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Amina al-Sirafi, who, at a low moment, describes herself as a criminal, a sinner, a foul-mouthed middle-aged woman with a bad knee, is a Muslim pirate in the 12th century, retired. She lives off the grid and takes care of her daughter and their crumbling home, but—isn't it always the way—that one last job pops up that she can't refuse, on account of the extortion.

Her adventures include cons, jailbreaks, battles at sea, an ex(kinda)-husband, superpowered wizards, exotic explosives, even more pirates, giant tentacle monsters, an island filled with bird people, and a ship's cat that's no good at catching mice. But first she has to get the band back together.

I really enjoyed this. It's energetic and funny and tense and full of naturalistic historical detail. It's also quite violent and gory, which I enjoyed less. But the crew is a squabbly family that would do anything for each other, the settings are described with care, and Amina's foul voice and bad knee make her entirely relatable. I felt like her flexible relationship with the principles of her religion was handled well, especially when balanced with her unwavering faith in god, and I appreciated seeing the world through her eyes.

Contains: graphic violence, gore, descriptions of dead bodies; doing things your religion tells you not to; threats of rape; fear of heights; a character questioning their gender (if applicable) that may lead to some feelings of misgendering.

It's 1993 and Kimberly Keiko Cameron (aka "Skim" because she's not [idk, the reference doesn't really land for me—like skim milk? so, not skinny? not white?]) is sixteen and goes to an all girls school in Canada. She's learning to practice Wicca, has a cast on her dominant arm, a crush on her drama teacher, and doesn't seem to like her best friend very much.

Ah, teen angst. Rendered here in a flat, sketchy greyscale with a lot of attention to faces and hair, which makes the main characters easy to identify, especially as the smooth, delicate rendering of Skim's face evokes ukiyo-e, a style of Japanese art popular during the Edo period (1615–1868). It makes her stand out and even seem out of place, like something from another era. It's an interesting contrast to the swoopy bangs and hoop earrings of her peers, all of whom appear to be white.

The story's pretty low key for its content—an inappropriate flirtation, the suicide of a popular girl's ex-boyfriend, the tension between Kim's divorced parents, a growing realization of what it means to be queer—and the central interest is the conflict between Kim and her best friend, though it's not clear if they're growing apart or were never really suited for each other, and being in love in a way that makes it feel like it might destroy you. It's clear it's slowly destroying the teacher, even as Kim seems blissfully unaware of this, a disparity that's handled with skill and that hints at the full size of the adult world while simultaneously rendering the hyper-specific compressed world of a teenager, allowing both to be true.

Contains: f/f; teacher/student romance; frequent references to suicide (including jokes) following one off screen; use of gay slurs.