An entertaining, colorful adventure with a striking hero.
In this debut graphic novel, a man-turned-monkey dodges authorities while searching for a way to reverse the lab experiment that transformed him.
A lab explosion rocks the quiet hamlet of Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island. Mike Ross crawls out of the rubble, quickly alarmed upon realizing he’s a giant monkey. He can still talk, but that doesn’t placate locals, who flee from his sight or attack him. Fortunately, Lina Chin, who runs a kung fu studio, sympathizes. She and Mike head back to the lab, where they find scientist Dr. Menke Moon, a fully conscious head in a jar, and his odd assistant, Manny. Moon explains that his “project” was transport; he intended for Mike to switch places with a baboon, not to form a hybrid. When Moon promises he can “fix” Mike, their small group travels east to locate several necessary items. Meanwhile, FBI agents investigate the explosion and, in little time, pursue the monkey man. Mike and the others try staying ahead of the agents, though the hardest part seems to be keeping him hidden, especially once media outlets pick up the story. Seals’ breezy novel, which collects his comic book series’ first four “episodes,” is madcap fun. The tale is primarily visual. A flashback, for example, shows Moon—before he was just a head in a jar—brandishing a syringe for a project “volunteer.” And feds are depicted unknowingly passing by their monkey fugitive more than once. Bizarre turns sometimes unfold with nary an explanation, as when Mike and his friends apparently time travel. But as this book is the first installment of a trilogy, readers will hopefully learn in later volumes such things as the purpose of Moon’s key items (for example, a golden helmet). Mapa’s artwork is pristine, right down to characters’ facial expressions, from Moon’s maniacal grins to Mike’s scowls. This novel also includes the story’s genesis, which Seals based on a friend’s song, and its original five-page one shot, illustrated by Angelo Ty “Bong” Dazo.
An entertaining, colorful adventure with a striking hero.Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73583-682-9
Page Count: 116
Publisher: Monarch Comics, LLC
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A Rand primer with pictures.
A graphic novel for devotees of Ayn Rand.
With its men who have become gods through rugged individualism, the fiction of Ayn Rand has consistently had something of a comic strip spirit to it. So the mating of Rand and graphic narrative would seem to be long overdue, with her 1938 novella better suited to a quick read than later, more popular work such as The Fountainhead (1943) and the epic Atlas Shrugged (1957). As Anthem shows, well before the Cold War (or even World War II), Rand was railing against the evils of any sort of collectivism and the stifling of individualism, warning that this represented a return to the Dark Ages. Here, her allegory hammers the point home. It takes place in the indeterminate future, a period after “the Great Rebirth” marked an end of “the Unmentionable Times.” Now people have numbers as names and speak of themselves as “we,” with no concept of “I.” The hero, drawn to stereotypical, flowing-maned effect by illustrator Staton, knows himself as Equality 7-2521 and knows that “it is evil to be superior.” A street sweeper, he stumbles upon the entrance to a tunnel, where he discovers evidence of scientific advancement, from a time when “men knew secrets that we have lost.” He inevitably finds a nubile mate. He calls her “the Golden One.” She calls him “the Unconquered.” Their love, of course, is forbidden, and not just because she is 17. After his attempt to play Prometheus, bringing light to a society that prefers the dark, the two escape to the “uncharted forest,” where they are Adam and Eve. “I have my mind. I shall live my own truth,” he proclaims, having belatedly discovered the first-person singular. The straightforward script penned by Santino betrays no hint of tongue-in-cheek irony.
A Rand primer with pictures.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-451-23217-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: NAL/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2010
Using modern language, McDonald spins the well-known tale of the two young, unrequited lovers. Set against Nagar’s at-times...
A bland, uninspired graphic adaptation of the Bard’s renowned love story.
Using modern language, McDonald spins the well-known tale of the two young, unrequited lovers. Set against Nagar’s at-times oddly psychedelic-tinged backgrounds of cool blues and purples, the mood is strange, and the overall ambiance of the story markedly absent. Appealing to what could only be a high-interest/low–reading level audience, McDonald falls short of the mark. He explains a scene in an open-air tavern with a footnote—“a place where people gather to drink”—but he declines to offer definitions for more difficult words, such as “dirges.” While the adaptation does follow the foundation of the play, the contemporary language offers nothing; cringeworthy lines include Benvolio saying to Romeo at the party where he first meets Juliet, “Let’s go. It’s best to leave now, while the party’s in full swing.” Nagar’s faces swirl between dishwater and grotesque, adding another layer of lost passion in a story that should boil with romantic intensity. Each page number is enclosed in a little red heart; while the object of this little nuance is obvious, it’s also unpleasantly saccharine. Notes after the story include such edifying tidbits about Taylor Swift and “ ‘Wow’ dialogs from the play” (which culls out the famous quotes).Pub Date: May 10, 2011
ISBN: 978-93-80028-58-3
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Campfire
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
