An exceptional road taken.
Forsaken and left to confront their doubts and dreads, a brave young child and a buoyant creature fall through vibrant, extraordinary new worlds in Mendoza’s (contributor: The Real Folk Blues, 2019, etc.) kaleidoscopic ode to metamorphosis.
Bloom awakens from a deep sleep. It’s another day with Bee, checking on the potatoes, fishing on the lake, and pondering the city from a safe distance. The crackling radio disrupts their night by the fire. A plea fills the air, and before Bloom’s ready, Bee heads out to answer it. Left alone to “watch the lake,” Bloom fills the days with routines until Bee’s extended absence moves Bloom to leap into the lake. Transported in a swirl of colors, Bloom reemerges in another world and meets an exiled creature named Gloopy, whose half-hearted, distracted assistance during the Moon Harvest preparations results in catastrophe. Together, Bloom and Gloopy slip into a different place, kicking off a multiworld voyage back to their respective homes. From the first spread to the last image, Mendoza’s gorgeous, surrealist artwork presents imaginative depths both refreshing and disorienting. Poignant catharsis surfaces through tearful declarations and emotional strife as Bloom and Gloopy reflect on their strengths and weaknesses amid unusual environments (imagine playing games with a giant lizard or discussing creative ambition with a wistful AI–like being). Both Bloom and Bee are brown skinned, and the author uses “they/them” pronouns throughout.
An exceptional road taken. (Graphic dystopia. 12-adult)Pub Date: July 23, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-910620-42-7
Page Count: 168
Publisher: Nobrow Ltd.
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2019
A mature—in all its meanings—glimpse into a world few Westerners are at home with, and Thompson is respectful throughout.
Thompson (Good-Bye, Chunky Rice, 2006, etc.) returns after a five-year absence with a graphic novel that is sure to attract attention—and perhaps even controversy.
Slavery exists in the modern world as much as in the ancient. As Thompson’s long, carefully drawn narrative opens, we are in a time that seems faraway, even mythical: A 9-year-old girl is married off to a scribe who introduces her not just to sex but also to the mysteries of Arabic letters, which seem to take life on the page. “When God created the letters,” Thompson writes, “He kept their secrets for Himself”—though he shared them with Adam while keeping them from the angels, a source of considerable friction in the Muslim heaven. The scribe is killed, the young girl kidnapped, and from there the story opens into a world that might well have come from the Tales of a Thousand and One Nights, if, that is, industrial machinery and the teeming ports of the Arabian peninsula are introduced into the backdrop. Dodola and Zam are two children, one Semitic, one black African, who brave a hostile world, taking up residence in a ship marooned in the desert sands, selling what they have and can in order to survive. As they grow older, they find themselves feeling things that are not quite appropriate for the siblings they seem to have become, and now their paths part, destined to cross again as sure as the letters loop over one another. Thompson draws on elements of classical Arabic mythology and, a touch dangerously, Islamic belief; he also takes the opportunity to address modern issues of ethnic tension, racism, the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and the clash of civilizations, sexism and other modern concerns. Though in the form of a comic book, Thompson’s story is decidedly not for youngsters: Rape and murder figure in these pages, as does sex between minors.
A mature—in all its meanings—glimpse into a world few Westerners are at home with, and Thompson is respectful throughout.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-375-42414-4
Page Count: 672
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A mutant submariner pines for a surface girl trapped in a prison of her own making.
There are a hell of a lot of weird things in the world of graphic novels, ranging from Mike Mignola’s Hellboy to, well, anything touched by Alan Moore. But every once in a while you get a beautiful anomaly like this black-and-white graphic novel by Portland-based artist and writer Case. A throwback and tribute to both The Bard and the monster movies of the 1960s, the book opens on a morosely giggly other-than-human creature, Grue, and his Greek chorus of crab friends. “It’s a damn shame you broke yer bauble, sure. But dead cheerleaders will always nourish better than dead playwrits! Agreed?” says the lead crab. It turns out that Grue, a mutant critter with a taste for human flesh (apparently you can lure frisky teens with a six-pack), has been reading the plays of Shakespeare, tossed into the sea in soda bottles. He has, henceforth, adopted iambic pentameter as his chosen idiom, and sets out in search of the source. In the world above, Grue finds Giulietta, an agoraphobe whom Grue presumes to free, before finding out about her plight. Much chaos ensues, including a hot-blooded chase by the local police and the capture of Grue by those who would punish the sea monster for his sins. This is not your typical funny book, even compared to oddities like Fables or Sweet Tooth, but it is marvelously entertaining and a weird side-door entry into both Shakespeare and graphic literature. Be sure not to miss the coda, “An Invertebrate’s Guide to Iambic Pentameter,” in which our crabby hosts try to explain our hero’s lingo, via the self-explanatory phrasing, “Ba-donk A-donk A-Donk A-donk A-donk!” A funny, bizarre, unexpected pleasure that gives a creature from the depths heart and soul as well as a happy ending.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7653-3111-3
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
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