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Graphic Novel Roundup

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A few snappy reviews of some graphic novels I’ve read lately. Descriptions are from Worldcat, followed by my own observations.

Foiled and Curses! Foiled Again by Jane Yolen and Mike Cavallaro
Aliera is a star at fencing, but at school no one notices her–until her
new lab partner Avery begins flirting with her. Aliera’s mother just
bought her a foil from a garage sale, and it has a strange jewel
attached to the hilt. Will Aliera’s first date be ruined when magical
creatures try to steal her foil?

I wanted to love these books. I have fond memories of Jane Yolen’s novels from when I was a kid. Alas, these didn’t have the same magic. There’s a lot of telling, the pace is erratic, and the fantastical elements seem a bit jumbled. It should still be of interest to kids who like fencing (or are simply intrigued by it) – each section is headed with a fencing term and Aliera gets a lot of chances to use her weapon during the course of the story. (Cavallaro does an excellent job with the art; the writing doesn’t meet its quality.)

Sumo by Thien Pham
Scott, abandoned by his girlfriend and having lost his dream of playing
professional football, is offered a position in a Japanese sumo training
“stable,” where he seems to find himself again.

This is a short book that tells three parts of Scott’s story in alternating times, with a different color scheme for each time. Near the end, the switches between each of the three threads become more frequent, until they converge at a single point. At that point, the images and text parallel each other. The style is effective, though it doesn’t prevent the story from being a bit slight. It’s gorgeous to look at – the marriage of text and art is done very well. This is a good example of the format being right for the story.

Monster on the Hill by Rob Harrell
In a fantastical 1860s England, every quiet little township is
terrorized by a ferocious monster–much to the townsfolk’s delight! Each
town’s unique monster is a source of local pride, not to mention
tourism. Each town, that is– except for one. Unfortunately, for the
people of Stoker-on-Avon, their monster isn’t quite as impressive. In
fact, he’s a little down in the dumps. Can the morose Rayburn get a
monstrous
makeover and become a proper horror? It’s up to the eccentric Dr.
Charles Wilkie and plucky street urchin Timothy to get him up to snuff,
before a greater threat turns the whole town to kindling.

I loved this one. It’s a light-hearted action-oriented story with a lot of humor and heart. The concept is clever and a little bit cute; I love how it’s unexpected, but also plays with the idea that humans (including kids) love to be scared sometimes. It reminded me a bit of a cross between Giants Beware and the movie Monsters Inc. It’s a beautiful production all around – lovely full-color art that demands to be pored over.

The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe and Benjamin Harper
Retold in graphic novel form, the narrator tells the reader about the murder he committed, and the terrifying aftermath.

I’m still not quite sure if this reproduces Poe’s text precisely or condenses it in some way, but the text itself isn’t the creepiest part of this adaptation. That honor belongs to the art. Though it isn’t quite my style, it does manage to convey a great mood. It’s got lots of shadows and a color palette consisting of mainly black and some blues. The eyes of both the narrator and his victim are particularly well-done (and integral to the story).

Primates by Jim Ottaviani and Maris Wicks

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Primates is a nonfiction gem. Ottaviani and Wicks tell the interlocking stories of three female scientists who did groundbreaking research with primates: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birute Galdikas. All three women lived with the primates they studied (chimps, gorillas, and orangutans, respectively), and all three made significant contributions to their fields.

Of particular interest is the fact that they were all able to do their work because of their association with noted male scientist Louis Leakey – the three women were all dubbed “Leakey’s Angels” as a result. Leakey believed women were uniquely qualified for this type of research, and he was able to secure the funding to make it happen. There’s certainly an element of frustration knowing that brilliant female scientists needed another male scientist to make it possible for them to do their work.

I also found it interesting that two of the three women (Goodall and Fossey) actively eschewed traditional education (by this I mainly mean advanced college degrees), finding it unnecessary and even counterproductive. It’s only the third and youngest, Galdikas, who was already pursuing an advanced degree when she met Leakey, several years after Goodall and Fossey had begun their research with him. I can’t help but feel that the distaste for a degree has a lot to do with the traditional maleness of it as well as the very hands-off nature of such things, which didn’t appeal to these scientists who literally lived alongside their subjects.

This is the kind of book that inspires the reader to find out more about the subjects after the last page is turned. In so doing, I discovered that Ottaviani and Wicks significantly glossed over Fossey’s death – they refer to it, but make no mention of the fact she was murdered, the case still unsolved today (mostly). It’s not an exhaustive biography. Ottaviani mentions in the author’s note that the book is a hybrid of fiction and nonfiction – he had to fill in the gaps and speculate at some points. It’s told in first person, with Goodall narrating the first part, Fossey the second, and Galdikas the third. All three scientists narrate the last few pages, their voices intermingling. During this section, we get some idea of what they thought of each other, which I found very interesting. While the handwriting is different for each scientist, I did find it a bit difficult to distinguish who was narrating at times.

It’s in full-color, eye-catching and gorgeous. I’m so glad it is; it would be a travesty not to see the fantastic nature scenes depicted in all their glory. The three women look distinct from each other, and each is easily identifiable in a real-life photograph at the end of the book. This is excellent nonfiction with high appeal. I was amazed at what these women did, and I loved knowing that two of them continue to do amazing work today. I think this fact will make it seem relevant to kids – especially girls – who love science and animals, and it may inspire them to think of doing something like this themselves one day.

I never thought I’d find primates so fascinating. I still don’t think I really do. But the scientists? Definitely so.

Copy borrowed from the library.

Guest Post: Raina Telgemeier on Fairy Tale Comics

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Today we’re excited to have a short interview with Raina Telgemeier, as part of the blog tour for Fairy Tale Comics, which we reviewed on Friday. Do you know how fun it was to be asked if we wanted to interview Raina? We dug her take on Rapunzel and we were excited to ask her more about it. If you want to see what other contributors to the book have had to say about their art, you can see who else is talking and where they’re talking here. 



How did you become involved in the project? Were you approached by the editor and pitched a particular fairy tale, or did you select it yourself?
Editor Chris Duffy asked if I wanted to adapt Rapunzel for the book. It was a pretty easy decision.

What inspired you most with the source material of Rapunzel? When was the moment you knew how to approach the story?
One of the versions of Rapunzel I read included the detail about her mother being pregnant with her, and craving the rapunzel plant growing in a neighbor’s garden. That seemed very human. I like gardens and plants and vegetables (although I don’t have much of a green thumb myself), so weaving them into the story made sense. Logistically, the trickiest part was figuring out a way to avoid violence and death–which I realize is an important part of many fairy tales. But I just don’t have a taste for it.

Do you go for art first or story first? What’s your process?
For me they come together, as thumbnails. I knew I was working with an 8-page template, so I spent a few days reading over the various versions of the tale Chris sent, highlighting and rearranging my favorite elements from all of them, and then sat down and thumbnailed it all in a couple hours on a Sunday afternoon.

What challenges, if any, did you encounter writing such a short story compared with your long-form graphic novels?
With short stories, it’s all about compression. Most of the Rapunzel tales cover her birth, her childhood, and then the more dramatic events when she is a teenager. Some also jump ahead in time to Rapunzel living in the woods with the twins she and the prince have conceived. Distilling that all into a satisfying short was challenging, but I liked being able to strip away all the unnecessary components. Like most fairy tales, the story has a bone structure that works.

What fairy tale re-tellings or interpretations have you loved, in comics form or not?
We had various versions of fairy tale books and records and such around my house; my favorite thing was a German board game called Enchanted Forest, which had little game pieces shaped like pine trees, and each one had a tiny round illustration of a different fairy tale on the bottom.
I’m a Disney girl through and through, and with the exception of Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, I love all the fairy tales they’ve adapted (those two leave me a little cold). However, I avoided re-watching Disney’s version of Rapunzel during this project, because I didn’t want to be too influenced by it.

If you were to create another fairy tale in comic style, which would you choose, why would you choose it, and what “twist” would you add to make it all your own?
Maybe Jack and the Beanstalk. Endlessly tall stalks and a castle in the clouds sound like fun to draw.

What’s next for you?

I’m working on a companion to my first graphic novel, Smile, called Sisters. That will be out in September of 2014.

Dual Review: Fairy Tale Comics edited by Chris Duffy

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Kelly’s Thoughts


I’m not a huge fan of fairy tales. I like them well enough, but there’s little that compels me to pick up a fairy tale retelling — a good hook or jump off the tale can do it, though. And Fairy Tale Comics, edited by Chris Duffy, has a fantastic one: it’s a graphic collection of shortened fairy tales that span from your well-known stories to those which are far less well-known. Even more compelling is the fact this collection involves work from a lot of well-known artists in the comic world whose other works I’ve either enjoyed or are familiar with.

In other words, this isn’t just any re-made fairy tale comic book. It adds something entirely new.

All of the art is stylistic to the artist, as are the ways that they spin their fairy tales. These are shortened versions of the stories, so it is interesting to see what was kept in and what was removed — or what was swapped around all together.

Gigi D. G. did a spin on Little Red Riding Hood that was subtle but which made me fall in love with the way the story was told — rather than have the lumberjack be male, as it’s traditionally presented, it’s a female in this version. My favorite in the entire book in terms of art was Gilbert Hernandez’s Hansel and Gretel. Though I didn’t love it at first, I warmed up to it because it’s really funny. The expressions on the faces are excellent, and the use of color is really dynamic. The final page is perhaps where it shines the most: we see the kids shoving the witch in the oven, and there’s a great juxtaposition of the bright, candy-colored images with the house burning down, with red and black. It’s almost jarring, but in a way that’s funny.

I was a fan of Raina Telgemeier’s take on Rapunzel and I really liked the new-to-me fairy tale by Luke Pearson, The Boy Who Drew Cats. Even though it was unfamiliar to me, I found myself enjoying the read AND the art — one didn’t outshine the other. Graham Annable’s take on Goldilocks and the Three Bears surprised me in a positive way, being wordless and just as effective a story without the words to tell it. Even those who might not be familiar with the tale (little kids) would completely understand it by art alone.

What makes Fairy Tale Comics enjoyable is that even those stories and interpretations that didn’t work for me were quick and when I lost interest in a couple of them, I didn’t feel bad skipping them. This collection has some misses, but other readers may find what I consider a miss to be really stand out. The book is perfectly appropriate for very young readers, as well as those who are older.

Kimberly’s Thoughts

This collection is worth reading even if you only read The Boy Who Drew Cats. In fact, after I finished it, I made my boyfriend stop what he was doing and read it immediately so he could experience its joy. It’s so different from the other mostly Grimm and Perrault tales and completely refreshing. Also, very very funny. (Its author/artist, Luke Pearson, is also the creator of the 2012 Cybils finalist Hilda and the Midnight Giant, another supremely weird and weirdly funny little graphic story that I enjoyed quite a lot.)

The other stories, as in most collections, were hit and miss for me. While there’s certainly an enormous amount of creativity here, I was a little disappointed by how straightforward some of the tales were. By that I mean they followed very closely the storyline most readers are accustomed to, without a new twist to make them a bit fresher. The art is almost uniformly outstanding and interesting, but I wish there had been a little more oomph to the stories themselves.

I compare these stories to Nursery Rhyme Comics, the previous collaboration by graphic storytellers edited by Duffy. By necessity, authors/artists had to be a bit more creative when interpreting the rhymes, since the rhymes themselves were frequently nonsensical and didn’t have a built-in story. It was interesting to see how the artists could draw the rhymes to give them a story (or not). By contrast, most of the authors in Fairy Tale Comics stuck to the traditional stories you’ve likely read before.

That said, the graphic format may make the stories fresh enough for most readers anyway. There are a few writers/artists who took things a little bit sideways, making them more their own. (The female lumberjack is a good example.) And as Kelly mentioned, it’s a great collection for young readers who may come to many of these stories with new eyes, never having read them anywhere else before.

Fairy Tale Comics will be available on Tuesday. Review copy provided by the publisher. 

Battling Boy by Paul Pope

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Paul Pope is quite the name in comics. As a relative newcomer myself, Battling Boy was the first I had heard of him, but I know his reputation for high-quality comic storytelling.

In this graphic novel for kids, the first in a projected series, Pope first introduces us to Haggard West, hero of the town of Arcopolis. He’s fighting one of the monsters that have been taking over the town, and he seems to be winning, as he always does…until he’s not. In fact, the monster kills him. Haggard West is dead.

The town is distraught. Who will hold back the tide of monstrous creatures? West’s daughter, still a child, thinks she’s the natural successor.

Meanwhile, the godlike Battling Boy is living in his home above the clouds, with his godlike father and his godlike friends. His father announces that it’s time for Battling Boy to go rambling, a rite of passage for their culture. This means Battling Boy is sent to a part of the mortal world where he will test himself against whatever plagues the people – and he’s sent to Arcopolis.

Things start out rough for Battling Boy, and they don’t get any better in his first battle. Except…a series of events fools the citizens into thinking he is a full-fledged hero with the power of gods, when really, he’s only a hero in training, and not a great one at that. He tries to keep up appearances with the help of a set of t-shirts with images of animals on them, which give him powers based on the animals’ strengths. Will Battling Boy be able to save the town, even though he’s basically an impostor hero? (Hint: you don’t actually find out in this volume.)

This title has been getting a huge marketing push from First Second, and it’s getting a lot of early critical acclaim as well. I felt pretty tepid toward it, though. Mostly, I was frustrated there was so much beginning here. It never seemed to advance beyond exposition, despite the frenetic action. There’s a certain plot point near the end that I felt could have happened much earlier and propelled the story further along in this first volume.

I thought the mythology was a bit muddled as well, but I’ve always been more interested than most in backstory. Without more details about Battling Boy and his cultural background, it seems quite generic, perhaps a bit too much like Asgard.

I would have liked to see more of Haggard West’s daughter. She seems interesting; I genuinely want to know more about what it was like to grow up with a superhero (without any supernatural powers) as a father. We get snippets of that upbringing, but she doesn’t get to do much except go to her classes, which include advanced science as well as fighting. Her story doesn’t meet up with Battling Boy’s (though I expect it will in future volumes).

But those are mostly personal complaints. Kids who like the serial nature of comics and are used to waiting several volumes to progress beyond chapter one probably won’t mind that nothing is resolved here. The t-shirt concept is very modern; I can picture kids throwing on their own graphic tees and imagining themselves with super powers based on the images. The art, also done by Pope, fits right in with the traditional comic book aesthetic. It’s actually a bit better than most, I think, with vivid colors and a vibrancy that complements all the action. Kids who love comics will be thrilled with this new superhero and Pope’s modern take on it.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Battling Boy will be available October 8.