All Staggering, Moaning, and Drooling Toxic Spit, But No Bite

Source: Author Website

The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks by Max Brooks, with art by Ibraim Roberson
 
Max Brooks, author of the popular Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, provides the text for this imaginary take on how zombies influenced the course of history. (Did you know Hadrian’s Wall was built to keep out zombies, not Scots? That Egyptians removed the brains of their dead to prevent them from rising again as zombies? That even Sir Francis Drake had an undocumented run-in with some zombies on the high seas?) Unfortunately, while Recorded Attacks gains points for creativity, it loses them for lack of substance. This graphic “novel” (if one could call it that) doesn’t really tell a story, or even provide characters for us to follow. Instead, it presents a collection of anecdotes, using realistic pencil illustrations and text boxes to provide the reader with suggestions of how and why history happened as it did if there zombies really existed. A good try, but unfortunately doesn’t play out to its full potential. Recommended for Gr 9 Up for zombie violence and some nudity.

Not As Good As "Persepolis," But Still Worth A Look

Chicken with Plums by Marjane Satrapi

The author of the popular Persepolis returns with another gem to the genre. Satrapi uses her trademark black and white drawings to construct a tragic portrait of her great uncle, Nasser Ali Khan, a famous tar player (resembles a lute) who pined away after his wife destroyed his prized instrument in a fit of rage. Although the protagonist’s story is not nearly as endearing as the one charted by Persepolis’ spunky heroine, fans of Satrapi’s earlier work will find themselves entertained nonetheless. Recommended for Gr 9 Up for language and some nudity.

Informative But Slow

Che: A Graphic Biography by Sid Jacobson, with art by Ernie Colón

Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the infamous and elusive Communist revolutionary, was only 39 when he was executed in 1967. Bet he didn’t imagine that his memory and devotion to the cause would still be around decades later, sported on T-shirts worn by angry, rebellious teenagers. Realistic pen and ink drawings construct a surprisingly objective portrait of this controversial figure, but its saving grace is also its downfall. Jacobson and Colón leave very little feeling on the page. Facts are reported and speeches and letters quoted in a cold, clean fashion that’s reminiscent of a history textbook. Jacobson frequently goes on tangents into background information that, while important to understanding the subject, is positively painful to wade through. Although very informative, this slow-moving biography is often in danger of killing the reader’s interest in its fascinating subject. Readers should press on, however: things pick up around the middle, so finishing it becomes much easier. Although it’s not a complete bore, it sure gets close to it. Recommended for Gr 9 Up for violence.

Beautiful Adaptation of Modern Classic

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451: The Authorized Adaptation by Tim Hamilton

In Guy Montag’s world, firemen have always started fires, not prevented them. Books, declared illegal for the ideas they represent, are promptly destroyed whenever found. Those caught hoarding books are arrested, while their books are burned along with their houses. So what happened when one of these firemen brings a book home out of curiosity? How can he escape from an oppressive society where watching television and popping pills are the only encouraged form of entertainment? First envisioned in Bradbury’s 1953 novel, Hamilton’s adaptation brings this passionate defense of reading and ideas roaring to life. Montag’s surreal, nightmarish world emerges on the page in the form of vibrant ink drawings, with the bold, primary colors of the firemen’s infernos often clashing with the soft, sepia tones of the domestic world. Those who have trouble with Bradbury’s writing style will have no trouble getting through this beautiful adaptation. Recommended for ages 16-Up for mature themes and some violence.

“I find giants. I hunt giants. I kill giants.”

I Kill Giants by Joe Kelly, with art by J.M. Ken Niimura

When asked on Career Day what she has in mind for her future, tenacious student Barbara Thorson readily replies: “I already have a ‘career.’ ... I kill giants.” She knows firsthand that giants aren’t just mythical—we face them in everyday life. Unable to accept that her mother is dying of cancer, Barbara employs an elaborate fantasy world to block out reality. But although this feisty pipsqueak has the courage of ten men, life proves that some giants we face can’t be beaten, but must simply be endured. 

It’s a little difficult figuring out what’s going on during the first few chapters. The scene introducing Barbara’s family throws in too many characters at once, some that don’t reappear for the rest of the graphic novel. We don’t yet know that Barbara’s mother is bed-ridden due to the advanced state of her cancer, so we’re left to wonder if Karen, the young woman fixing dinner, is her mother or older sister, or if the entire gaggle of teenage boys playing Dungeons and Dragons are her brothers, or just her brother’s friends. Barbara is also shown throughout the graphic novel to sport either bunny ears, cat ears, bear ears, etc. Anyone familiar with anime (the drawing style of the graphic novel) will recognize that this is a frequently appearing trait among anime characters—why this occurs is anyone’s guess. Anyone not familiar with the “animal-ears” trait will surely be extremely confused. Why does Barbara have bunny ears when the rest of the characters don’t? The answer becomes clear after the story settles down and the reader becomes familiar with the storyteller’s rules: Barbara spends most of her day in a fantasy world populated with giants and fairies. Why shouldn’t she have bunny ears? It’s only after you get past this stumbling point that the reader is finally able to sit back and enjoy the story. The thought of life’s obstacles manifesting themselves as giants is really quite clever, and makes Barbara’s struggles more endearing. I Kill Giants is a whirligig of a tale, a magical story about a kooky, brazen little girl who deals with life’s tragedies the only way she knows how: by fighting them. Recommended for Ages 13-Up.

Will Not Appeal To Mainstream Readers

Animal Crackers: A Gene Luen Yang Collection by Gene Luen Yang
 
Yang presents a collection of interconnected stories that use food as a means to instigate the action in each piece. Unfortunately, these stories are just plain weird, not to mention more than a bit confusing. In “Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks,” young Miles is angry that his abusive father has never shown him love. The mystical energy of this emotion somehow fuses with a box of his pal Gordon’s animal crackers, resulting in a gang of terrifying animal cracker monsters that can only be defeated when Miles lets go of his long-suppressed rage. In “Loyola Chin and the San Peligran Order,” a girl meets up with Saint Danger, the mysterious and attractive leader of the San Peligran Order, a group dedicated to weeding out the stupid and the weak in order to galvanize mankind’s chances at survival against a future alien invasion.

The thread that connects these two stories takes form in two subplots. The first details Gordon’s crush on Loyola (they both attend the same high school), and a friend’s attempt to coach him by encouraging him to try acting “cooler.” The other subplot focuses on the San Peligran Order’s attempts to measure Loyola’s and Gordon’s intelligences to determine whether or not they should be eradicated. How? The Order merely dispatches a series of microscopic robots, which access the brain by crawling inside the nasal passage. It is only by reading the graphic novel’s introduction by Derek Kirk Kim that the entwining of these two stories even begins to make sense. Kim writes that here, “[Yang] engages [the reader] with everyday issues and struggles that concern all of us: forgiveness, conformity [to] social hierarchy, and tolerance.”

In the end, Loyola, Gordon, and Miles all make the right choices: Miles forgives his father for his brutality; Gordon choses to be true to himself; and Loyola, who passes the Order’s test, refuses Saint Danger’s promises of power and comfort, arguing that compassion towards the weak is greater than a human race with no weakness at all. These are nice messages, but since Yang takes the detour route to delivering them, he loses the reader halfway through.

For good measure, he also throws in a separate story (sandwiched in between the “Gordon” and “Loyola” pieces) titled “Sammy the Baker and the M.A.C,” about the consequences that occur when a baker decides to ignore his mentor’s advice about sticking to old recipes, and instead begins experimenting with his own ideas. His culinary labors produce a batch of muffins that transform into rhinos and terrorize his unsuspecting customers.

The most helpful (and welcome) of Yang’s contributions to this collection, unfortunately, is his thoughtful “making of” feature. Here, he chronicles his own struggles at breaking into the publishing market, and lays out the steps of how to create a comic for those who wish to follow in his footsteps. That said, it’s safe to say that Animal Crackers will hold no appeal to mainstream readers whatsoever. The only readers I can think of to recommend this to would be those interested in Yang’s previous (and better) work, American Born Chinese. Recommended for Ages 13-Up.

A Colorful Rendition of Sherlock Holmes’s Sleuthing Debut

A Study in Scarlet: A Sherlock Holmes Graphic Novel by Ian Edginton, with art by I.N.J. Culbard

A man is found dead in an empty house, with a single word, “Rache”—the German word for revenge—written in blood on the wall. Edginton and Culbard produce a colorful rendition of Sherlock Holmes’s sleuthing debut that young readers will be able to both understand and enjoy. Recommended for Ages 13-Up.