Yee-haw! Pa never does show up, but there are plainly more misadventures in store before trail’s end.
Two children get into one pickle after another as they search the Old West for their elusive dad.
There’s never a dull moment as Opie (Calliope, but woe betide anyone who calls her that) and pesky little brother Ned chase rumors of their pa’s whereabouts—being as he’s universally feared as “the criminal king of the west,” there are plenty of rumors—while a posse of disasters rides hot at their heels. In a series of set-piece chapters, Hirsch chucks the young searchers into saloon brawls, gunfights, and encounters with a massive mountain man clad in a bearskin onesie and a motherly if larcenous woman of low virtue, among other dust-ups. Finally Opie and Ned brave a booby-trapped underground lair to confront one of Pa’s “representatives,” a lowdown snake who killed their mother. Beneath a prized coonskin cap that, according to Ned, smells “like ten butts,” Opie’s orange hair glows as brightly as her feisty spirit in the neatly squared-off cartoon panels. Horses and other livestock (plus the odd jackalope) show as much personality as any of the two-legged characters. Amid the large typecast array of white gamblers, cowpokes, Pinkerton agents, settlers, and outlaws, the author floats an occasional darker-skinned or Native American figure.
Yee-haw! Pa never does show up, but there are plainly more misadventures in store before trail’s end. (Graphic Western. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62672-279-8
Page Count: 226
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
An action-packed, tongue-in-cheek romp fitted out with snarky dialogue, heroic fantasy tropes aplenty and a notably...
A supposed village lad kidnapped to stand in for the vanished prince he resembles rises to the challenge. More or less.
Set in a Darkling Realm of horned, bat-winged people, the tale takes young Seifer Tombchewer (his name inherited from an ancestor who went bonkers after eating “something poisonous that fell asleep in his porridge”) to the royal palace of Pandemonium, where he’s given the choice of temporarily masquerading as Prince Talon or being fed to “psycho carnage beasts.” Making the reasonable choice entails learning how to behave like an arrogant, selfish twit—as well as being mauled by “his” gigantic pet cat, surviving assassination attempts, outbelching the chieftain of a neighboring warrior clan and defeating an invading army. Fortunately, he does have allies, including his royal “sister” Princess Hypoxia and magic-wielding girlfriend-to-be Lady Carcassa, daughter of gambling addict Baron Canasta Malefica. Interspersing outsized GRNARGH! BLORP! SOOG! YAAAAAA! sound effects with scenes featuring sharp-featured, elegantly slender figures, debut illustrator Diaz crafts panels of Japanese comics–style art for Wooding’s somewhat less-than-earnest adventure story. The real prince’s continued absence, a hint of secrets in Seifer’s own past and the sudden arrival of “his” fiancée Lady Asphyxia point to sequels.
An action-packed, tongue-in-cheek romp fitted out with snarky dialogue, heroic fantasy tropes aplenty and a notably resilient protagonist. (Graphic novel. 11-13)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-25221-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2011
The lapidary art repays examination, but notwithstanding a prefatory thumbnail recap and later on-the-fly explication, new...
In this abbreviated episode, the much-reduced central cast mounts a twin assault on the Master of Shadows and the dark lake from which he and his teeming umbral minions have sprung.
The action picks up as Rebecca, Max and Theo follow enigmatic old Gabe to the high tower where the Master waits. There, they find a doppelganger of Rebecca that, according to Gabe, she must kill while the boys are dispatched to drop a flash bomb into the inky lake called the Source. Punctuated by snarky banter from the children and thunderous scenery-chewing by the adults (“Your overreaching excess will destroy you, you poor fool!”), the ensuing battles bring only partial success for the mission. There are many spectacular explosions, heroic feats and last-instant rescues, though, as well as destruction on a truly grand scale. In contrast to the at-best sketchy plotline, Bannister’s atmospheric illustrations feature expressive characters placed in finely detailed, eerily organic landscapes or dim subterranean reaches inhabited by menacing swirls of shadow.
The lapidary art repays examination, but notwithstanding a prefatory thumbnail recap and later on-the-fly explication, new readers will get more out of this sometimes-dark series by taking the volumes in order. (Graphic fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4677-1517-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Graphic Universe
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2013
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