An action-laden tale with vigor and cultural insight.
In Pires’ graphic novel, a near-future game show features the bloody executions of those deemed society’s worst offenders.
In mid-21st-century Los Angeles, murder is always available for streaming. The show Cancelled encourages its audience to vote on which people in the world they’d like to see die. Heavily armed assassins, including Roland Endo, who’s ranked first among the Cancellers, then track down the chosen and end their lives. One serial sexual harasser and assaulter, for example, meets an especially brutal end. For Roland, it’s just a job, but things take a disturbing turn when he learns Cancelled has been hacked, and now he’s set to be canceled. The show’s CEO anticipates a ratings boost and sees no need to stop other Cancellers from targeting Roland. Meanwhile, Roland scours the city for the hacker, and what he discovers is alarming—not only the hacker’s identity, but also what the hacker has to tell him. Although Pires’ blunt graphic novel has its share of humor, it takes itself seriously just as often. The story unfolds in a dystopian L.A. where the government has all but abandoned the working class. The taut narrative ultimately centers on the question of who among the public revels most in the violence that Cancelled delivers. Similarly, Roland isn’t the apathetic killing machine he appears to be, and his backstory hints at trauma suffered when he was a soldier. Still, the highlight of this graphic novel is its action. Castaniero’s stylized, full-color illustrations showcase Roland in battle mode as he floors opponents with fists, cookware, and what looks suspiciously like a lightsaber. The artwork is at its best in glorious full-page tableaux, whether they feature Roland calmly awaiting attackers or a collage of the show’s viewers cheering on the show’s barbarity.
An action-laden tale with vigor and cultural insight.Pub Date: Dec. 12, 2023
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 110
Publisher: Mad Cave Studios
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
Lush visuals bring this thoughtfully constructed tale to life.
Wondrous visitors encounter a desperate pocket of humanity.
Lori, a white orphaned teen who’s finally been adopted after bouncing around various foster homes, awakens to discover that nearly everyone has disappeared. The rapture? Maybe. She runs into her classmate Annette, who has brown skin and curly black hair, and they partner up to scavenge for food. The pair tries to evade several threats, such as the large Wolves and a gang called The Dogs. Supernatural Giants arrive, seemingly from space, speaking an impenetrable language of “musical chiming and weird bass-rhythms.” Lori and Annette then meet Beatrice, an older white woman who shares important observations about the Giants and Wolves. The tone of the story then subtly shifts from post-apocalyptic desperation to one that’s somewhat playful. After a certain point, a visual element that appears early on takes on clear significance and meaning in the context of the story at large, offering a subversively humorous twist for readers to consider and a creative element that deviates from other alien invasion narratives. Hans’ artwork and paneling fill each scene with wonders. An interaction with a giant sees the red, violet, and pink figure standing against a bright, otherworldly white-and-blue backdrop with dark contours. Elsewhere, Lori and Annette pause at night as they behold ominous shadows, their foggy breath forming clouds, and they hear a “KRRNCH” sound. The quick-moving plot wraps everything up neatly.
Lush visuals bring this thoughtfully constructed tale to life. (character designs) (Graphic science fiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781534387072
Page Count: 104
Publisher: Image Comics
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2024
A Rand primer with pictures.
A graphic novel for devotees of Ayn Rand.
With its men who have become gods through rugged individualism, the fiction of Ayn Rand has consistently had something of a comic strip spirit to it. So the mating of Rand and graphic narrative would seem to be long overdue, with her 1938 novella better suited to a quick read than later, more popular work such as The Fountainhead (1943) and the epic Atlas Shrugged (1957). As Anthem shows, well before the Cold War (or even World War II), Rand was railing against the evils of any sort of collectivism and the stifling of individualism, warning that this represented a return to the Dark Ages. Here, her allegory hammers the point home. It takes place in the indeterminate future, a period after “the Great Rebirth” marked an end of “the Unmentionable Times.” Now people have numbers as names and speak of themselves as “we,” with no concept of “I.” The hero, drawn to stereotypical, flowing-maned effect by illustrator Staton, knows himself as Equality 7-2521 and knows that “it is evil to be superior.” A street sweeper, he stumbles upon the entrance to a tunnel, where he discovers evidence of scientific advancement, from a time when “men knew secrets that we have lost.” He inevitably finds a nubile mate. He calls her “the Golden One.” She calls him “the Unconquered.” Their love, of course, is forbidden, and not just because she is 17. After his attempt to play Prometheus, bringing light to a society that prefers the dark, the two escape to the “uncharted forest,” where they are Adam and Eve. “I have my mind. I shall live my own truth,” he proclaims, having belatedly discovered the first-person singular. The straightforward script penned by Santino betrays no hint of tongue-in-cheek irony.
A Rand primer with pictures.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-451-23217-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: NAL/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2010
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