There are only constant three things in life that have the ability to never get old, and cause everyone to gush indescribable joy: baseball, foreign cinema, and anything inside the genus of comic books/graphic novels/manga. Here, we'll help you reach nirvana by giving you a nudge in the right direction.

Back in the day (or more like back in 2007 and 2008), DC Comics had a line of comics released under the imprint Minx. Minx's primary target market was teenage girls. Pitched as both an alternative to both manga as well as young adult literature, the bulk of Minx graphic novels were reviewed in a positive light (with The P.L.A.I.N. Janes, and its sequel Janes In Love arguably leading the charge). Sadly however, DC just couldn't get their distributor Random House to get enough Minx titles shelved in major bookstores, and in a year's time the imprint Minx came to an untimely end. Today I'd like to showcase one of their titles, The New York Four.

The New York Four, first released in 2008, follows the lives of four (no shocker there!) female college students, as they embark upon their freshman year at New York University. They all come from different parts of the country, as well as different walks of life, but all take the same campus job, and all bond under the same living quarters. Here, they go through all the collegiate motions, balancing schoolwork with real work, family, relationships, and they all get the grand ol' college experience in the most heavily populated county the US has to offer. In 2011, three years after The New York Four was released, Vertigo Comics (another imprint of DC) released The New York Five, a sequel/continuation/conclusion to the original Minx graphic novel. While some reviews have deemed this spinoff unnecessary, that's up to you as the reader to decide. In November of 2014, Dark Horse Books released a large paperback edition of the entire series, (Four and Five), so once you finish the main GN, you can slide right into its sequel.

All in all, it's a decent coming of age read. Some of the characters I found a bit polarizing. People may love some of the ones I hated, while others may hate some of the ones I liked. It's one of those. You'll recognize a lot of scenes and settings throughout the boroughs, not only Manhattan. This Dark Horse Books edition includes character and cover sketches at the end, and the little NY tidbits found throughout each of the chapters are interesting to read, especially for those less familiar with New York. Done entirely in black and white, The New York Four is an easy and hopefully enjoyable read!