The space vistas are spectacular, if readers overlook the tedious postman in front of them.
This graphic import from Québec is science fiction for anyone who finds Star Wars too invigorating.
In the early Star Wars movies, the backgrounds were usually more interesting than what was happening in the foreground, and this graphic novel borrows the same technique. As Bob the titular postman shuttles letters from one planet to another, he’s always passing something astonishing: a world shaped like an enormous dog bone or a post-office space station shaped like a mailbox. This irritates him, because Bob likes his postal route dull and routine. Any change gives him a stomachache. Fortunately, nothing that happens here is remotely exciting, though Bob is increasingly annoyed by these mundane postal glitches. He trips in the mud or gets chased by dogs. The main exception is a lengthy parody of The Little Prince, which will be funny only to those who recognize the source. The scenes in the background, however, are stunning, with impossible, Escher-style architecture and a mail cart that hovers just above the ground. (Bob, fittingly, is a bland shade of white, but other characters have green skin or puce beaks.) The drawings are so masterful that they become a sort of understated joke. The more marvels Bob sees, the more desperate he is to end this day of mishaps. But even Bob has to pause, a few pages from the end, and admire the sheer beauty of the world outside his window.
The space vistas are spectacular, if readers overlook the tedious postman in front of them. (Graphic science fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4519-6
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 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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