It’s well-intended, and these are mostly words of wisdom, but the artwork inspires more than the words, which, if timeless,...
It’s hard to imagine Calvin Coolidge and the practice of Zen joining forces, but Than gives it the old-school try.
Not just Coolidge (in an unusually prolix turn), but the Stoics Seneca and Epictetus; Margaret E. Knight, Amelia Earhart, and Marie Curie; Jack London, Theodore Roosevelt, and Jacob A. Riis—all are grist for Than’s mill, which turns their inspirational words into short, graphic meditations. “Happiness is like a butterfly,” starts one of Than’s paneled episodes, a lovely bit from Henry David Thoreau that the cartoonist follows through eight pictures until the old, white man who has been trying mightily to catch a butterfly gives up and then dozes off while fishing—at which point the elusive butterfly appears on his shoulder. The aphorisms can be straight-out sharp, like that of the Dalai Lama’s “But basically, we are the same human beings.” Others feel ambiguous—Seneca: “All cruelty springs from weakness”—or dry as tinder—Sir Ken Robinson: “We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we’re educating our children.” Than’s characters are easy on the eye, but perhaps there are a few too many transformations into superheroes, and many strips are radically decontextualized from their speakers’ work, as in Riis’ stonecutter. Thumbnail biographies of at most four sentences follow.
It’s well-intended, and these are mostly words of wisdom, but the artwork inspires more than the words, which, if timeless, can still feel musty. (Graphic nonfiction. 10-18)Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4494-8721-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
African-American Geo cuts a suitably chiseled figure in the pictures, but he doesn’t get enough to do and so is really no...
Superhero Geo introduces readers to plate tectonics.
Reviewing information on his way to school for a big geology test, young George transforms himself into “Geo,” a uniformed superhero with a rocket-propelled skateboard and a robotic canine sidekick. In his imaginary adventure, he leaps over sidewalk “faults,” swerves away from “tsunamis” splashed up by a passing truck and saves an elderly lady from falling into an open manhole “volcano.” Meanwhile, supported by visual aids provided by inserted graphics and maps, Geo goes over the convergent, divergent and transform movements of tectonic plates, subduction, magnetic “stripes” paralleling oceanic ridges and a host of other need-to-know facts and terms. All of this is illustrated in big, brightly colored sequential panels of cartoon art hung about with heavy blocks of explication. After the exam comes back with, natch, a perfect score (“I guess all that studying paid off”), Lee, a geophysicist, abandons the story for a final 10 pages of recap and further detail on plate tectonics’ causes, effects and measurement—closing with a description of what geologists do.
African-American Geo cuts a suitably chiseled figure in the pictures, but he doesn’t get enough to do and so is really no more than a mouthpiece—perhaps there will be more of a plot in his next adventure. (online projects, index) (Graphic nonfiction. 10-12)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-59327-549-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: No Starch Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2014
There’s a lot to absorb even in this abbreviated form, but the visual approach lightens the load considerably.
A cartoon history of the tumultuous 450-year period in Chinese history known as the “Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms.”
Using common-era dating and (excepting “Confucius”) Pinyin transcription for names, Liu begins the third of a four-volume history with a quick thematic recap of early Chinese civilization and the arrival of the Liao dynasty in 907. He then carries readers through to the capture of the Yuan (Mongol) capital by an unidentified “rebel army” in 1368. Though he takes only rare side glances at cultural or scientific highlights (such as the inventions of gunpowder and paper currency), he pauses in his account of successive, sometimes overlapping rises, falls, and major battles to describe Neo-Confucian precepts in some detail, as keys to understanding enduring aspects of Chinese character and outlook. In the monochrome art, dialogue more often runs to such lines as “We lost the Silk Road, let’s make up for it through sea trade” than personal interchanges. Still, the combination of silhouettes—often threatening, martial ones—with open-faced, expressively individualized figures of many social classes adds dramatic tension while neatly balancing the big-picture narrative.
There’s a lot to absorb even in this abbreviated form, but the visual approach lightens the load considerably. (maps, diagrams, recommended reading) (Graphic nonfiction. 11-14)Pub Date: April 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61172-034-1
Page Count: 168
Publisher: Stone Bridge Press
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
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