Graphic Novel Reviews, November 15, 2010
Nov 15, 2010
Picturing the Classics “The Jane Austen Centre in Bath sells our book!” burbled Nancy Butler about her adaptation of Pride & Prejudice. “How cool is that!” Butler was signing at the Marvel booth during BookExpo America 2010, and, indeed, Marvel has done well with adaptations of classics. Eric Shanower and Skottie Young’s version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz took an Eisner this July, and more Austen and Baum are forthcoming.
Marvel’s 13 substantial adaptations run over 100 pages each. Other publishers serving big bites include Classical Comics, issuing ten in original text and simplified versions (some reprinted by Lucent); Metro Media/SelfMadeHero with 14 titles; Sterling Publishing’s particularly appealing deco-modern Dracula; and 12 other All Action and Illustrated Classics that reprint some of Metro Media’s editions. Eureka’s meaty “Graphic Classics” anthologies have shifted to welcome color and will introduce African American Classics as No. 21. (See the review of Christmas Classics, p. 55.) Also substantial: the Puffin Graphics titles now issued by ABDO: Spotlight as well as Papercutz’s five “Classics Illustrated Deluxe” GNs.
More concise, the 11 other “Classics Illustrated” books run to 56 pages per the long-loved original series to which Papercutz bought the license. ABDO: Magic Wagon’s “Graphic Planet” features 24 classics, 32 to 48 pages in length. Barron’s Educational Books offers 20 classics of 48 pages, and Capstone/Stone Arch: Graphic Revolve’s 25 titles run 72 pages. Saddleback reprints more than 30 64-page Pendulum Illustrated Classics from the 1970s, heavily simplified and in art suggesting Prince Valiant. The most ambitious: Steerforth Press’s new Campfire line of literature and adventure classics adapted by India-based English speakers and drawn by local artists. Some 70 titles are in the pipeline; the 72-pagers have sold well in India.
Some of these publishers issue Shakespeare and mythology titles among the classics or separately. (See the 5/15/09 column on Shakespeare comics.) Of course, many additional publishers undertake classics, but fewer each, like Candlewick’s widely praised Gareth Hinds quartet.
Whatever—a comics version of your school lit assignment is way cool to read in public! The educational market is driving this train, and more and more publishers are jumping on board. Most of these quality series work fine for ages ten and up, so librarians can buy big or buy choosy.—M.C.
Alanguilan, Gerry. Elmer: A Comic Book. Slave Labor. 2010. c.144p. ISBN 9781593622046. pap. $12.95. f
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because he could. After chickens became intelligent from a freak virus, civil unrest among men and fowl reigned for far too long. But finally the birds were internationally declared fellow humans. Elmer was one of the pioneers who lived through the awakening. Dying, he bequeaths his diary to disaffected son Jake, who reads with growing fascination his father’s story. As Jake struggles through understanding while sorting out interfamily tensions—with his grieving mother, nurse sister, and Hollywood star brother—he vows to publish Elmer’s diary as a tribute to those who struggled toward freedom before his hatching. Not funny, Alanguilan’s realistic, highly skilled black-and-white drawings suck you into this feather-clad race relations parable despite the internal dissonance it sets up. You want to find those chickens funny. But you can’t—think Orwell’s Animal Farm. VERDICT Originally self-published in the Philippines, where Alanguilan lives, this unusual and affecting story is bound to evoke what-if discussions. Strongly recommended for teens and up in classrooms as well as libraries. Violence, strong language, and occasional sexual references and nudity.—M.C.
Canada, Geoffrey (text) & Jamar Nicholas (adapt. & illus.). Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence. Beacon, dist. by Random. 2010. c.144p. ISBN 9780807044490. pap. $15. autobiog
The original text of this brutally honest 1995 memoir of a Bronx, NY, childhood intersperses commentary and persuasive recommendations with accounts of actual experiences: from witnessing his brothers’ struggle as six-year-olds to reclaim a stolen jacket to learning to fight himself by age 12 and then in college packing a gun for the feeling of immortality it gave him. But Canada finally said no to violence, earning degrees from Bowdoin and Harvard and founding Harlem Children’s Zone, a model for the Obama-Biden “Promise Neighborhoods,” designed to assist urban areas with high crime and low student academic achievement. Challenged with adapting Canada’s complex book into a one-volume graphic novel, Nicholas (The Grosse Adventures series) has judiciously focused on the personal end, and his semirealistic black-to-grayscale art has just the right lived-in-yet-edgy feel. Adding brown hues would have upped the vibrancy, though. VERDICT Canada’s original earned raves from reviewers as well as from Oprah, who called Canada “an angel from God.” Nicholas’s version infuses an emotional immediacy and makes Canada’s message into a personal parable accessible to a wider age range. Highly recommended for tweens through adults; violence and strong language.—M.C.
Christmas Classics. Eureka. (Graphic Classics, Vol. 19). 2010. c.144p. ed. by Tom Pomplun. ISBN 9780982563014. pap. $17.95. f
Christmas figures little in comics compared with its prominence in the national psyche. Happily, we can warmly welcome this artful and colorful anthology, offering surprises as well as favorites. The two must-haves are here: Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (source of the spooky cover illustration) and Clement Clarke Moore’s poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” Among the surprises are Christmas-themed stories from O. Henry, Willa Cather, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Arthur Conan Doyle. (Who remembers that a Sherlock Holmes adventure is, in fact, set during the holidays?) Genres span detective, Western, romance, fantasy, and funny animals, while drawing styles range equally widely with all entirely appealing and appropriate in regard to the selection. I have rarely seen an anthology with equal success for all contributions, and this one meets that standard. My personal favorite: the Cather tale, with a cast of multihued people and animals in modernistic, stylish exuberance. VERDICT Some may lament the lack of Bible stories here, but there are Bible comics aplenty, and these adaptations break much new ground. This appetizing and many-flavored holiday meal is highly recommended for tweens through adults in all libraries.—M.C.
Higson, Charlie (text) & Kev Walker (adapt. & illus.). SilverFin: A James Bond Adventure. Hyperion. 2010. c.160p. ISBN 9781423130222. $19.99. f
Boasting 12 novels and 22 films, the Bond legacy continues to expand with Ian Fleming Publications authorizing the original “Young Bond” series of YA novels. In this adaptation of the first novel, we meet the 14-year-old newbie at Eton, bullied by a swaggery Yank kid who inevitably recalls Draco Malfoy. But young George Hellbore’s only under the thumb of his truly malevolent dad, Lord Hellbore, who lives in a moat-ringed castle. As James makes friends and trains to improve his physical prowess—the better to keep George out of his hair—he learns that a local lad has disappeared near the castle. So against all reasonable advice, our future spy is off to find out what Hellbore has done with the missing kid. VERDICT While the components and characters in this adventure offer few surprises, including a pretty young woman avatar for the older Bond’s harem, Walker’s excellent, semirealistic color art offers limpid menace. More generally, the equally excellent pacing and storytelling as well as the nicely written dialog elevate this into a captivating read that will appeal to adults and teens.—M.C.
Houston, Greg. Elephant Man. NBM: Nantier Beall Minoustchine. 2010. c.80p. ISBN 9781561635887. pap. $9.99. humor
Think Beavis and Butt-Head goofy-gross but with swirlier, black-and-white art plus a social message. Houston deforms all expectations in this oddly cheerful satire inspired by Joseph Carey Merrick, aka the Elephant Man, a real person exhibited as a medical curiosity in the late 1800s because of physical deformities. This Elephant Man is the toast of Baltimore as its resident superhero as well as alter ego of “ace reporter and part-time hand model” Jon Merrick. But our hero has enemies. Pompadoured radio host Dick Denton seethes with jealousy. Worse, a three-headed villain delights in a target uglier than he is/they are. But despite his foes’ worst plotting, Elephant Man always wins the day. Although the villains easily guess his real identity, no one believes them. Houston’s grotesque and arty black and white takes getting used to—everyone looks worse than Lynda Barry’s nastiest caricatures, especially the city’s REAL superheroes: the Big Hair Tough Girls and their moms. But somehow it works. VERDICT Houston grabs a bunch of clichés and weaves them into something that ends up surprising, inventive, and perversely attractive. For teens and up who find Mad magazine too tame.—M.C.
Kanigher, Robert & others (text) & Joe Kubert (illus.). The Viking Prince. DC Comics. 2010. c.296p. ISBN 9781401227777. $39.99. f
Before it became the province of superheroes, DC’s series The Brave and the Bold featured historical adventure, and one of its first stars was Jon the Viking Prince, blond warrior of the tenth-century Norsemen. This hardcover collects every Viking Prince story illustrated by Kubert (Fax from Sarajevo; Yossel), including the complete 1955–59 Brave and the Bold stories and a 1966 World War II team-up between the out-of-time prince and long-running Kubert hero Sgt. Rock. Scripts are by Kanigher, Bob Haney, and Bill Finger. These short tales (most are eight or 12 pages) are filled with daring exploits and courageous heroism, as Jon battles pirates, sea monsters, and an evil rival to his throne. The tales are internally inconsistent and not cohesive: the hero’s backstory keeps changing, running plotlines are abandoned before completion, and more-or-less realistic situations later give way to overt fantasy. VERDICT These uncomplicated stories still have the power to rouse and excite. Kubert’s artwork, always filled with vitality, hits its stride halfway through the series, as he moves into the mature style that earned his fame. A welcome collection of noteworthy work.—S.R.
Neri, G. (text) & Randy DuBurke (illus.). Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty. Lee & Low. 2010. c.96p. ISBN 9781584302674. pap. $16.95. biog
“So young to kill, so young to die” read the 1994 Time magazine cover with Yummy’s photo. Yummy was a real 11-year-old Chicago kid, with father in jail, abused by his mom, and sucked all-too-readily into the Black Disciples gang. “The disciples ain’t stupid,” comments a character in Neri’s account. “They got this endless supply of young ones with no daddy, just looking for attention”—pit bull puppies who could escape felony convictions because of age. Given a gun and sent on small jobs, Yummy was a bundle of thug ego with a kid’s immaturity, and he accidentally killed a teen girl bystander while threatening supposed rivals. Now a liability as a magnet for unwanted attention, Yummy was executed by his own gang. While Neri invents a fictional narrator as tour guide for the reader, the story is based on public records, media reports, and personal accounts. VERDICT Neri’s re-creation paints a compelling and sympathetic portrait of how a youngster became too eager to please the wrong people, and DuBurke (Malcolm X: A Graphic Biography) provides skilled, semiphoto-quality inks and shadows that do his subject justice. Strongly recommended for tweens and up.—M.C.
Nowlan, Phil (text) & Dick Calkins (illus.). Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: The Complete Newspaper Sundays. Vol. 1, 1930–1935. Hermes. 2010. c.208p. ISBN 9781932563405. $60. f
First appearing in the pulp magazine Amazing Stories in 1928, Buck Rogers, a 20th-century man awakened 500 years in the future, landed in newspapers on January 7, 1929. His strip became the progenitor of an entire genre of science fiction comics. With three volumes of Buck Rogers daily strips in print, Hermes here begins an impressive oversized (14” x 11”) hardcover series of the Sunday strips in bright, restored full color. These form a separate continuity in which Buck and his companion, Wilma Deering, are only rarely featured—instead, the Sundays follow the interplanetary exploits of Wilma’s intrepid younger brother, Buddy, and Princess Alura of Mars. Though credited to Calkins, the art here was mostly ghosted by Russell Keaton, whose spirited, cartoony charm contrasts markedly with Alex Raymond’s realistic work on Flash Gordon a few years later. VERDICT While the daily strips take a more dramatic approach, the Sundays are pure boys’ adventure: fast-paced, fanciful, and sometimes daft, through a tumultuous solar system (including Planets X and P) teeming with exotic but humanoid alien races. Not essential, but historically interesting and fun.—S.R.
Simmons, Alex (text) & Fernando Ruiz (illus.). Archie & Friends All-Stars. Vol. 3: The Cartoon Life of Chuck Clayton. Archie Comics. 2010. c.96p. ISBN 9781879794481. pap. $9.95. f
Archie’s Riverdale High crowd has always reflected American trends in a lighthearted fashion, so why not model social responsibility along the way? Archie’s classmate Chuck, a teen cartoonist, volunteers to lead a kids’ afterschool program about making comics. Since he lacks teaching experience, his first few tries leave a lot to be desired, and the kids act up. But with sound advice from teacher Mom and coach Dad, Chuck’s teaching skills improve, and the class catches fire. As word gets out, he takes on other classes and helps pull together a Riverdale High project to revamp a dilapidated playground. The new playground features a mural designed by one of the kids he’s been teaching, and the project becomes the subject of a student-produced community service video. At the end, a summary of cartooning how-to’s urges readers to try it themselves. Simmons founded the annual Kids’ Comic Con in the Bronx, NY. VERDICT This entertaining model for youthful volunteerism enhanced with cartooning know-how is highly recommended for all public and school libraries as well as tweens and up. Other skills-oriented graphic novels with socially relevant overtones are Orca’s “Graphic Guide Adventure” series.—M.C.
Waid, Mark (text) & Jean Diaz & others (illus.). Incorruptible. Vol. 1. Boom! 2010. c.128p. ISBN 9781608860159. pap. $16.99.f
In the multiple Eisner Award nominee Irredeemable, Waid tells the tragic story of the world’s greatest superhero, the Plutonian, becoming its most dangerous villain. Here, he presents the flipside. After witnessing the Plutonian slaughter three million people, super villain Max Damage decides that “somebody needs to step up” and goes straight. He turns in his former henchmen, torches his ill-gotten cash, and even stops sleeping with his thrill-seeking female partner, the accurately named Jailbait (who can’t help but continue hanging around him anyway). For help he enlists a former opponent, the highly skeptical police lieutenant Armadale, who gives him a street-level view of a world thrown by the Plutonian into fear and paranoia. VERDICT So far this is a smaller-scale story than the world-shattering Irredeemable, less layered and less immediately gripping, and Diaz’s artwork doesn’t quite reach the level of Peter Krause’s in Irredeemable. But it’s written with the same sharpness of tone and the same intelligent extrapolations on the effects superpowers might have on their wielders and on the world. With some sexual innuendo and gruesome violence, the suggested age range of 15-up is warranted.—S.R.
| Author Information |
| Martha Cornog is a longtime reviewer for LJ and, with Timothy Perper, edited Graphic Novels Beyond the Basics: Insights and Issues for Libraries (Libraries Unlimited, 2009). Steve Raiteri is Audio-visual Librarian at the Greene County Public Library in Xenia, OH, where he started the graphic novel collection in 1996. |
