A silly and exciting flight of fancy in the form of a thoughtfully crafted graphic novel.
An imaginative and playful misfit accidentally opens a portal to a fantastical reality in Turner’s graphic novel.
Zach Vandermeer’s imagination can get the young man into trouble: The graphic novel opens with a riveting chase scene filled with guns, fast cars, and a perilous cliff’s edge. It’s exciting and intense (“Twenty millimeter cannon blew out the windows; I felt the shells fly past!”)—and it’s also not real. In a few pages and even fewer words, the author establishes Zach as a funny, creative protagonist adept at spinning stories. This is what makes him so great at Heroic Journeys, a role-playing game set in a fantasy world, which he plays with an eccentric and lovable group of friends. The harmless game takes a turn one stormy night when Zach introduces a new character: a small statue named Gunama, from a dig site near the lost city of Erkund. When the seemingly innocent game has ended and the friends have said goodbye, Zach wakes from an ominous dream and wanders outside to his backyard—except it isn’t his backyard. It’s a reality entirely set in Arthea, a fictional world created long ago by Zach and his brother, Peter. Zach recruits his friends to explore this new world with him. As the quirky gang encounters wraiths, goblins, fairies, and ghosts, they also discover that they can become their game characters—magical creatures themselves, with supernatural powers and abilities. Zach leads the way as they stumble through two worlds, swords brandished, ready for anything. Turner’s graphic tale is both silly and sincere, gratuitous and grounded. The five protagonists are delightfully nerdy and bursting with love—love they have for each other and love the author clearly has for them. They, rendered in intricate black-and-white illustrations, keep the reader eagerly turning pages to find out what else Arthea has in store. It’s a breezy, evenly paced story full of humor and escapist fun.
A silly and exciting flight of fancy in the form of a thoughtfully crafted graphic novel.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2023
ISBN: 9781593623197
Page Count: 175
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Immensely enjoyable.
The debut graphic novel from Mohamed presents a modern Egypt full of magical realism where wishes have been industrialized and heavily regulated.
The story opens with a televised public service announcement from the General Committee of Wish Supervision and Licensing about the dangers of “third-class wishes”—wishes that come in soda cans and tend to backfire on wishers who aren’t specific enough (like a wish to lose weight resulting in limbs falling from the wisher’s body). Thus begins a brilliant play among magic, the mundane, and bureaucracy that centers around a newsstand kiosk where a devout Muslim is trying to unload the three “first-class wishes” (contained in elegant glass bottles and properly licensed by the government) that have come into his possession, since he believes his religion forbids him to use them. As he gradually unloads the first-class wishes on a poor, regretful widow (who then runs afoul of authorities determined to manipulate her out of her valuable commodity) and a university student who seeks a possibly magical solution to their mental health crisis (but struggles with whether a wish to always be happy might have unintended consequences), interstitials give infographic histories of wishes, showing how the Western wish-industrial complex has exploited the countries where wishes are mined (largely in the Middle East). The book is exceptionally imaginative while also being wonderfully grounded in touching human relationships, existential quandaries, and familiar geopolitical and socio-economic dynamics. Mohamed’s art balances perfectly between cartoon and realism, powerfully conveying emotions, and her strong, clean lines gorgeously depict everything from an anguished face to an ornate bottle. Charts and graphs nicely break up the reading experience while also concisely building this larger world of everyday wishes. Mohamed has a great sense of humor, which comes out in footnotes and casual asides throughout.
Immensely enjoyable.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-524-74841-8
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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