sounds good. It’s hard to complain about any of those things.
The Bonus Features:
- Perfect bound collector’s book featuring new and archival essays and articles, alongside an extensive collection of stills and artwork from the film
- Reversible sleeve featuring two original artwork options
- Double-sided foldout poster featuring two original artwork options
- Exclusive mini-version of the Wild Style issue of Hip-Hop Family Tree comic book by Ed Piskor
- Three Wild Style logo stickers
- Brand new audio commentary with Jeff “Chairman” Mao and Andrew “Monk One” Mason
- Legacy commentary featuring director Charlie Ahearn and Fred “Fab 5 Freddy” Brathwaite
- Down by Law: Creating the Music of Wild Style, a brand new interview with Charlie Ahearn, Chris Stein and Fred “Fab 5 Freddy” Brathwaite
- The Origin Story, an interview with Lee Quiñones and Fred “Fab 5 Freddy” Brathwaite
- Studio/Benchmark, an interview with Lee Quiñones
- Archive footage from Wild Style’s 1983 Japanese Tour
- Two panel discussions and footage from the Wild Style 40 exhibition
- ZDF TV Wild Style 30th anniversary featurette
- Rammellzee in the Battle Station featurette
- Featurettes from the Wild Style 20th, 25th and 30th anniversary shows
- Smith Projects Gym (1977)
- Archival featurettes and interviews from the players and performers of Wild Style
- Outtakes
- Subway Rap music video
- 2025 Restoration and Theatrical trailers
- Theatrical trailer
- Image gallery
- LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE CD featuring Exclusive new Wild Style Megamix by Jorun Bombay, Original radio spots by Fab 5 Freddy and Queen Lisa Lee, Rare alternate mixes of Subway Rap and Wild Style Theme, Rare audio outtakes from the film and soundtrack, and Rare 1983 radio interview with Charlie Ahearn
Digital Copy Included: No
Saga Erotica: The Emannuelle Collection (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray)
Official Synopsis:
SAGA EROTICA: THE EMMANUELLE COLLECTION showcases the four films that launched the groundbreaking erotic persona and remain the indelible foundation of the series: EMMANUELLE, EMMANUELLE 2, GOODBYE EMMANUELLE and I, EMMANUELLE.
1974’s global sensation EMMANUELLE – which launched the careers of star Sylvia Kristel and director Just Jaeckin – revolutionized portrayals of female sensuality on screen and cemented itself as the decade’s seminal erotic work worldwide. Reprising her role twice more, Kristel again starred in 1975’s EMMANUELLE 2 – showcasing a lush soundtrack by Academy Award® winner Francis Lai – and in 1977’s GOODBYE EMMANUELLE – which marks the final embrace of the original trilogy and features a score by the legendary Serge Gainsbourg. The fourth disc in the collection is actually ‘the first’; the rarely-seen 1969 Italian production I, EMMANUELLE starring Erika Blanc and inspired by the then-newly published memoir from Emmanuelle Arsan. All four films have been scanned in 4K from their original camera negatives with 15+ combined hours of new & archival Special Features, 2 Bonus Soundtrack CDs and a 128-page booklet of original essays, Sylvia Kristel artwork and more.
The Movie:
Severin Films is one of the best boutique home video distributors in the busoiness for my money. When they put out a release, you know it’s going to look and sound good and be packed with way more extra features than you can possibly imagine. The only drawback is that the films they focus on are often so obscure that I’m not always terribly excited about them.
But not so with Saga Eriotica: The Emmanuelle Collection. I’ve long been aware of the Emmanuelle films in the annals of film history, but they’re not exactly on TV every weekend, so I’d actually never seen them. For those of you who don’t know, the Emmannuelle movies are probably the most significant and well known erotic films ever made. These aren’t adult films in the traditional sense (read: porn) but rather movies with artistic merit that also happen to have no small amount of sex and nudity.
Now, the films each center around Emmanuelle and her husband (although they take a bit of a back seat in the third film) and they generally also espouse the idea of open marriage, free sex, and a release of inhibitions. It feels a little unnecessary to try to dive too deeply into the plots when what drives the films are romance, lust and sex. It’s not hard to see why Sylvia Kristel became a sex symbol after she debuted in the role, and the films — while not cinematic genius by any stretch — are largely enjoyable for what they are. The fourth movie included is actually from 1969, before any of the other movies but after the original book the series is based on was published, and it’s called I, Emmanuelle. It’s not really related to the other three movies except in name. I can’t say I liked it as much as the original trilogy, but it’s an interesting curiosity at the very least.
This gorgeous box set includes a sharp outer case, a lushly illustratetd squareboond book with lots of photos, and hours and hours of bonus features. It’s a collector’s dream!
The 4K Video/Audio:
For older films, the Emmanuelle movies look and sound very good in the premium format. The picture quality of course is a little aged, considering how old the fiulms are, but overall they look quite good. color saturation is soft but vibrant, image clarity is relatively sharp, and shadow delineation is very strong. You won’t think these are brand-new movies, but there is definitely some visual magic at work here.The soundtracks are mono presentations, but they do a great job of maximizing what they has to work with and bringing dialogue and music through unscathed.
The Bonus Features:
- Four Commentary Tracks
- 12 Interview Featurettes
- Three Video Essays
- TV Documentary
- Five Additional Featurettes
- Trailers & More!
Digital Copy Included: No
Beast of War (Blu-ray)
Official Synopsis:
During World War II, a cadre of young Australian soldiers broke boot camp with an understanding to never leave a man behind. That would be put to the test in stunning and horrifying fashion, as the sinking of their ship in the Timor Sea by the Japanese left them adrift on a section of hull-and in the company of a relentless great white shark. Kiah Roache-Turner’s lean, gripping survival shocker stars Mark Cole Smith, Joel Nankervis, Sam Delich, Lee Tiger Halley.
The Movie:
I’m a sucker for shark movies, and even though most of them these days are low-budget scholck, I will still sit down for 90 minutes in the hopes that I’ll discover a truly worthy shark-themed thriller. Beast of War combines a shark movie with a World War II film and ends up with mixed results.
The film starts off exceptionally strong, establishing a handful of characters through the lens of soldiers in basic training, and it really got me optimistic that the film was going to be fantastic. After a really terrific 15 or 20 minutes, we end up with a group of our young soldiers stranded at sea when their ship is sunk by the enemy. They are stuck in a fog bank on floating wreckage with a killer shark circling them. The fog bank is a conceit that’s used to try and cover up the low-budget nature of the film, allowing it to be shot in a smaller tank without having to worry about special effects needing to convey the imagery of being in the middle of the ocean. What it really does, though, is give the film the feel of a stage play; it’s like a bunch of actors in a single location that I could envision watching off Broadway.
There are some really effective scenes, however; one stand-out includes an enemy combatant and it’s really impactful. The cinematography and lighting is also pretty cool; even though the single-location/fog bank conceit wears thin, the film looks very striking and artistic, and that helps overcome some of the limitations. Ultimately, I liked Beast of War but I didn’t love it, and I wish the rest of the short running time lived up to the promise of the first 20 minutes of the film.
The Bonus Features:
There are no bonus features.
Digital Copy Included: No
Robin And The Hoods (DVD)
Official Synopsis:
Fired by her imagination, Robin is the bright-eyed leader of a group of kids, the Hoods, who love to play fantasy games on a patch of land they nickname The Kingdom. While their biggest concern is a rival gang looking to take over their domain, things get serious when plans emerge to develop the area that’s their playground into a new leisure facility for the town. Faced with the ruthless spokesperson Clip-Board, Robin and her friends must find a way to save their play area before it’s too late.
The Movie:
Even though Robin and the Hoods is undoubtedly a movie for kids, I actually rather enjoyed it. The film is a very modern (and loose) update on the Robin Hood legend, with young girl Robin leading a bunch of her friends in adventure and fantasy play in a weedy abandoned lot. When a Big Bad Corporation comes in to try and develop the land, Robin and her Hoods must try and save their little patch of land so their imaginations can continue to run free.
It’s not an overly new or original plot, but it’s the way the film is made that gives it heart. We see full on action sequences in which it appears the kids are in medieval battles, only to have the reality revealed afterwards in ways that are often quite fun. (There’s a terrific bit with a cut on one of the kids’ foreheads that’s pretty amusing.) These sequences give the film some style and panache, and the game young cast helps you get invested as a viewer.
As I said, Robin and the Hoods is clearly aimed at younger viewers, but I won’t be surprised if adults get sucked into watching it alongside their kids.
The Bonus Features:
- Trailer
Digital Copy Included: Yes/No
Godzilla: Library Collection Volume 5 (Graphic Novel)
Official Synopsis:
Godzilla returns, and the world will never be the same! Next up in the Library Collection series is the finale of Rulers of Earth! The Godzilla Library Collection is a comprehensive line of books that will collect every Godzilla comic series by IDW! Volume 5 collects the final 13 issues (#13–25) of the Rulers of Earth series by Chris Mowry, Matt Frank, and Jeff Zornow.
Giant monsters are appearing across the globe and leaving complete devastation in their wake. A mysterious Russian industrialist offers to rid the world of them with his new Mechagodzilla units. Will the new fleet of weaponized robots be enough to stop Godzilla when he returns? Will Godzilla be able to battle the newly created Mecha-King Ghidorah? It’s a war of the machines with Godzilla caught in the middle!
The Book:
IDW continues their chronological march through their entire history of publishing the big green guy with the Godzilla Library Collection: Volume 5. This ongoing series of massive trade paperbacks are reprinting the entirety of the IDW catalog of Godzilla comic books in order. Now, I love me some Godzilla, but I didn’t read most of the individual comics as they came out, so this is a great way to get caught up. And while they are presented chronologically, most of them contain stand-alone stories or series, so you can jump in right here if you want to.
Some of the previous volumes have been made up of multiple shorter series but Volume 4 collected the first 12 issues of the Rulers of Earth series by Chris Mowry and Matt Frank. Volume 5 finishes out the Rulers of the Earth series by collecting issues 13-25, by Mowry, Frank, and the addition of artist Jeff Zornow. This story arc brings Mecha-Godzilla into the fray, and I’m a big fan of MG, so I was pretty excited to see that. I really love the Rulers of the Earth series; having never read it before these two volumes of the Library Collection, I’ve had a blast diving into it. The artwork borders on the cartoony side a little bit, but it stops just shy of being too cartoony, so it still works for me.
With over 300 pages of Godzilla action and a slew of kaiju popping in to the proceedings, Godzilla Library Collection: Volume 5 is highly recommended for any fans of the G-Man!
The Specs:
- Publisher: IDW Publishing
- Format: Softcover
- Page Count: 312 pages
- Cover Price: $29.99
Where There’s Smoke, There’s Dinner: Confessions of a Cartoonist Cook (Graphic Novel)
Official Synopsis:
Bursting with color, flavor, and messy emotions, this unprecedented graphic memoir blends comics with satirical recipes to explore the intersections of food, feminism, frustration, and family. Jennifer Hayden has never liked to cook. She’s not particularly good at it, either. But, like so many of us…she does it anyway. Why is that? Where did these expectations come from? What happens if you don’t live up to the ideal of the perfect wife/mother/chef? And would someone please open a window before the fire department comes? Where There’s Smoke, There’s Dinner: Confessions of a Cartoonist Cook is an accidental memoir from a woman whose comics earn rave reviews around the world but whose meals earn shrugs around the dinner table.
Marinating in an unconventional and aromatic blend of formats, Hayden traces the nuances of her complicated relationship to food. Anecdotal comics alternate with wryly ironic “recipes,” peppered with oven fires, explosions, prayers, and incantations. Along the way, all the salty judgments and bitter frustrations just might caramelize into some real wisdom and self-acceptance. In any case, it’s all hand-painted in mouth-watering color as a tribute to Hayden’s love of cookbooks…or at least of the illustrations inside them.
The Book:
Let me say this about Where There’s Smoke, There’s Dinner: there is absolutely an audience out there for this book; I just don’t think I’m it. I honestly can’t say that it’s a bad book, it’s just really not my cup of tea.
The book is a mix of cartoons, prose, fake recipes, and ruminations on life and family, all told through the lens of a cartoonist. It feels 100% to me like something you would buy in a Hallmark store rather than a book store, and that’s where its strength lies. There are millions of people who shop at Hallmark stores all year round and love their homey, slightly kitschy style. And that’s how I would describe Where There’s Smoke, There’s Dinner – homey and slightly kitschy. The artwork is reminiscent of the kinds of drawings you’d see in cartoony greeting cards or on pot holders, and the recipes aren’t actual recipes, but rather opportunities for humor and parodies of real recipes.
If you’re someone who loves to cook and/or going to arts and craft stores, I heartily recommend Where There’s Smoke, There’s Dinner: Confessions of a Cartoonist Cook. I think you’ll love it, and maybe it will also make a great holiday gift for a parent or in-law.
The Specs:
- Publisher: Top Shelf Productions
- Format: Softcover
- Page Count: 208 pages
- Cover Price: $19.99
