Red Book Volume 1

by James Tynion IV, Michael Avon Oeming (Illustrator)

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Mystery

120 pages, Paperback

Published July 7, 2026

About the author

Prior to his first professional work, Tynion was a student of Scott Snyder's at Sarah Lawrence College. A few years later, he worked as for Vertigo as Fables editor Shelly Bond's intern. In late 2011, with DC deciding to give Batman (written by Snyder) a back up feature, Tynion was brought in by request of Snyder to script the back ups he had plotted. Tynion would later do the same with the Batman Annual #1, which was also co-plotted by Snyder. Beginning in September 2012, with DC's 0 issue month for the New 52, Tynion will be writing Talon, with art by Guillem March. In early 2013 it was announced that he'd take over writing duties for Red Hood and the Outlaws in April.

Tynion is also currently one of the writers in a rotating team in the weekly Batman Eternal series.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up at a local comic shop on a whim, despite never having read the preceding Blue Book , due to a general interest in the history of the UFO phenomenon that I've had for my whole life. To be blunt: To someone that knows nothing about the history of alien sightings, this will contain a lot of new information, but to those that dabble even a little in High Strangeness (shoutout to Mysterious Universe before they changed hosts), it's got not a lot that'll knock your socks off. Frankly, I'd've given it a 2 star rating if not for the fact that a few of the cases from beyond the Iron Curtain were new to me (or, at least, I'd forgotten learning about them previously), as the majority of the information presented is kind of just like reading the graphic novel adaptation of a Wiki page.

From my experience with this comic, I might pick up Blue Book on sale at some point, and may consider buying volume 2 of Red Book as it comes out in floppy form, but it'll definitely not be high on my list of priorities.

[Jim Furey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a less cohesive version of Tynion’s Blue Book and True Weird series. I was hoping for tight focus on just Russian and Chinese UFO sightings/mythology, but it jumps around quite a bit with some very short stories of encounters, and the bulk of the final issue focuses on recent US incidents. I know that this is partially because of limited information out of Russia and China, but there are definitely more stories to be told from both countries.

In my opinion, Michael Avon Oeming’s art is still a fantastic fit for this series, being just weird enough to leave the reader slightly unsettled by Tynion’s storytelling.

I’m hoping for more!

[Isa · Rating 3 out of 5]

My least favorite Tynion, I think, but of all the spooky scary stuff i enjoy, I think Aliens may be among my least favorite. The more compelling thing for me, personally, is the government responses to all of it though. Like, what's the big deal if aliens were real anyway? Perhaps I'm naive in that way.

Anyway! It was /fine/

[Thom · Rating 2 out of 5]

Note: I received access to read this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Red Book has some interesting threads but is overall a boring book. The artwork is very easily readable, but doesn't convey anything but information.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Less stories and more details of incidents. I really enjoy these.

[angelofmine1974 · Rating 3 out of 5]

As usual, great book about alien encounters in the Soviet Union and China.

For the rest of the review, visit my Vlog at:

https://youtube.com/shorts/n5saCSeYDN...

Enjoy!