Captivating illustrations carry a so-so story.
When Buddy accepts a job at Mister Drew’s cartoon studio, he has unsettling encounters that point to something mysterious and sinister hiding behind the seemingly harmless Bendy cartoons.
This graphic novel based on the Bendy and the Ink Machine horror video game franchise takes place shortly after the Second World War. The persuasive and powerful Mister Drew appears positioned to make a difference in Buddy’s life. The boy lives with his widowed mom and Polish grandfather on New York City’s Lower East Side, and the money he’ll earn from his job as the studio’s gofer will help support them. As a bonus, he also gets to be an art apprentice. Buddy befriends Dot, who works in the story department, and the pair begin to investigate clues, their curiosity piqued by snippets from overheard conversations, a scary creature lurking in the shadows, and disturbing sights, such as an employee with ink dripping from his mouth. Buddy narrates the story, his inner thoughts appearing in rectangular boxes set against illustrations executed in gold with white highlights and black lines and shading. Even with this limited palette, Arizmendi’s art includes an incredible amount of texture and depth. Readers unfamiliar with the video game may have trouble settling into the story, and many plot points are left unexplained, making this work most likely to appeal to Bendy fans or graphic novel enthusiasts who appreciate great art.
Captivating illustrations carry a so-so story. (Graphic horror. 12-16)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781339032276
Page Count: 160
Publisher: AFK/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
Who can't love a story about a Nigerian-American 12-year-old with albinism who discovers latent magical abilities and saves the world? Sunny lives in Nigeria after spending the first nine years of her life in New York. She can't play soccer with the boys because, as she says, "being albino made the sun my enemy," and she has only enemies at school. When a boy in her class, Orlu, rescues her from a beating, Sunny is drawn in to a magical world she's never known existed. Sunny, it seems, is a Leopard person, one of the magical folk who live in a world mostly populated by ignorant Lambs. Now she spends the day in mundane Lamb school and sneaks out at night to learn magic with her cadre of Leopard friends: a handsome American bad boy, an arrogant girl who is Orlu’s childhood friend and Orlu himself. Though Sunny's initiative is thin—she is pushed into most of her choices by her friends and by Leopard adults—the worldbuilding for Leopard society is stellar, packed with details that will enthrall readers bored with the same old magical worlds. Meanwhile, those looking for a touch of the familiar will find it in Sunny's biggest victories, which are entirely non-magical (the detailed dynamism of Sunny's soccer match is more thrilling than her magical world saving). Ebulliently original. (Fantasy. 11-13)
Pub Date: April 14, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-670-01196-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
Readers seeking lots of up-close encounters with the unquiet dead and other creepy entities need look no further. Seventh son of a seventh son, and left-handed to boot, young Tom seems a natural to succeed Mr. Gregory, the aging “Spook” charged with keeping the County’s many ghasts, ghosts, boggarts and witches in check. He’s in for a series of shocks, though, as the job turns out to be considerably tougher and lonelier than he expects. Struggling to absorb Gregory’s terse teachings and vague warnings, Tom is immediately cast up against a host of terrifying adversaries—most notably Mother Malkin, an old and very powerful witch, and her descendant Alice, a clever young witch-in-training who is capable of outwitting him at every turn, but may or may not have yet gone completely to the bad. An appendix of supposed pages reproduced from Tom’s notebook adds little to information already supplied, but along with somber images at the chapter heads, does add atmospheric visual notes. By the end, though Mother Malkin has come to a suitably horrific end, there are tantalizing hints that the Dark Is Rising. Stay tuned. (Fantasy. 11-13)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-076618-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2005
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