A gorgeous tribute to a classic work of pop art.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the animated film of the same name, comics and animation veteran Morrison (DC Meets Looney Tunes, 2018, etc.) presents a graphic novel adaptation of the Beatles’ psychedelic journey to a utopia under siege by belligerent “Blue Meanies.”
Pepperland is a paradise of lovely, positive people, Technicolor foliage, and musical appreciation. That appreciation isn’t shared by the Blue Meanies, a collection of maniacal, six-fingered humanoids with bodies like storm clouds and boots made for stomping. The Meanies, along with an assortment of nightmarish henchmen, launch an assault on Pepperland, silencing the music and rendering the citizenry frozen statues. One man escapes into the titular yellow submarine (Pepperland is at the bottom of the ocean, though the physics of that never come into play) and recruits musicians John, Paul, George, and Ringo to help! As they descend the depths, the group encounters a boxing tyrannosaur, meets a squirrely genius “nowhere man” and wrestles with time itself. But plot is secondary in this mind-bending adventure, where striking imagery and unbridled imagination deliver a treat on each page. The book faithfully follows the original film, from the iconic designs by Heinz Edelmann to plot points and cheeky wordplay (though some beats don’t land as well removed from the animation, feeling a bit rushed and working more as homages than standing on their own). If anything, the graphic novel has a more robust look than the film, thanks in large part to colorist Nathan Kane. Here, functional narration replaces the film’s musical numbers, though the lyrical quality of the proceedings is beautifully retained by Morrison’s inspired paneling, where right angles are rare, favoring instead swooshes and circles and pages broken up by large, dazzling characters and ornate frames.
A gorgeous tribute to a classic work of pop art.Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-78586-394-3
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Titan Comics
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
Large themes of loss, accountability, and redemption in a sometimes too neat package.
In rural Michigan, home to the family abuse and emotional distress Reardon captured so vividly in Billy Dead (1998), the specter of a dead child forces a woman to face herself and her demons.
At age ten, Mary Culpepper plotted to escape the strictures of her north Michigan hometown, where booze and adultery helped the populace make it though long nights. Instead of falling prey to those same sorrow-filled vices, she grows up to become a school-bus driver whose modus operandi is to absorb life’s shocks in stony silence. Her best friend Amy dubs her The Lone Rangerette. Physically impressive and earthy, a star at softball, Mary sleepwalks through life, remaining close to Amy even after she seduces away Mary’s husband, Carl. But then the discovery of little Jen Colby’s battered body in a closet in the house at the end of her bus route wreaks havoc with Mary’s carefully built defenses. Summoned to testify in the explosive case against the child’s mother, Mary suffers a breakdown. Her sleep is haunted by an oppressive granite figure she calls The Night Visitor, and her days are filled with fantasies of Number 34, the guy whose forearms catch her eye at the local tavern. The story starts slowly, and its many dangling references cause some early confusion; but effective conceits like that of “Loretta” as a personification of Mary’s feelings (her “heart”) who nevertheless acts independently of that sad—and mad—protagonist, add direction. While Mary struggles, Loretta, symbolic of Mary’s estrangement from herself, always knows what to do. Amid a surfeit of misery, the author shows the love and affection that can bind women together despite the jealousy and back-biting that grow in the fertile field of small-town life.
Large themes of loss, accountability, and redemption in a sometimes too neat package.Pub Date: May 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-50405-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
And now for something completely different . . . from the acclaimed Greek author of the suavely Ovidian Eroticon, this 1974 novel (his first) employs the currently obscure form of the “spiritual biography” (roughly akin to the saint’s life) to relate the adventures of Theodore P., a teacher of humanities assigned to a remote Greek island. Addressing his tale to the women in his life (a former and current lover, plus his sister), Theodore tells of being swallowed and regurgitated by a whale, being thrust into reprises of famous battles and acquaintance with eminent military and political figures (not to mention modern poets George Seferis and Yannis Ritsos), and residing in a city totally submerged by a catastrophic flood (though his fellow residents seem unperturbed, and go about their business as usual). A knowledge of Greece’s modern and recent history would doubtless enrich the reader’s understanding. But the amusing mix of dream vision, condensed history, magical realism, and sociopolitical satire keeps us happily bedazzled, and eagerly reading all the same.
Pub Date: July 4, 2000
ISBN: 1-873982-44-5
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Dedalus
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2000
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