A timely, engrossing SF tale with an environmental theme and striking art.
In this SF comic, a shrewd visionary sets out to remake the world to avoid ecological disaster only for her idyllic future to collapse into a snowy wasteland.
Celebrity conservationist Isabel Bari has created a revolutionary, carbon-based currency system called the Equivalent Carbon Credit, believing its worldwide adoption is the only hope to fight climate change. To win hearts and minds, she has created a wildly popular reality show and drawn influencers to her cause, attempting to turn attention into political capital. More than 3,000 years later, the ECC has become the standard; ecological disaster has been averted; and a fiery statue of Isabel stands in a city that’s the very picture of botanical futurism. Auditor Mangus Skåber is a hard-nosed enforcer of this grand utopia’s tenets, assigning public gardening or confiscating nonnative produce from those who would break its laws. Yet his constant hunt for corruption has him investigating unspent carbon credits with a connection to Isabel. Further into the future, a family of four traverses the ruins of the ECC’s society in a New Ice Age. But Isabel’s words survive even there, passed between well-meaning survivors despite the fact that the paradise she created is long frozen over. Holman, Martin, and Morales deftly introduce three radically different eras early on, easily building intrigue by silently positing what Isabel did so right in Mangus’ time and what later went so wrong as to tear it all down. Each age is defined by its vivid art. Osborn’s minimalist pencil works portray a present day that feels malleable while its red palette gives Isabel and her collaborators a chic look. Koelsch’s lush cityscapes and modernist character designs, the latter clearly influenced by artist Neal Adams, inject the comic’s weakest plotline—weighed down by a setting whose inner workings are left a bit too obtuse—with some much-needed dynamism. Elimam’s style is distinctive in a way that belies her background in children’s books, cleverly depicting the nomadic family’s often violent quest for survival in an icy world. Though the series opener leaves plenty of unanswered questions, it offers readers just as many reasons to return for the sequel.
A timely, engrossing SF tale with an environmental theme and striking art.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2021
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Literati Press Comics and Novels
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Using modern language, McDonald spins the well-known tale of the two young, unrequited lovers. Set against Nagar’s at-times...
A bland, uninspired graphic adaptation of the Bard’s renowned love story.
Using modern language, McDonald spins the well-known tale of the two young, unrequited lovers. Set against Nagar’s at-times oddly psychedelic-tinged backgrounds of cool blues and purples, the mood is strange, and the overall ambiance of the story markedly absent. Appealing to what could only be a high-interest/low–reading level audience, McDonald falls short of the mark. He explains a scene in an open-air tavern with a footnote—“a place where people gather to drink”—but he declines to offer definitions for more difficult words, such as “dirges.” While the adaptation does follow the foundation of the play, the contemporary language offers nothing; cringeworthy lines include Benvolio saying to Romeo at the party where he first meets Juliet, “Let’s go. It’s best to leave now, while the party’s in full swing.” Nagar’s faces swirl between dishwater and grotesque, adding another layer of lost passion in a story that should boil with romantic intensity. Each page number is enclosed in a little red heart; while the object of this little nuance is obvious, it’s also unpleasantly saccharine. Notes after the story include such edifying tidbits about Taylor Swift and “ ‘Wow’ dialogs from the play” (which culls out the famous quotes).Pub Date: May 10, 2011
ISBN: 978-93-80028-58-3
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Campfire
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
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