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Moonstruck is a super-cute new comic from Lumberjanes co-creator Grace Ellis and newcomer Shae Beagle. It’s romance, fantasy, and slice-of-life all in one, with soft dreamy art and a bonus story-within-a-story illustrated by Kate Leth. Readers will swoon, just as the main character Julie swoons over her new crush, Selena. Julie works with her best friend Chet at the Black Cat Cafe, slinging coffee and gossip while gossiping about gals and guys alike. Julie looks every bit the normal human, but after Chet catches a rogue cup with his hooves, it becomes clear that they do not live in our world. Chet’s a centaur, and the cafe’s patrons include a dude with two faces, a skeleton with surprisingly good fashion sense, and a giant bird/dinosaur thing who somehow manages to make a smartphone work without thumbs. Chet also lets it slip through a series of terrible puns that Julie’s not as normal as she looks: she’s a werewolf. INTERVIEW: Image’s Moonstruck Combines Mystery, LGBTQ Romance and W

Frenetic and fabulous, Jeff Lemire and Greg Smallwood’s “Moon Knight” is reality-twisting mindbender that’s simultaneously addictive, exasperating and fun. Alternate realities that perfectly match Marc Spector’s disparate personalities are the norm in this book, and jumping between them is as disorienting for the reader as it is for Mr. Knight. Just when you think you know what’s going on, Lemire and company blow your mind and remind you that you don’t have a clue. And that’s the maddening allure of this title. RELATED: James Gunn Has A Great Idea For A Moon Knight Movie – And Marvel Knows At the close of Issue #9, murder was on Spector’s mind. He had spent the last few issues purging his alternative personalities in spectacular fashion, and his next mission revealed itself as a moment of clarity — clarity for Mr. Knight being a relative term, of course — Khonshu must die. The “Death and Birth” story arc begins with Issue #10, and before setting off on that mission, however, Lemire p

In Jeff Lemire and Greg Smallwood’s “Moon Knight” #3, Marc Spector succeeds in leading an asylum breakout. As in the previous two installments of the “Welcome to New Egypt” storyline, Lemire carefully maintains the uncertainty about whether Marc is insane or whether he’s being gaslighted into believing that he is. In “Moon Knight” #3, the doctor and the orderlies feel innocent and normal in one moment, and sinister in the next. Are they well-intentioned real people, or the gods and monsters that Marc sees? Even Marc’s allies are divided on that point. Gena’s dry remarks in particular seem so concrete and sane that it’s hard to doubt what she sees. Smallwood reinforces the mental split by giving Dr. Emmet the head of Ammut but the body and clothes of a normal woman. Lemire’s double reality even allows for a touch of humor when he makes Anubis, traditionally a psychopomp, into a subway car driver. For all its mythological and psychological trappings, this issue’s plot is almost absur

In a reality-bending mind boggle that fans of “Total Recall” will love, writer Jeff Lemire, artist Greg Smallwood and colorist Jordie Bellaire continue Marc Spector’s painful stay in an asylum in “Moon Knight” #2. Sanity isn’t exactly Marc Spector’s strong suit. When Warren Ellis and Declan Shalvey launched their volume of “Moon Knight” in 2014, the storylines placed more emphasis on the white-suited Mr. Knight as he assisted the police in solving cases involving the supernatural than on his tenuous grip on reality. It was primarily during his conversations with Khonshu (who usually appeared to be a cobweb-ridden corpse) that readers openly questioned Marc’s sanity. In the current run, however, writer Jeff Lemire puts the issue of Marc’s sanity front and center, and to great effect. Lemire’s careful scripting posits that Marc has been institutionalized since arriving from an orphanage at the age of 12 and that his entire manifestation as Moon Knight was just a symptom of his madness

There have been many “Moon Knight” comics over the years, with current hot names in comics working on the character to boot. Bill Sienkiewicz, Alex Maleev, Brian Michael Bendis, Warren Ellis, Declan Shalvey and Stephen Platt are just a few of the big creators to tackle Marc Spector — so why have none of them stuck? Jeff Lemire and Greg Smallwood are doing their best to defeat the curse of Khonshu in this latest “Moon Knight” #1, and it’s certainly an impressive comic. Lemire’s script focuses on an aspect that has been played up in some other recent takes on the character — the idea that Marc Spector is crazy — and pushes it to the extreme. Not only is Spector in a facility that may or may not be a mental hospital, but the very nature of reality is slipping in and out of focus. Even as he tries to escape, his perception of what’s happening around him is both an ally and an adversary. The concept of this first issue is great for an opening arc (scheduled to run five issues), although

Brandon Montclare, Amy Reeder and Natacha Bustos’ “Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur” #2 picks up right where the two title characters met for the first time. The opening scene follows Devil Dinosaur’s mini-Godzilla-like rampage through the city. He dominates the panels visually, and his path of destruction is exciting because of Bustos’ strong transitions and colorist Tamra Bonvillain’s cheerful, semi-translucent colors. However, as pretty and fluid as the action is, it doesn’t add much to the plot. Devil Dinosaur’s rampage ends off-panel. Combined with Bonvillain’s palette, Bustos’ clean linework and cartoony style are attractive, but the results are so buoyant there’s no feeling of danger. The exception is a panel where Devil Dinosaur’s scary teeth are emphasized in a facial silhouette, but that moment is quickly undone by what follows. Lunella is amusingly cool and collected under pressure. This fits in with the idea that this is a kid genius who is trying to neutralize the Terrigen

I’ll freely admit I never got the appeal of Moon Boy and Devil Dinosaur. My first exposure to them was in the painfully bad “Fallen Angels” miniseries several decades ago, and — ever since then — the concept of a strange caveman riding around on a dinosaur has left a bad taste in my mouth. Yet, there was something about the revamped concept in “Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur” that made me curious enough to pick up the first issue. I’m glad I did. “Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur” #1 stars Lunella as the titular “Moon Girl,” a ridiculously smart young girl who is perpetually bored at school even as she’s picked on, and who would rather be designing her very own detector to pick up signs of the Kree alien race. However, when Lunella finds the mysterious Nightstone, which originated in the Valley of Flame ages ago, the end result opens a way for the Tyrannosaurus Rex known as Devil Dinosaur to make its way into the present day, and into Lunella’s life. Brandon Montclare and Amy Reeder use L

Following a pair of six-part adventures, “Moon Knight” #13 gives readers a bite-size, done-in-one adventure that mixes in some supernatural to balance out the voice of Khonshu. This next adventure comes from new writer-artist team Cullen Bunn and Ron Ackins. A trio of inkers — Tom Palmer, Walden Wong and Victor Olazaba — join Ackins, which makes for some mild inconsistencies. Ackins’ style is strong enough to power through the inkers’ variations. Those variations impact the appearance of the characters and the atmosphere in “Moon Knight” #13, but never to the point where the difference from one inker to the next is distracting or limiting. The characters in this comic are fairly limited; Moon Knight, a handful of thugs and a bunch of ghostly folk, so Ackins are able to deliver a satisfying variety of build and appearance. His Moon Knight isn’t as sleek as Declan Shalvey’s nor is it as gritty as Greg Smallwood’s, but he is an intimidatingly chiseled character. Ackins adds his own spi

Brian Wood and Greg Smallwood conclude their arc and their run on the title in “Moon Knight” #12 as Marc Spector and the moon god Khonshu make their move against Dr. Elisa Warsame, the psychologist who had stolen the presence of Khonshu’s spirit from Spector to use as a tool for revenge. Throughout the run, Wood has told two very distinct but related tales: one of Spector and his connection to Khonshu and another of Warsame’s desire for vengeance against her nation’s rebel leader, who deposed and killed her ruling father. The two threads weave back together here and, although Wood leaves untold what exactly transpires once this happens, he still delivers a tense and well-structured showdown that puts a satisfying end to his tenure. Smallwood plays a large part in the story’s structure, starting off with a series of graduated panels that show a bloody and bruised Spector plummeting through the sky. Anyone who read the previous issue knows this is exactly where the story left off, but

In “Moon Knight” #11, Brian Wood and Greg Smallwood show Marc Spector without his civil rights and the aid of his patron god. The torture and unsanctioned “medical” experiments keep the reader on edge through the entire issue, and Smallwood and Bellaire are able to make the scenes visually pleasing without downplaying the gravity or horror. It’s impressive how quickly Smallwood gets down to business. He doesn’t squander the suspense and his fifteen panels per page alternate bright red violence with antiseptic and faceless white blandness. Although Bellaire usually skews towards warm palettes, her choices of cool red and bluish white are perfect here. The emphasis provided by the red/white/black contrast is strong without being distracting. Smallwood’s wordless panels set out the facts of Spector’s days and nights with maximum efficiency. It’s so much better than a voiceover with Spector’s narration, which would be a more conventional opening sequence. “Moon Knight” #11 works almos