Mike Holmes

Over the last ten years, First Second has made a name for itself as a publisher of top quality titles by a diverse range of creators, reflecting a wide array of experiences and genres. Today, the publisher announced its Fall 2017 line-up, which includes hard-boiled crime stories, coming-of-age stories, and perhaps most important, stories about dogs.

Some kids grow up idolizing superheroes. Others, however, can't get enough of fictional scientists like Doctor Doom, Lex Luthor, and Dr. Frankenstein. They're brilliant kids who are at home tinkering with tech or playing around with bugs outside, kids that get a kick out of figuring out how things tick. If you know a kid whose response to Tony Stark and Bruce Banner creating a killer robot in Avengers: Age of Ultron was, "I could probably do a better job," or a kid who has been all about STEM innovations from before they knew what the acronym meant, this list will help you keep your junior mad scientist too busy to consider taking over the world.

The holiday season is upon us, and with that comes gifts! It’s always lovely to receive something special from someone you love, but there’s also a particular pleasure that comes in giving a really well chosen gift and knowing that it’s truly appreciated. Sometimes it really is better to give than to receive! In that spirit, ComicsAlliance is here to inspire you with some great ideas for gifts to buy for your friends and family. Each gift guide is tailored to a particular personality type or special interests, and today we’re picking out comics gifts for the biggest, most important group of all; kids!

With their new book, Secret Coders, writer Gene Luen Yang and illustrator Mike Holmes set out to do something many of us might consider near-impossible; turn the head-scratching world of computer coding into an adventure tale fit for a middle-grade audience. Yet by combining a mystery story with a series of compelling logic puzzles, the authors have actually succeeded in creating the sort of book that could inspire the next generation of computer geniuses. And it turns out using comics to inspire young scientists and mathematicians is not at all impossible. Gene Luen Yang provided us with five more examples of excellent educational comics that turn potentially daunting topics into engaging comic book tales. Check them out below.

Available for free right now is Pressure/Sensitivity, the very cleverly titled inaugural anthology project produced by Wacom. The book is a natural step for Wacom to make, as makers of the tablet technology used by an increasing number of comic book artists to create their work. Because Pressure/Sensitivity: An Awesome Comics Anthology is edited by former ComicsAlliance editor Caleb Goellner (currently Wacom's Social Marketing Specialist), it comes as no surprise that the book is populated by contributors well known to CA readers for their distinctive styles and technical prowess: Ben Sears, Giannis Milonogiannis, Ming Doyle, Meredith Gran & Mike Holmes, and Ulises Farinas & Ryan Hill.

As much as the kids who grew up with Harry Potter may want to become real wizards, there's really not much it'll ever happen. But a new work for middle schoolers focuses on a secret school that teaches some real-world skills (or maybe a slightly amplified version). The new graphic novel Secret Coders, by Gene Luen Yang (The Shadow Hero) and Mike Holmes (Bravest Warriors), makes computer programming an adventure. “There’s something magic about coding, especially old-school coding,” Yang told Wired. “When you type these words into this machine, something kind of magic, something kind of crazy happens.”

Finn and Jake have been on a crazy ride over the last four issues of BOOM! Studios' Adventure Time series. Courtesy of Eisner-winning series writer Ryan North and visiting artist Jim Rugg, the plucky pair have traversed dark dungeons, confronted mind-body dualism by dying and becoming ghosts, pranked the Ice King, reprogrammed BMO, and been busted by spook hunter Ant-Ghost Princess. Naturally along the way they've made some eminently bad calls that have screwed everything up for basically everybody in the Land of Ooo. Also we saw the Mecha Lumpy Space Princess. Finally, this particular saga comes to an end in issue #27, which BOOM! promises will see the intervention of an "unlikely" ally.

It's one of those weird quirks about comics that when something is really, really good, you kind of forget about it for a while. Being great becomes the standard, so you almost forget about how good it is until something comes along and it suddenly gets even better. Like, say, when the Adventure Time comic teams up writer Ryan North with Street Angel and Afrodisiac creator Jim Rugg to introduce a

Humankind's understanding of sleep has come a long way in the year 3085, but even so, there's plenty of complexities to consider when navigating the Dream Dimension. That's the trouble Wallow faces in Bravest Warriors #16, which arrives in stores and on digital platforms from Boom! Studios on January 22nd. In a tale written by Tessa Stone and illustrated by Mike Holmes, Bravest Warriors team leade

Pen Ward's surprisingly well-adjusted teens from the year 3085 look like they'll be cutting loose on October 23 in Bravest Warriors #13. Writer Eric M. Esquivel, artist Mike Holmes, colorist Lisa Moore, and letterer Steve Wands pit the team against the fierce "Periodic Table of Evil" on page one, and don't let up from there with a plot that involves Danny experimenting with insect poison