A rush of energy and charm.
Teen girl superheroes tangle with a blackout.
The Super Hero Girls are a formidable team of teen heroes: Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Zatanna, Green Lantern, Supergirl, and Bumblebee fight crime by night and go to high school by day, all the while doing their best in both spheres. But after the city’s power grid fails and the cloud-computing technology gets knocked out, the band of heroes must face a startling new foe: a complete lack of technology. No smartphones! No gadgets! A cafeteria that only takes cash! The breezy graphic novel captures the tone of the popular TV series perfectly. Fans will be delighted, but newcomers will find plenty to adore here as well. The bright colors and sharply composed panels present the humor and action the brand is known for perfectly. The characterization of each supergirl isn’t particularly strong (all the girls speak in the same bubbly tone), but the diversity of skin tone is a welcome change from other DC teams that are almost exclusively white. (Batgirl, Supergirl, and Zatanna are white, Green Lantern is Latina, Bumblebee is black, and Wonder Woman has olive skin.) With mangalike stylings—in particular, enormous eyes—that give these teens a distinctly juvenile look, this is a comic ideal for younger readers, particularly those keen on the DC heroes but not ready for the more mature YA fare. It may not be great literature, but it’s great fun.
A rush of energy and charm. (Graphic fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4012-9361-1
Page Count: 144
Publisher: DC
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Silly and inventive fast-paced fun
A zippy graphic-novel series opener featuring two comically bumbling reptile detectives.
As agents of SUIT (Special Undercover Investigation Team) with customized VESTs (Very Exciting Spy Technology) boasting the latest gadgetry, the bright green InvestiGators Mango and Brash receive their newest assignment. The reptilian duo must go undercover at the Batter Down bakery to find missing mustachioed Chef Gustavo and his secret recipes. Before long, the pair find themselves embroiled in a strange and busy plot with a scientist chicken, a rabid were-helicopter, an escape-artist dinosaur, and radioactive cracker dough. Despite the great number of disparate threads, Green manages to tie up most neatly, leaving just enough intrigue for subsequent adventures. Nearly every panel has a joke, including puns (“gator done!”), poop jokes, and pop-culture references (eagle-eyed older readers will certainly pick up on the 1980s song references), promising to make even the most stone-faced readers dissolve into giggles. Green’s art is as vibrant as an overturned box of crayons and as highly spirited as a Saturday-morning cartoon. Fast pacing and imaginative plotting (smattered with an explosion here, a dance number there) propel the action through a whimsical world in which a diverse cast of humans live alongside anthropomorphized reptiles and dinosaurs. With its rampant good-natured goofiness and its unrelenting fizz and pep, this feels like a sugar rush manifested as a graphic novel.
Silly and inventive fast-paced fun . (Graphic fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21995-4
Page Count: 208
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock”...
The theme of persistence (for better or worse) links four tales of magic, trickery, and near disasters.
Lachenmeyer freely borrows familiar folkloric elements, subjecting them to mildly comical twists. In the nearly wordless “Hip Hop Wish,” a frog inadvertently rubs a magic lamp and finds itself saddled with an importunate genie eager to shower it with inappropriate goods and riches. In the title tale, an increasingly annoyed music-hating witch transforms a persistent minstrel into a still-warbling cow, horse, sheep, goat, pig, duck, and rock in succession—then is horrified to catch herself humming a tune. Athesius the sorcerer outwits Warthius, a rival trying to steal his spells via a parrot, by casting silly ones in Ig-pay Atin-lay in the third episode, and in the finale, a painter’s repeated efforts to create a flattering portrait of an ogre king nearly get him thrown into a dungeon…until he suddenly understands what an ogre’s idea of “flattering” might be. The narratives, dialogue, and sound effects leave plenty of elbow room in Blocker’s big, brightly colored panels for the expressive animal and human(ish) figures—most of the latter being light skinned except for the golden genie, the blue ogre, and several people of color in the “Sorcerer’s New Pet.”
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock” music. (Graphic short stories. 8-10)Pub Date: June 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59643-750-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
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