A visceral and neatly executed graphic parable of war’s dehumanizing power.
In Freeman and Romesburg’s graphic novel, a soldier encounters a strange cult on the front lines of World War I.
In this graphic novel, a moldering old diary tells an astonishing story: A young man named Barrow (a thin, innocent waif) is sent to the front lines of the British troops in southern France while fighting in WWI, told by his commanding officer that he’ll be serving in an unusual regiment nicknamed the Hounds because of the long snouts of their omnipresent gas masks. With the Hounds, Private Barrow journeys to a ruined house in the shattered countryside where, to his horror, he finds that his new comrades are far darker than they seem: They’re keeping a group of brutalized German prisoners in the house, and worse is to come—when they release these prisoners, the Hounds devolve into semi-human monsters to hunt and consume the fleeing men. “Before my arrival, I feared the change the trench would force upon me,” Barrow reflects; “I had forgotten that the trenches were dug by the hands of men.” Private Barrow and the Hounds embark on a collision course that will see the young soldier descend to the farthest depths of tragedy that the war has to offer. “I’ve always believed people can turn,” Private Barrow writes in his journal, “from good to bad, then back again. But this … this feels different.” This stark, unsettling story is told by Freeman and Romesburg with confidently effective understatement—they seem well aware that excess verbiage is the enemy of mood. And that mood is greatly enhanced by Vásquez’s vivid, jittery, full-color artwork, full of scratchy line-work that underscores the gruesome horrors that Private Barrow both witnesses and perpetrates; as he’s told when he’s a boy, “In this life, we will hurt those that don’t deserve it.”
A visceral and neatly executed graphic parable of war’s dehumanizing power.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9781952303784
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Mad Cave Studios
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A clever and timely conversation on reclaiming identity and acknowledging one’s full worth.
Superman confronts racism and learns to accept himself with the help of new friends.
In this graphic-novel adaptation of the 1940s storyline entitled “The Clan of the Fiery Cross” from The Adventures of Superman radio show, readers are reintroduced to the hero who regularly saves the day but is unsure of himself and his origins. The story also focuses on Roberta Lee, a young Chinese girl. She and her family have just moved from Chinatown to Metropolis proper, and mixed feelings abound. Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane’s colleague from the Daily Planet, takes a larger role here, befriending his new neighbors, the Lees. An altercation following racial slurs directed at Roberta’s brother after he joins the local baseball team escalates into an act of terrorism by the Klan of the Fiery Kross. What starts off as a run-of-the-mill superhero story then becomes a nuanced and personal exploration of the immigrant experience and blatant and internalized racism. Other main characters are White, but Black police inspector William Henderson fights his own battles against prejudice. Clean lines, less-saturated coloring, and character designs reminiscent of vintage comics help set the tone of this period piece while the varied panel cuts and action scenes give it a more modern sensibility. Cantonese dialogue is indicated through red speech bubbles; alien speech is in green.
A clever and timely conversation on reclaiming identity and acknowledging one’s full worth. (author’s note, bibliography) (Graphic fiction. 13-adult)Pub Date: May 12, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77950-421-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: DC
Review Posted Online: Feb. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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