Insensitive language isn’t the only rough spot, but younger fans of action manga may be entertained.
A young lad who can turn his hands into huge hammers wishes himself into the storybook that swallowed his father.
In episodic chapters that each start off in color then switch to line drawings, spiky-haired Stud Hammer discovers that his newly discovered superpower doesn’t make him any friends in his village but proves useful both in pounding monsters in his world and, after he’s sucked into watery Ocean City, hooking up with stern young Detective Dan and his big sister, ocean police commissioner Diane, to battle a supertough hammerhead shark political activist. Catering to readers who delight in continual slugfests with massive sound effects, the art is stuffed into cramped panels of wild (if hard to follow) action, and the plot jerks along from one set piece to the next, cutting off abruptly in a brief lull between battles. The special abilities displayed by Stud and several others are judgmentally characterized as “abnormal” in the equally patchy dialogue—when it’s not devolving into variations on “What the crap!!!” or weak banter in which “chubby” or “Mr. Chubs” are repeatedly used to insult Dan. Dan, Diane, and some associates are dark-skinned merfolk kitted out with tails and legs. Stud and other human Swirls, as those humans with magical mutations are called, are occasionally given a light toning, but in the monochrome scenes are generally left as unfilled figures.
Insensitive language isn’t the only rough spot, but younger fans of action manga may be entertained. (Adventure comic. 10-13)Pub Date: June 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-7603-7683-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Rockport Publishers
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
Briskly paced, expertly crafted, and stocked with surprising twists and nuanced characters.
A young warrior battles inner ghosts and a rival to the throne in this series kickoff.
Switching to a graphic format, Myklusch returns to the elusive island of Imagine Nation, the setting of his Jack Blank novel series, where belief is the ruling principle. Dreaming of measuring up to his dead parents, Skerren takes center stage in a battle for the crown of Varagog, where it’s always 1404. He faces Zorn, the son of a displaced ruler who fled years ago following the cybernetic Rüstov’s invasion attempt. Orlando’s art effectively showcases Imagine Nation’s racially and culturally distinctive residents and settings as the high-action plot shifts scenes beyond Varagog to Faerie and futuristic Hightown—until an evil alliance in the Night Lands that threatens everyone on the island is revealed. In combat scenes, the artist also substitutes sprays of black Night Lander goop for red blood, rendering swordfights somewhat less gory. To the pleasure of returning fans (and comics readers in general), Jack and his fantastically rubbery-blue friend Allegra step in to help, and in a Marvel Universe–style twist, a conflicted older retainer nursing a devastating secret later plays a crucial role. Happily, for those readers who aren’t fans of never-ending plotlines, this volume offers enough of a resolution to work as a stand-alone.
Briskly paced, expertly crafted, and stocked with surprising twists and nuanced characters. (Graphic fantasy. 10-13)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781665928182
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
A muddled middle for a lagomorphic trilogy mired in gloom and doom.
Artist/magician Bridgebelle makes a dangerous bargain in hopes of saving her rabbit community from scheming foxes and supernatural threats.
Having set up a complex backstory and elaborately detailed animal societies in the opener, Secret of the Wind (2018), summarized here in a prose lead-in, the author more or less marks time in this follow-up with a fragmentary, disconnected set of events. When her first megathokcha, a magical talisman made from carrot extract, is stolen, Bridgebelle promises to make another for vengeful fox Hollow even as the religious authorities, or Windist Curatus, in her own settlement drive her away with a decree that all thokchas should be destroyed. Meanwhile, her friend Glee’s attempt to transport another megathokcha known as the Black Sun to the isolated Vale of the Clouds for safety falls afoul of trickster fox Sylvan’s nihilist scheme to summon the malign Broken Feather King from the land of the dead. If the many quick cuts, flashbacks, and scene shifts don’t leave readers bewildered, the cast of lookalike rabbits and foxes should do the trick—Arnhold’s efforts to individualize her naturalistically drawn and colored creatures with occasional accessories and subtle variations in facial features notwithstanding. In the end Bridgebelle is left holding a legendary white carrot that may free either her or her furry folk but not both. Stay tuned.
A muddled middle for a lagomorphic trilogy mired in gloom and doom. (Graphic fantasy. 10-13)Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-62672-061-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
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