Kirkus Star
THE KIRKUS STAR
Awarded to Books of Exceptional Merit

BROWSE BOOK REVIEWS




Graphic Novels & Comic Books Book Reviews Available Now (page 2)


Showing

Cover art for DEAR CREATURE
FICTION
Released: Oct. 1, 2011

"A funny, bizarre, unexpected pleasure that gives a creature from the depths heart and soul as well as a happy ending."
A mutant submariner pines for a surface girl trapped in a prison of her own making. Read full book review >
Cover art for HABIBI
FICTION
Released: Sept. 1, 2011

"A mature--in all its meanings--glimpse into a world few Westerners are at home with, and Thompson is respectful throughout."
Thompson (Good-Bye, Chunky Rice, 2006, etc.) returns after a five-year absence with a graphic novel that is sure to attract attention--and perhaps even controversy. Read full book review >
Cover art for LIFE WITH MR. DANGEROUS
FICTION
Released: May 24, 2011

"The artist displays an affinity for dialogue balloons that float beyond the panel, while plenty of other powerful passages are simply wordless."
Empathy and creativity inform this unsentimentalized account of a young woman's loneliness. Read full book review >
Cover art for MISTER WONDERFUL
FICTION
Released: April 12, 2011
by Daniel Clowes, illustrated by Daniel Clowes

"Clowes finds heightened reality in caricature."
An expansion of the strip initially serialized in the New York Times Magazine. Read full book review >
Cover art for THE CARDBOARD VALISE
FICTION
Released: Feb. 15, 2011
by Ben Katchor, illustrated by Ben Katchor

"A parallel dimension that readers might find creatively charged or thematically exhausting."
The book-length publication of the acclaimed visual artist's weekly strips defies narrative convention as a graphic novel. Read full book review >
Cover art for ANTHEM
FICTION
Released: Feb. 1, 2011
by Ayn Rand, adapted by Charles Santino, illustrated by Joe Staton

"A Rand primer with pictures."
A graphic novel for devotees of Ayn Rand. Read full book review >
Cover art for RAT CATCHER
FICTION
Released: Jan. 19, 2011
by Andy Diggle, illustrated by Victor Ibañez

"Diggle's (The Losers: Book Two, 2010, etc.) taut, fast-moving narrative and Ibañez's in-your-face, Will Eisner–like artwork combine in a remarkably entertaining tale."
A rat catcher catches rats (informers) for the mob, but in this dark graphic novel it's an art to separate the rats from the cats. Read full book review >
Cover art for THE BEST AMERICAN COMICS 2010
FICTION
Released: Oct. 15, 2010
edited by Neil Gaiman

"Every year seems to raise the bar."
Another star-studded anthology grapples with the challenge of whether comics can survive respectability. Read full book review >
Cover art for X'ED OUT
FICTION
Released: Oct. 1, 2010

"The narrative builds to a revelatory climax that falls far short of a conclusion, implying the unstated, "To be continued…""
This graphic novel is more like an apocalyptic hallucination. Read full book review >
Cover art for DANTE’S DIVINE COMEDY
FICTION
Released: Sept. 1, 2010
adapted by Seymour Chwast, illustrated by Seymour Chwast

"An achievement kindred to R. Crumb's Genesis (2009), though less literal and more compressed."
In his first graphic novel, one classic artist channels another. Read full book review >
Cover art for THE BEAUFORT DIARIES
FICTION
Released: July 6, 2010
by T Cooper, illustrated by Alex Petrowsky

"Outlandish and frequently hilarious."
An unlikely premise--a polar bear makes it big in Los Angeles and then crashes--but somehow Cooper (Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes, 2006, etc.) makes it work. Read full book review >
Cover art for GO, MUTANTS!
FICTION
Released: July 1, 2010

"Rollickingly inventive and often hilarious--but it seems at times like a skit that, perhaps in the wake of an atomic accident, has mutated into (dear God!) an epic. "
In a melting-pot society populated by the aliens and humans of 1950s space-invader movies, a brooding blue rebel with a giant brain grapples with prejudice and hormones in that most horrific of earthly battlegrounds--high school. Read full book review >