A striking love letter to art and family—both blood and chosen.
In Ferris’ debut graphic novel, a young queer girl in 1960s Chicago sees herself as a classic movie monster beset by small minds, big hearts, and a murder that hits too close to home.
Young Karen Reyes has a recurring dream in which she sheds her girly trappings and euphorically transforms into a werewolf. As her body radically reshapes, Karen lets loose a howl that winds through the streets of Chicago, drawing to her an angry mob (or "m.o.b.," made up of “mean, ordinary & boring” people) ready to kill. But Karen is less concerned with death than she is with becoming mean, ordinary, and boring herself. In her waking life, artistic Karen faces bullies zeroed in on her queerness; family crises with a sick mother and an unbalanced brother; and a frustrating crush on Missy, a former best friend who dropped Karen for the popular girls after her mom forbade her from watching any more late-night monster movies with Karen because, as she tells Karen, "people of your class never protect their kids from bad influences." Into this bubbling cauldron of prepubescence drops the murder of Karen’s troubled neighbor, Anka Silverberg, whose death might be tied to her past being sold for sex as a child in Nazi Germany; or to her husband’s connection to a local mobster; or to her affair with Karen’s bad-boy brother, Deeze, an artist. Karen dons a hat and trench coat and starts sleuthing, uncovering hard truths, making new friends on the fringes, and communing with the paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago, a transcendent place introduced to her by Deeze. Ferris’ work is doodling par excellence: Her pen on lined notebook paper—complete with spiral binding and holes—achieves sculptural depth with layered linework and crosshatching, while less-detailed panels carry the charm of a comic strip.
A striking love letter to art and family—both blood and chosen.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 9781606999592
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
A clever and timely conversation on reclaiming identity and acknowledging one’s full worth.
Superman confronts racism and learns to accept himself with the help of new friends.
In this graphic-novel adaptation of the 1940s storyline entitled “The Clan of the Fiery Cross” from The Adventures of Superman radio show, readers are reintroduced to the hero who regularly saves the day but is unsure of himself and his origins. The story also focuses on Roberta Lee, a young Chinese girl. She and her family have just moved from Chinatown to Metropolis proper, and mixed feelings abound. Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane’s colleague from the Daily Planet, takes a larger role here, befriending his new neighbors, the Lees. An altercation following racial slurs directed at Roberta’s brother after he joins the local baseball team escalates into an act of terrorism by the Klan of the Fiery Kross. What starts off as a run-of-the-mill superhero story then becomes a nuanced and personal exploration of the immigrant experience and blatant and internalized racism. Other main characters are White, but Black police inspector William Henderson fights his own battles against prejudice. Clean lines, less-saturated coloring, and character designs reminiscent of vintage comics help set the tone of this period piece while the varied panel cuts and action scenes give it a more modern sensibility. Cantonese dialogue is indicated through red speech bubbles; alien speech is in green.
A clever and timely conversation on reclaiming identity and acknowledging one’s full worth. (author’s note, bibliography) (Graphic fiction. 13-adult)Pub Date: May 12, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77950-421-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: DC
Review Posted Online: Feb. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A Rand primer with pictures.
A graphic novel for devotees of Ayn Rand.
With its men who have become gods through rugged individualism, the fiction of Ayn Rand has consistently had something of a comic strip spirit to it. So the mating of Rand and graphic narrative would seem to be long overdue, with her 1938 novella better suited to a quick read than later, more popular work such as The Fountainhead (1943) and the epic Atlas Shrugged (1957). As Anthem shows, well before the Cold War (or even World War II), Rand was railing against the evils of any sort of collectivism and the stifling of individualism, warning that this represented a return to the Dark Ages. Here, her allegory hammers the point home. It takes place in the indeterminate future, a period after “the Great Rebirth” marked an end of “the Unmentionable Times.” Now people have numbers as names and speak of themselves as “we,” with no concept of “I.” The hero, drawn to stereotypical, flowing-maned effect by illustrator Staton, knows himself as Equality 7-2521 and knows that “it is evil to be superior.” A street sweeper, he stumbles upon the entrance to a tunnel, where he discovers evidence of scientific advancement, from a time when “men knew secrets that we have lost.” He inevitably finds a nubile mate. He calls her “the Golden One.” She calls him “the Unconquered.” Their love, of course, is forbidden, and not just because she is 17. After his attempt to play Prometheus, bringing light to a society that prefers the dark, the two escape to the “uncharted forest,” where they are Adam and Eve. “I have my mind. I shall live my own truth,” he proclaims, having belatedly discovered the first-person singular. The straightforward script penned by Santino betrays no hint of tongue-in-cheek irony.
A Rand primer with pictures.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-451-23217-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: NAL/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2010
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
