Every Monday remaining in the month of July, we’ll talking to Seattle-area booksellers about the books they’re most excited to read this summer.

Events coordinator Nicole Lamb has worked at Wallingford’s Comics Dungeon for nearly five years. She’s especially interested in all-ages comics and comics with an LGBT angle, so when she’s asked about her favorite new summer comics, she can’t choose between her two passions.

First, Lamb says she’s excited that Boom Studios has finally released an all-ages comic called Power Up in a trade paperback format. Written by Kate Leth and illustrated by Matt Cummings, Power Up is about “four beings, — one of them is a goldfish, that’s why they’re ‘beings’ — who get zapped by this mystical energy and get super powers,” Lamb explains. “My favorite character is a rugged construction worker with a beard” who dresses in “Sailor Moon armor.” Lamb says, he adds “a little gender-bendy” flavor to the book, “which is obviously my jam.” She describes Power Up as “funny and a pretty easy and accessible read. Little kids and kidults like me read it.”

A more mainstream adult monthly comic that Lamb has been enjoying is the new run on Detective Comics from DC, which she describes as “Batman boot camp.” In it, Batman forms a team of younger heroes with the intent of training them to “do detectiving” and face off against a larger threat on the horizon. The real draw for Lamb is the character of Batwoman, a strong, independent lesbian named Kate Kane who was forced to leave the military because of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and, after an encounter with Batman, became inspired to fight crime. Lamb loves Batwoman’s “queer thing” and she finds the character “inspiring and interesting,” an “underground kind of bat-hero.” Detective Comics she says, proves that “there’s some hope for mainstream comics.”

If you’d like more recommendations from Lamb, feel free to seek her out at Comics Dungeon. You can also subscribe to their weekly newsletter and check out their Perfect Bound Podcast, where Nicole regularly discusses upcoming store events and recommends what she’s been reading lately.