An exuberant handbook for making the world better.
A fun book about “the edges of science, the limits of what’s currently possible thanks to the technology that humans have already invented or are currently inventing.”
North, an Eisner Award–winning writer for Marvel Comics, offers an entertaining manual illustrated with suitably farcical drawings by comics artist Monardo, imparting detailed advice for becoming a supervillain with the intention of tyrannizing everything and everyone in the universe. With a career spent designing “increasingly credible world-domination schemes,” North has confidence that they could work, even though in the world of comics those schemes are always foiled by superheroes. Nevertheless, prospective supervillains would do well to find a secret base for subversive activities, establish a separate country, and unleash aggressive animals, such as dinosaurs, revived through cloning. In addition, supervillains will want to control the weather, manage the power of the internet, and achieve enduring fame, if not physical immortality. Though North’s proposals are outlandish, he grounds them in physics, biology, history, geology, zoology, computer science, genetics, paleontology, and cryogenics, not to mention politics and international law. He suggests, for example, three ways to take land away from someone else to start your own country (through stealth, force, or persuasion), and he enumerates the pros and cons of taking over Antarctica. At each step, he offers a timeline and cost analysis. As for dealing with climate change, “an obvious solution presents itself to even the neophyte supervillain: take over the world and use your iron fist to crush anyone who even thinks about emitting carbon.” Supervillains and heroes alike often face obstinate foes, requiring them to wield political influence. “The way you force people in power to do what you want,” North writes, “is by ensuring that they fear you.” The author’s spoof contains a serious subtext: The world has lots of problems—climate change, war, inequality, computer hackers, disease, and rampant greed, among others—that can be addressed through understanding, focus, and determination. Knowledge, he proposes, is the greatest superpower of all.
An exuberant handbook for making the world better.Pub Date: March 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-19201-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.
An experimental, illustrated essay collection that questions neurotypical definitions of what is normal.
From a young age, writer and comedian Myers has been different. In addition to coping with obsessive compulsive disorder and panic attacks, she struggled to read basic social cues. During a round of seven minutes in heaven—a game in which two players spend seven minutes in a closet and are expected to kiss—Myers misread the romantic advances of her best friend and longtime crush, Marley. In Paris, she accidentally invited a sex worker to join her friends for “board games and beer,” thinking he was simply a random stranger who happened to be hitting on her. In community college, a stranger’s request for a pen spiraled her into a panic attack but resulted in a tentative friendship. When the author moved to Australia, she began taking notes on her colleagues in an effort to know them better. As the author says to her co-worker, Tabitha, “there are unspoken social contracts within a workplace that—by some miracle—everyone else already understands, and I don’t….When things Go Without Saying, they Never Get Said, and sometimes people need you to Say Those Things So They Understand What The Hell Is Going On.” At its best, Myers’ prose is vulnerable and humorous, capturing characterization in small but consequential life moments, and her illustrations beautifully complement the text. Unfortunately, the author’s tendency toward unnecessary capitalization and experimental forms is often unsuccessful, breaking the book’s otherwise steady rhythm.
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063381308
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
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