Gets beneath the mask and tights to humanize the henching life.
For once, the henchman gets to tell his origin story in this beautifully rendered graphic novel.
In comic books, every costumed villain bent on elaborate schemes, whether a jewelry heist or world domination, needs a few henchmen. It’s these bit players who drive the getaway cars and provide the muscle. Mike Fulton is an ordinary guy whose college football career was shattered along with his knee after a rough game. Trying to buckle down to a normal life, he marries, has a child and works a low-paying job, but he never stops missing the excitement of competition, cheering crowds and team spirit. Football was the only thing he was ever good at. As a linebacker whose mentality is “Just tell me what to do, and turn me loose,” Mike doesn’t know how to make things better. Then he meets Randy, another ex-athlete whose career was ended by injury, who asks him: “Have you ever considered henching?” Former football players are in demand: They have size, speed and can follow orders. And despite the huge risks, Mike has no better offers. After a successful heist, Mike is nabbed on another job and sent to prison. He promises his wife he’ll go straight, but when their son, Cory, needs expensive medical treatment, he gets back into the life. This choice will have tragic consequences that Mike eventually must face. Beechen (Batman Beyond: Batgirl Beyond, 2014, etc.), Bello (Dugout, 2008) and Beavers (Bad Weather!, 2014, etc.) have created an entertaining, thoughtful spin on the superhero comic, cleverly focusing on the kind of character always left in the background: “This is me,” read several helpful arrows pointing Mike out among a crowd. (This technique is used to excellent, increasingly poignant effect throughout.) Mike’s character is interestingly, realistically developed. Touches of humor and a well-informed understanding of the genre (several panels are hat tips to comic-book greats) help bolster the story. The artwork is strong, bold and dynamic while still providing fine details that help set the scene.
Gets beneath the mask and tights to humanize the henching life.Pub Date: June 12, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4776-4957-2
Page Count: 134
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PROFILES
A not-very-illuminating updating of Chaucer’s Tales.
Continuing his apparent mission to refract the whole of English culture and history through his personal lens, Ackroyd (Thames: The Biography, 2008, etc.) offers an all-prose rendering of Chaucer’s mixed-media masterpiece.
While Burton Raffel’s modern English version of The Canterbury Tales (2008) was unabridged, Ackroyd omits both “The Tale of Melibee” and “The Parson’s Tale” on the undoubtedly correct assumption that these “standard narratives of pious exposition” hold little interest for contemporary readers. Dialing down the piety, the author dials up the raunch, freely tossing about the F-bomb and Anglo-Saxon words for various body parts that Chaucer prudently described in Latin. Since “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” and “The Miller’s Tale,” for example, are both decidedly earthy in Middle English, the interpolated obscenities seem unnecessary as well as jarringly anachronistic. And it’s anyone’s guess why Ackroyd feels obliged redundantly to include the original titles (“Here bigynneth the Squieres Tales,” etc.) directly underneath the new ones (“The Squires Tale,” etc.); these one-line blasts of antique spelling and diction remind us what we’re missing without adding anything in the way of comprehension. The author’s other peculiar choice is to occasionally interject first-person comments by the narrator where none exist in the original, such as, “He asked me about myself then—where I had come from, where I had been—but I quickly turned the conversation to another course.” There seems to be no reason for these arbitrary elaborations, which muffle the impact of those rare times in the original when Chaucer directly addresses the reader. Such quibbles would perhaps be unfair if Ackroyd were retelling some obscure gem of Old English, but they loom larger with Chaucer because there are many modern versions of The Canterbury Tales. Raffel’s rendering captured a lot more of the poetry, while doing as good a job as Ackroyd with the vigorous prose.
A not-very-illuminating updating of Chaucer’s Tales.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-670-02122-2
Page Count: 436
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2009
PERSPECTIVES
Immensely enjoyable.
The debut graphic novel from Mohamed presents a modern Egypt full of magical realism where wishes have been industrialized and heavily regulated.
The story opens with a televised public service announcement from the General Committee of Wish Supervision and Licensing about the dangers of “third-class wishes”—wishes that come in soda cans and tend to backfire on wishers who aren’t specific enough (like a wish to lose weight resulting in limbs falling from the wisher’s body). Thus begins a brilliant play among magic, the mundane, and bureaucracy that centers around a newsstand kiosk where a devout Muslim is trying to unload the three “first-class wishes” (contained in elegant glass bottles and properly licensed by the government) that have come into his possession, since he believes his religion forbids him to use them. As he gradually unloads the first-class wishes on a poor, regretful widow (who then runs afoul of authorities determined to manipulate her out of her valuable commodity) and a university student who seeks a possibly magical solution to their mental health crisis (but struggles with whether a wish to always be happy might have unintended consequences), interstitials give infographic histories of wishes, showing how the Western wish-industrial complex has exploited the countries where wishes are mined (largely in the Middle East). The book is exceptionally imaginative while also being wonderfully grounded in touching human relationships, existential quandaries, and familiar geopolitical and socio-economic dynamics. Mohamed’s art balances perfectly between cartoon and realism, powerfully conveying emotions, and her strong, clean lines gorgeously depict everything from an anguished face to an ornate bottle. Charts and graphs nicely break up the reading experience while also concisely building this larger world of everyday wishes. Mohamed has a great sense of humor, which comes out in footnotes and casual asides throughout.
Immensely enjoyable.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-524-74841-8
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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