A wildly original and fearless tale about a young hero’s clash with a demon.
In this graphic novel debut, the disappearance of a high priestess’s son mars an alien festival.
On the planet Vareenya, the town of Shepherd is about to celebrate the opening of the winter solstice festival. Ettan, son of High Priestess Giulia, doesn’t want to go. He loathes his people’s reliance on telepathy and would rather enjoy the company of his close friends Yinyin, a being of liquid thought, and Eggbeam, an ahmenor larva. While in the ancient sequoia forest with Yinyin, Ettan becomes worried about Eggbeam’s whereabouts. He contacts Gen. Lilly, who tells the boy he’s paranoid. But Ettan trusts his gut and “cogiports” with Yinyin through space to visit his friend Alice in a lab on the rogue planet 666. Meanwhile, the war goddess, Killjoy, has grown bored with combat. After finishing a battle on the planet Herpetol, she meditates and consults the Divine Mother, who reduces the goddess to spirit form to clean her karma. Killjoy then receives the chance to do good. She arrives in the 666 lab, where she witnesses Eggbeam being tortured by a Soul-phage. The scene is orchestrated by Kazundal, Killjoy’s demonic half brother. Yet before she can intervene, Ettan and Yinyin enter the lab’s cavern entrance. They fight Kazundal’s henchman, Hornhole, and rescue Eggbeam from the Soul-phage. Then Kazundal summons more advanced Soul-phages, which strip Ettan’s essence and organs from his body. While Ettan is trapped in hell, Killjoy’s spirit merges with the remains of his body. Back on Vareenya, Giulia begins her vocal performance only to feel the shock of her son’s anguish. For this innovative series opener, Peabody teams up with illustrator Soriani (The Magical Tale of Birthday Dust, 2017, etc.) to combine spirituality, classic sci-fi concepts like telepathy, and cultural motifs—such as Giulia having two husbands. The creators maximize their use of the graphic novel format, presenting a visually dazzling story that takes numerous cues from sci-fi (such as spaceships that look like jellyfish) but doesn’t fret over whether or not a race of feline humanoids has a believable backstory. The author and illustrator run hard and fast with so many oddball ideas—including a molecular realm populated by beings called Ed and Fred—that comic-book readers used to superhero fare should be entranced (even the telepathic word balloons, indicated by a wi-fi symbol, are clever). The inventive sense of humor matches the characters themselves, as when Hornhole is pinned to the ground, through the hole in his head, with a sword. Colors by Soriani and debut artist Zibordi are eye-popping, with a mostly cool palette for the backgrounds, allowing the warmth of Ettan, Giulia, and Yinyin to stand out. Most of the characters have attractive, expressive faces, conveying a friendliness that will draw in younger fans. But the content is mature, with lots of nudity, occasional cursing, and gory fight scenes. Overall, the narrative’s crisp art and lean script make for a sinfully quick read. The closing chapter brings the relationship between Ettan and Killjoy to an intriguing resting point; the sequel should be eagerly anticipated by readers.
A wildly original and fearless tale about a young hero’s clash with a demon.Pub Date: June 21, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-71910-599-6
Page Count: 200
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
When does a nice guy no longer deserve to be called nice? Holdefer (Apology for Big Rod, 1997) is so gentle in his satire...
Adventures of a sweetly ineffectual latter-day Candide.
His name is Jerry Renfrow, but his narrator, who ought to know, never calls him anything but Mr. Nice Guy, and no wonder. Not only is he unfailingly nice to his wife Barbara, whose adulteries he tolerates with placidly supportive good cheer, and everybody else his path crosses under the Florida sun, but he's made a profession of virtue. Home-Made Services, the business he runs, makes its customers look good by reminding them to mail greeting cards, drafting letters for them to send their loved ones, or orchestrating more elaborate schemes for the truly caring. Mr. Nice Guy's latest venture, on behalf of the Sheik of Surimi, is his most ambitious: arranging a birthday party for the Sheik's daughter Zohra, complete with 20 pure-bred apricot Labrador puppies Home-Made Services has supplied for the occasion. It's this scheme that brings Mr. Nice Guy the sad fate that seems eternally to await the fictional nice. A call to jury duty keeps Mr. Nice Guy, who would never duck such a summons, distracted from the details of the party; his perennially disgruntled employee Garson Carter fumbles the puppies in a most spectacular way; and when the dust clears, Mr. Nice Guy is headed for five years and eight months (with possibly a few months off) in the state penitentiary, where he can expect to meet a lot of new friends who'll provide even sterner challenges to his sobriquet. By this time, of course, the joke has worn pretty thin, and it doesn't help when the hapless hero's adventures soar far outside the orbit of the plot, like a satellite heading off for parts unknown.
When does a nice guy no longer deserve to be called nice? Holdefer (Apology for Big Rod, 1997) is so gentle in his satire that he treats such questions with both gravity and weightlessness.Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-57962-038-8
Page Count: 254
Publisher: Permanent Press
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Despite its few plotting flaws, a curiously satisfying little work.
A short, quirky debut novel, not altogether convincing at times but certainly original.
Beginning at the end of the story, Mr. Porter convinces his psychiatrist that it’s vital for him to drive to Italy from his home in London. After he arrives, memory unfolds, and the strange story of Mr. Porter and the brothers Jones is revealed. One day while walking home from the grocer, Mr. Porter notices a pretty young woman obviously waiting for someone. Later in the evening he notices a man in the same spot, also waiting. He tells the stranger not to bother, the woman has gone, and so the distressed young man invites Mr. Porter for a beer. And also for an intimate story. The young woman, Lilac, is his mistress—and also his sister-in-law. The characters in the ensuing drama—Lilac and Jerome, the two lovers; and Joshua and Beatrice, the spouses—through one means or another (usually contrived and forced) seek Mr. Porter out for advice. Which is an odd choice given Mr. Porter’s temperament: as an obsessional-compulsive (relating to his bowel movements), he is not only wary of strangers but usually disdainful. Wealthy and secretive, prone to bouts of mania and depression, he would seemingly be the last person capable of giving good counsel but is surprisingly adept at it, no doubt due to his own years of psychiatric treatment. As they all secretly come to tell their side of the story, Mr. Porter’s psychiatrist fears his patient may be slipping into a delusional state, what with all these unbelievable tales of the Jones’s he brings her. Are they real? Imagined? Mr. Porter falls in love with the troubled Lilac and obsesses about her being a dangerous woman, either to herself or others. His intuition about her will prove tragically true.
Despite its few plotting flaws, a curiously satisfying little work.Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-57962-031-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Permanent Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2001
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