It seems like mash-ups of genres are the hot new genre. If I was forced to recommend just one from the growing throng of comic-book examples, it would probably be Fred Chao’s Johnny Hiro (AdHouse Books). It makes imaginative use of its source material without a trace of hipper-than-thou cynicism, features endearing and sympathetic characters, and is genuinely funny in its own right.

Johnny and his girlfriend Mayumi are much like any other young urban couple navigating life in the Outer Boroughs. They work too hard, wish they had a better apartment, and struggle to make time for each other in the face of competing demands. Since those competing demands include giant monsters on the rampage and gangs of vengeful sushi chefs, their struggles are a bit heightened.

Not too much, though. There’s something charmingly everyday about the craziness Johnny and Maiyumi encounter, and that’s because the couple is so functional. They love and trust each other, and they make choices based on that connection. Chao helps put the lie to the argument that happy couples make for boring stories.

That’s partly due to the care Chao takes in portraying the mundane aspects of their lives. For every scene of improbable and exciting derring-do, there’s something equally recognizable and poignant. In the second issue, Maiyumi settles into the couple’s new sublet as Johnny tries to snag a lobster for the highly-strung chef of restaurant where he busses tables. The antic and the down-to-earth sequences are equally effective and mutually supportive in the narrative as a whole.

Chao’s illustrations execute this balance perfectly. It’s great fun watching a giant ape peek into the window of Maiyumi’s office or watching Johnny scramble up a fire escape as cleavers fly. It’s also delightful to see the way Chao invests something as familiar as an apartment walk-through with wit and warmth. (I could probably read an entire comic about Maiyumi introducing herself to the cats that come with their new one-bedroom.)

Things never stray too far into the realm of meta-commentary, even with potentially jarring celebrity cameos. I was pleasantly surprised that a first-issue drop-in from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg didn’t derail things entirely. A second-issue visit from Vogue food editor Jeffrey Steingarten is even more organic and effective, though that might owe to my fondness for Iron Chef America.

The highest compliment I can pay to Johnny Hiro is that it reminds me very favorably of Avenue Q, that snarky-sweet Broadway riff on Sesame Street that deserved every Tony Award it won (and more besides). While Chao’s approach is gentler, he strikes quite the same balance between pop-culture fluency and genuine feeling.

(This review is based on complimentary copies provided by the publisher.)

There’s nothing like a good quest to drive a graphic novel, and the central plot in Joey Weiser’s The Ride Home (AdHouse Books) serves admirably. Nodo is a van gnome, happily occupying a family’s broken-down wheels until a fateful day when they take the cat to the vet. He escapes the keyed-up feline only to find himself lost and homeless in an urban landscape.

As in all stories of this type, he makes friends, foes and stumbles across the possibility of romance during his search for his misplaced home. Weiser populates the urban landscape with repurposed fantasy figures who’ve found their own niches in a modern setting. There’s a river dragon who’s relocated to run the city’s sewer system. A group of gnomes have set up housekeeping in the park and are appalled at Nodo’s modern ideas of habitation (and his hat), offering the sure-to-be-irresistible prospect of “righteous twelve-hour work days, and gnomish tradition.” Then there are the hungry junkyard trolls.

But there’s also Flora, a spunky gnome who lives in a station wagon. She offers Nodo shelter and assistance while he hunts down his red van, patching him up when his quest goes astray.

You don’t need a map to see where it’s all going, but Weiser is generous with wit and warmth, keeping the familiar from becoming stale and sprinkling in unexpected twists and turns. He resists the urge to overstate his story’s morals, letting them unfold in a cheerful, episodic fashion. It’s an extremely friendly book, but it never overdoses on sentiment or cuteness.

Weiser has got a clean, appealing style of illustration, focusing on charming character design and some exciting set pieces. My favorite intersection of both is probably the one involving a helpful herd of cows with a keen ear for pathos. (Just trust me on this one.)

While Weiser has several mini-comics under his belt and has contributed to some high-profile anthologies like the Flight books, The Ride Home seems to be his first full-length graphic novel. It’s an extremely accomplished debut, and more importantly, it’s an awful lot of fun.

(This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.)

Project: Romantic (AdHouse) is one of the most exuberant books I’ve read this year. Beneath its sleek, Good-&-Plenty-colored cover lies an appealing riot of colors, styles, and narrative tones.

I admit that I anticipated the book with some stereotypes in mind. The prospect of a group of alternative cartoonists telling romantic stories suggested the potential for glumness to me. That’s certainly part of the emotional palette here, but it doesn’t come close to pervading. If anything, the book could just as easily have been called Project: Comedic, given the general light-heartedness and good nature of the stories.

Creators who are familiar to me (Debbie Huey, Hope Larson, Junko Mizuno, Aaron Renier) deliver appealing work, as expected. (Mizuno’s “Lovers on a Flying Bed” is especially stunning, an intense, dreamlike fable in her adorably disgusting style.) But the overall quality of the work is very high. There are a lot of delightful discoveries here.

I’m particularly crazy about the “Sweetie ‘n’ Me” shorts by Joel Priddy. The four pieces take a sunny, funny look at the domestic life of two mad scientists. I could have happily read an entire collection of these stories; my favorite would have to be the meditation on the pros and cons of their “starter island.”

Kelly Alder effectively heads for the darker end of the romantic spectrum with his gruesomely metaphorical “In & Out,” one of the few black-and-white pieces. Evan Larson’s “Cupid’s Day Off” seems to owe a lot visually to James Kochalka, but I like the story’s combination of wit and coarseness.

The book is primarily short narratives, four to eight pages in length, but there are also one-page strips and evocative pin-ups. The visual styles of the creators range wildly from cartoon-cute to stylish and elegant, with just about everything in between.

The variety, to me, is the greatest strength of the book. It’s like going to a tapas restaurant, with a whole lot of small plates of intense flavors on offer. Not all of them are precisely to my taste, but there’s always something to cleanse the palate coming up next. Even the ones I don’t especially like feel like they belong in the book.

Project: Romantic is just plain fun. It’s packed with appealing, diverse work, and it’s well worth a look.

(This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.)