Maybe not for everyone, but expect this weird and fun homespun romp to inspire budding webcomics creators and the...
Collected daily webcomics about an interstellar institution.
In a galaxy far, far away is Space Academy 123, where the newly graduated Donna Summer (not of disco fame) has been appointed principal, dashing her dreams of becoming a space chiropractor. At the academy, there is a delightfully assembled motley crew including a wry HAL-like computer named Grandfather Computer; a hotheaded, eye-patch–wearing girl named Ashley Forgiveness; a boy named Andrew who is riddled with anxiety; and a darkly droll story-hour–hating little girl named Shandy. Zacchilli (RAV: 2nd Collection, 2017, etc.) published one page of this comic per day to her Instagram account; they are compiled here to form a cohesive, albeit somewhat offbeat narrative of vignettes that should not be unfamiliar to those who follow webcomics. Zacchilli’s scratchy and wobbly black-and-white pen-and-pencil art is crudely wrought but appealing; the illustrations are simply rendered with everything hand-drawn, from the winding text bubbles to the shaky panel borders. While not boisterous and flashy, this oozes an indie DIY charm. Be sure to get this into the hands of those seeking webcomics and zines or those looking for something a bit less mainstream.
Maybe not for everyone, but expect this weird and fun homespun romp to inspire budding webcomics creators and the indie-curious. (Graphic science fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-927668-63-4
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Koyama Press
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
Despite plenty of spattered blood and armored warriors sporting the oversized thews of Conanlike barbarians, this fictionalized graphic rendition of Xenophon’s Anabasis fails to give the renowned retreat much life or drama—or even to tell a coherent story. The narrative of foot soldier Eustachius opens with the realization of the Greek mercenaries that they’ve been suckered into taking on the entire Persian army and then follows the core that survives the battle of Cunaxa (and the death of Cyrus, their employer) on its more than 1,000-mile march through hostile territory back to Greece. It is brought to grinding halts first by an overlong flashback to peaceful times and later by a lurid but superfluous dream. Not only does the soldiers’ relentless bickering form a distracting backdrop to the exhausting marches and costly battles, but much of the visual action is squeezed into small inset panels where it shares space with boxes of wordy dialogue and commentary. Furthermore the art looks sketchier in some panels than others, and the characters (particularly when their faces are obscured by wraparound helmets) tend to look alike. Fans of Frank Miller’s epic 300 (1999) may be lured by the similar title, but will come away disappointed. (Graphic novel. 12-15)
Pub Date: May 31, 2011
ISBN: 978-93-80028-61-3
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Campfire
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
The classic tale is newly dressed up as a graphic novel and transferred to modern Mumbai.
Hewing fairly closely to the original’s storyline, Mukherjee casts Ali Baba as a cab driver, the clever slave girl who repeatedly saves his hide as an aspiring young dancer named Marjeena, and the thieves as heavily armed bank robbers in suits and shades. Drawn as caricatures in the crowded-together but legible panels, Ali Baba and his son Omar have appropriately hapless looks, the thieves’ leader, Vladimir, is a picture of chiseled menace and the beauty Marjeena (modeled, to judge from the photo, on the author) projects an air of alert competence. The "reload" is felt in plot as well as depicted setting. The climax feels muddled, thanks to a previously unmet gent who mysteriously pops up to defuse the bombs that Vladimir sets, but Marjeena consents to marry Omar in the end rather than just being handed over. Also, the thieves are only arrested, not boiled in oil, and though Ali Baba’s ne’er-do-well brother Qasim is gunned down early on with much splashing of blood, at least he isn’t, as in the traditional version, chopped into quarters. A properly melodramatic rendition that doesn’t take itself too seriously. (Graphic fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-93-80741-13-0
Page Count: 68
Publisher: Campfire
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
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