An uneven but undeniably original adventure.
Lubchansky uses science fiction, horror, and the comic book form to explore the terrors of coming out as transfemme in a world dominated by dudes.
Sometime in the not-too-distant future, Sammie Kavalski is packing for their best friend Adam’s bachelor party blowout. They’re not thrilled at the prospect of spending a weekend at El Campo, a floating resort in the South Pacific. And they’re even less excited about hanging out with old pals who still treat them like one of the guys. This ostensibly pleasant excursion will prove to be beyond Sammie’s worst imaginings. During days of lawless partying on the high seas, Sammie will have to deal with toxic bro culture, a dangerous cabal, an eldritch horror from the deep, and people who consistently mock and misgender them. Although it’s set in an invented universe, Lubchansky’s graphic novel offers commentary on our own time and place. El Campo is built on a garbage island, and on their way there, Sammie is upcharged for having gained 3.3 pounds since they booked their “Super-Saver Plus Plus” ticket, and they have to pay a landing fee before they can exit the airport. When they check into their hotel, they have to offer a blood sample so they can participate in fun activities like hunting and killing their own clone. And the cabal—which calls itself a “vertically integrated marketing platform for a global network of entrepreneurs”—issues fleece vests not unlike those favored by fintech guys to its members. The fantastic elements of this graphic novel are intriguing, but the bulk of the book consists of repeated scenes of Sammie being abused by the bachelor-party cohort, retreating to deal with the emotions that stirs up, and then rejoining the group. These two parts of the story don’t work well together, though. Neither the relationships among characters nor the sea-monster cult is given enough space to develop. That said, Lubchansky gives Sammie a chance to reconcile with Adam and their past self in a way that is very satisfying.
An uneven but undeniably original adventure.Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9780593316719
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Beautiful illustrations can't quite save an overly simplistic graphic novel.
A touching tale of friendship during World War II.
The debut graphic novel from Tuininga opens in 1987, with a man walking to a Sephardic synagogue in Seattle to attend his grandfather’s funeral. “My name is Marco,” he explains. “I was named after my papoo. My grandfather.” At the service, he notices mourners from “a different neighborhood,” one of whom signs the guest book with the name Sam Akiyama. The younger Marco introduces himself to Sam and learns that the man befriended his grandfather during the early days of World War II. The elder Marco, a Jewish immigrant from the Ottoman Empire, was horrified when he learned that after the invasion of Pearl Harbor, Sam and his family—along with many other Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans—would likely be imprisoned in camps under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s now-infamous Executive Order 9066. Tuininga briefly depicts the Akiyama family’s imprisonment and then their return to Seattle and later reveals that Marco had been working behind the scenes to save their home and business. “Some say all it took was a little research and some paperwork,” the younger Marco explains. “While others say the only thing needed was a simple handshake.” Tuininga’s illustrations are uniformly beautiful, with mostly dark, understated colors that match the anxieties of the era; his characters’ facial expressions convey their emotions beautifully. Some of the most powerful pages in the book are ones that lack dialogue, such as a spread in which Marco fishes alone, missing his friend Sam. The writing is less successful, heavy on exposition—Tuininga understandably wants the book to be as much history lesson as novel, and it turns heavy-handed in parts. The book needs more story, more detail; as it is, it feels unfinished. The artwork is undeniable, but one wishes the narrative were more than the broad strokes.
Beautiful illustrations can't quite save an overly simplistic graphic novel.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781419759949
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Abrams ComicArts
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
Chwast and Twain are a match made in heaven.
Design veteran Chwast delivers another streamlined, graphic adaptation of classic literature, this time Mark Twain’s caustic, inventive satire of feudal England.
Chwast (Tall City, Wide Country, 2013, etc.) has made hay anachronistically adapting classic texts, whether adding motorcycles to The Canterbury Tales (2011) or rocket ships to The Odyssey (2012), so Twain’s tale of a modern-day (well, 19th-century) engineer dominating medieval times via technology—besting Merlin with blasting powder—is a fastball down the center. (The source material already had knights riding bicycles!) In Chwast’s rendering, bespectacled hero Hank Morgan looks irresistible, plated in armor everywhere except from his bow tie to the top of his bowler hat, sword cocked behind head and pipe clenched in square jaw. Inexplicably sent to sixth-century England by a crowbar to the head, Morgan quickly ascends nothing less than the court of Camelot, initially by drawing on an uncanny knowledge of historical eclipses to present himself as a powerful magician. Knowing the exact date of a celestial event from more than a millennium ago is a stretch, but the charm of Chwast’s minimalistic adaption is that there are soon much better things to dwell on, such as the going views on the church, politics and society, expressed as a chart of literal back-stabbing and including a note that while the upper class may murder without consequence, it’s kill and be killed for commoners and slaves. Morgan uses his new station as “The Boss” to better the primitive populous via telegraph lines, newspapers and steamboats, but it’s the deplorably savage civility of the status quo that he can’t overcome, even with land mines, Gatling guns and an electric fence. The subject of class manipulation—and the power of passion over reason—is achingly relevant, and Chwast’s simple, expressive illustrations resonate with a childlike earnestness, while his brief, pointed annotations add a sly acerbity. His playful mixing of perspectives within single panels gives the work an aesthetic somewhere between medieval tapestry and Colorforms.
Chwast and Twain are a match made in heaven.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-60819-961-7
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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