Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse Color Sundays
Volume 1: Call of the Wild

As is typical of their archive projects, there’s a good amount of historical information available here, from an introductory foreword explaining the history of the Sunday strip to an appreciation by artist Kevin Huizenga. Each major section of the comic has its own introduction putting what we read into context, and the back of the book has rare comics and art samples.

I enjoy the black-and-whites a bit more than these, since I like the adventures and outrageous escapism. The comics here are sillier, more focused on comedy, with more slapstick gags (probably to make them more like the early cartoons). Mickey shows off for Minnie or fools around with his dog Pluto. He tries to outwit the dogcatcher or babysits his troublesome nephews (an activity that often frustrates him so much he ties the kids up!). He visits a dude ranch with Clarabelle, Horace, and Dippy Dog (later to become Goofy); the gang also goes camping. Later on, Donald makes an appearance, dragging Mickey into more trouble.

The lighter approach makes this book a better choice to share with your young ones. They should love the timeless highjinks of the mouse and his friends. And anyone can appreciate the skilled cartooning and astounding art, so well-done it almost seems to move on paper. (The publisher provided a review copy.)

In comic shops this week, the latest and maybe the most fascinating volume yet in the Simon & Kirby Library series.

This volume was slightly delayed due to the passing of Joe Simon in late 2011. Simon was very involved in the production of these wonderful volumes, and it can’t have been an easy time for editor Steve Saffel and the rest of the crew at Titan Books. Nonetheless, this volume is a beautiful tribute to both creators, and it bears the fond accolade “Dedicated to Joe Simon — One of a kind”.

The Simon & Kirby Library:
Science Fiction

Appropriately, this book features not only some of Simon and Jack Kirby’s earliest solo work — ”Solar Patrol” from Silver Streak Comics #2 (1940) by Simon and “Solar Legion” (also 1940) from Crash Comics Adventures #1-3 by Kirby — but also their first credited collaboration, with the title character in Blue Bolt Comics. Simon created the Blue Bolt solo for issue #1 (June 1940). Kirby came aboard with issue #2, but he was not officially credited (with the now-legendary “by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby” byline) until the story in Blue Bolt Comics #5 (October 1940). All the Blue Bolt stories with S&K involvement from issues #1-10 are included in this volume.

There’s also a S&K oddity in this volume. “Daring Disc” is a five-page story by both Simon & Kirby that is one of the duo’s earliest collaborations (and may actually be the first, although the evidence for that may be lost to time). In this book, it’s positioned before the Blue Bolt material. “Daring Disc” was originally unpublished until 2003, where it first appeared in Simon’s memoir The Comic Book Makers.

And that’s it for the 1940s material in this book, as S&K moved on to other comic genres throughout the decade, most notably superheroes, beginning with Captain America. Concepts which we now associate with Cap (such as his airborne shield and super-soldier serum) were actually “previewed” in these Blue Bolt stories.

By the 1950s, superheroes were practically gone, so S&K jumped back into other genres, including science fiction, as well as westerns and crime comics. During that decade, Joe Simon became involved with Harvey Comics, long before they became known just for Casper the Friendly Ghost, Richie Rich, and Sad Sack. Among other work, Simon packaged Alarming Tales (1957) and Race for the Moon (1958), both anthology series featuring science fiction stories by a number of creators, including Al Williamson and Angelo Torres, which gave fans the exciting opportunity to see Jack Kirby inked by Al Williamson on a number of stories (all included here).

Around the same time, Simon and Kirby science fiction stories would also appear in Black Cat Mystic for three issues (#58-60) as well as the early issues of Alarming Tales. Many of these stories from the 1950s and 60s were reproduced for this book directly from the original artwork from Joe Simon’s archives, with the appearance here stunningly crisp and sharp.

One oddity from this era is a double-page spread originally prepared for Captain America Comics #11 and unused, as the duo left the title with issue #10 after a financial and copyright dispute with Timely (Marvel). The duo replaced the Cap and Bucky figures and sold the piece to Charlton Comics, where it appeared in a writing contest in their Win-a-Prize #1 comic in 1955. Before-and-after reproductions appear in this volume.

Simon and Kirby amicably dissolved their working partnership in the mid-1950s, although they did continue to collaborate occasionally. Simon left comics full-time in the 1960s. He primarily worked in advertising (and creating custom comics) but kept a toe in the comics world by creating and editing Sick, a popular competitor to MAD magazine. Simon also packaged more anthology comics for Harvey, including a brief (1 issue) S&K revival of Fighting American (1966). Short-lived titles such as Alarming Adventures (1962), Blast-Off (1965), Thrill-O-Rama (1966), Unearthly Spectaculars (1966), and Jigsaw (1966), were edited/packaged by Simon and offered up an occasional Kirby-pencilled story, usually inked by either Williamson or Reed Crandall. All of those are included here, as well as a handful of non-S&K stories from these titles featuring other work by Williamson, Crandell, Torres, Roy Krenkel, Wally Wood, and Archie Goodwin.

Extras in this 352-page hardcover include a funny and sweet introduction by artist and writer Dave Gibbons describing his love for Jack Kirby’s work and how, at a young age, he worked out that all inkers are not created equal by studying Kirby’s work. Race for the Moon was instrumental in that discovery and became the comic book that inspired Gibbons to become an artist.

Also, the Joe Simon Archives are opened up for a look into two unrealized projects. Tiger 21 may have been a late 1940s presentation for a Sunday newspaper strip, illustrated by Jack Kirby. Only two art boards of lettered pages survive, and there we realize that concepts later grafted onto Fighting American were originally used here. One FA story, “Homecoming: Year 3000”, began life as a Tiger 21 story.

Jove U.N.born and His Checkmates was originally conceived by Simon in the early sixties and occasionally worked on over the years, sometimes assisted by his son, Jim. It was a superhero concept starring an unknown soldier, nearly destroyed in nuclear warfare, who was rebuilt by UN scientists and called Cyborn. To insure hs neutrality, he was remade with organs from three major nationalities — Black, Asian, and Caucasian. He was also assigned three female specialists (one of each ethnicity) to aid with his cyborg body; they were also martial arts and espionage experts. This never went farther than a TV and film proposal in 1970, with painted concept art by Jerry Grandenetti presented here. Simon and Grandenetti would later collaborate on several projects at DC Comics, including the cult-classic Prez.

The Science Fiction volume of the Simon & Kirby Library is exceptionally produced and bursting with fantastic concepts. It’s also fully authorized by both the Simon and Kirby families and estates. This continues to be both an amazing and historically important series that anyone who’s serious about comic books need to have on their bookshelves alongside Titan Books’ hardcovers of S&K Superheroes and Crime, and Joe Simon’s exceptional biography My Life in Comics. And if committing to the series is too much, at least try out Titan’s Best of Simon and Kirby overview or the softcover collection of Fighting American. You won’t regret it!

(The publisher provided a review copy.)

• Mrs Weber’s Diary
• True Love
• Pick of Posy
• Very Posy
• Pure Posy
• Mustn’t Grumble

With what I’ve mentioned and the short cartoon collection Literary Life, that’s everything she’s done that aren’t children’s books.

Mrs Weber’s Omnibus

I’d heard about these strips before, knowing that she drew a weekly comic strip for the Guardian for years and years, but it hadn’t struck me just how long she’d been doing it. Then I started reading, and I realized how long ago some of these concerns and attitudes (and hairstyles!) seemed.

The comics, two pages each in the first volume, combine scribbled diary notes and strip format to show the daily lives of three women friends and their families. Wendy used to be a nurse but now is a mother of six; her husband George lectures at university. They’re the two most obviously ex-hippies, and their attempts to stay true to their 1960s politics in the light of 1980s concerns feels like a time capsule (particularly since we’re as far away again from this time period now as they were from their younger attitudes). Their oldest daughter Belinda struggles most (in a way reminiscent of Family Ties, to cite another 80s artifact) with their lifestyle as she aims to be a modern woman.

Then there’s Trish, whose husband Stanhope works in advertising and sleeps around and whose stepdaughter Jocasta is carrying on the activist attitude while studying art. And Jo, whose husband Edmund is a “hail, fellow, well met” drinker and salesman. Frankly, between the couples and kids, there are a LOT of cast members to keep track of, but most of the time, the situation is the point, and the character types make themselves clear. Taken together, they make up a wonderful portrait of a particular style of English middle-class life during a certain time period.

Although some of the material is dated, a surprising number of the comics capture behavior that’s universal, even if the trappings are of a particular period. Subjects include the generation gap, gossip and hypocrisy, sexism (surprisingly and disturbingly still relevant), art and culture, gender role expectations, and of course, relationships. There are divorces and working mothers struggling to balance work and family, as well as concerns about affording the bills and worries about finding the right job when unemployment’s high.

The most timeless chapter is the second volume, True Love, about a deluded secretary who’s read too many romances dreaming about her boss Stanhope. The conventions of the love comic, including exaggerated glamour drawings, contrast nicely with the real-life bobbles and idiocies of sneaking around.

The third and later volumes drop the diary concept to focus on single-page cartoons that are more subject-focused. That approach makes sense, with a strip that readers may or may not recall week to week. I was reminded, with the sprawling cast, politically tinged relationships, and literary and academic concerns, of Dykes to Watch Out For. One surprising subject that occasionally recurred and struck me as just as relevant today were mothers concerned over their small children imitating the “pop tarts” they saw on tv, singing and gyrating suggestively.

As I expected, the cartooning is highly appealing. The characters are simply designed but full of personality and movement. An awful lot is immediately conveyed through just the right choices of setting and clothing. With such a huge book, it’s a smorgasbord of Simmonds. I loved the chance to read them all, and to recall what’s changed — and what hasn’t — since then. (The publisher provided a review copy.)

Fantagraphics’ latest Carl Barks Disney Library volume stars Donald Duck and collects most of Barks’ Donald stories from 1948. For those keeping track, this is Volume 6 of the Library, which Fantagraphics is issuing in random order — so far, alternating with volumes starring Uncle Scrooge.

Like the other Donald Duck volumes in the series, this collects three full-length Donald stories (usually from Dell’s Four Color series), 11 ten-page stories originally from the classic Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories comic book, and a bunch of one-page gags that rounded out the Four Color issues.

Walt Disney’s Donald Duck:
The Old Castle’s Secret

Classics Imprinted

The first story in this volume is the title story. “The Old Castle’s Secret” is a classic featuring the second appearance ever of Barks’ creation Uncle Scrooge McDuck. The McDuck fortune is in bad shape, and thus Scrooge enlists the help of Donald and his three nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie to travel to Scotland to recover lost fortunes hidden in the old Castle of Dismal Downs. And of course, the castle is haunted.

I’ve read this story before, so I’m not surprised that I recall some things about it. But I’m remembering everything exactly as I read it before — not just dialog word-for-word, but details in the artwork (like the empty extra-large suit of armor that belonged to Sir Roast McDuck, who holds not a sword or a spear but a knife and fork). But here’s the thing — I’ve only read this story twice before. The last time was 30 years ago (when it was collected by Another Rainbow), and the time before that probably another 15 years back, when I read it as a child. Yet I remember clearly every detail about it.

Such is the power of Carl Barks’ work. His storytelling is designed to appeal to youngsters as well as folk who are as old as Scrooge. And it has that way of burrowing into your brain, and staying there forever, once you read it. Which is great for people like me, who can barely remember the comics I read last week!

Magic in Ten Pages

I’m enjoying the Donald Duck volumes just slightly more than the Scrooges, since Donald’s books always contain a generous helping of mostly ten-page, set-in-Duckburg stories staring the hair-trigger duck and his nephews. The kids in these earlier Barks stories are feistier, maybe even a bit bratty occasionally, which is a welcome reminder that they weren’t always the know-it-all Junior Woodchucks that they evolved into as Barks matured. Even so, they’re still much smarter than Donald most of the time!

These shorter stores (almost all first appearing in Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories) offer up all kinds of surprises, mostly because the less epic nature of these stories is not so permanently embedded into my active consciousness. Plus, Barks wrote most of these to be joke-fests — featuring some of his most memorable “throwaway” characters, with always fantastic names. Favorite this time around: Prof. Pulpheart Clabberhead!

I think my favorite of the 10-pagers is the one now called “Donald of the Coast Patrol”. (These were originally untitled stories that Barks scholars have later ascribed titles to for ease of discussion.) Donald is assigned to watch a deserted stretch of coastline that smugglers are apparently using to smuggle in “jewels from the Orient.” Of course, Donald sees no problems in a random hot dog stand that pops up out of nowhere and mysteriously changes hands several times in just 10 pages. (Or does it?) Plus, Donald doesn’t think twice about the walrus that waddles ashore.

Meanwhile, Huey, Dewey, and Louie are rebuffed by Unca’ Donald after wanting to assist, so they climb up into the nearby hills, where they have the perfect vantage point to see that the various hot dog vendors are all the same person (in not-so-clever disguises) and that the walrus is actually a femme fatale in a walrus suit. (In a Barks story?) Another girl, this one with tattoos and wearing a formfitting bathing suit, is rescued by Donald, who is instantly smitten. “I fell off a passing yacht, kind sir!” says the seductress. “Phooey on Unca’ Donald!” say the nephews. Needless to say, the kids save the day — and Unca’ Donald’s job — at least for now, since we never see him in this job again!

Another duck family member makes his first appearance in these short stories. Gladstone Gander debuts in “Wintertime Wager” and appears again in “Links Hijinks”. He’s more annoying than supernaturally lucky in these early stories. Scrooge also appears again in “Foxy Relations”, setting up Donald to be outfoxed by a fox. Daisy Duck also appears briefly in a pair of stories.

But the ten-pagers aren’t all jokes and fun. Barks occasionally offers up some stories with real dire consequences, such as “Rocket Race To The Moon”, where Donald and the boys are stranded in space without enough fuel to get back home. And in “Pearls of Wisdom”, Donald faces actual death when a rare unsafe scheme dreamed up by the nephews actually turns dangerous.

The ten-pagers are amazing, but my absolute favorite story in this volume is one of the one-pagers, about Donald being persnickety about the size of the field the boys are playing baseball in — because he’s scared of broken windows. The joke is all in the last panel, with a portentous newspaper headline and Donald’s perfectly-drawn reaction to it. I laughed so hard that I had to put the book down for a couple of minutes. Sharp-eyed readers should also pay attention to other jokes hidden in what Donald is reading in other stories throughout the book.

Stories Restored to Their Original Form? Check!

Also in this volume are two other feature-length stories: “Sheriff of Bullet Valley” is another classic, while “Darkest Africa” is not as familiar, as it was infrequently reprinted. When it was, it was edited for “politically correct” and other reasons. (The Ducks are none too kind to other animals in this story.) “Darkest Africa” also wasn’t originally one of the Dell Four Color stories — it was first printed in the “giveaway” Dell series March of Comics #20. The original 1948 version of this story has never been reprinted in English — until it was fully restored for this volume. This is explained more fully in the substantial “Story Notes” section in this (and all) volumes, written by Barks scholars from around the world.

My only regret about this series, is that I have to read the volumes pretty fast in order to get the word out quickly to you about how great this series is. When you read them, you should slowly parse them out — perhaps one a night — and maybe share them with somebody else in your house. Carl Barks’ stories were meant to be shared. They are some of the most memorable stories of all literature — not just comics. (The publisher provided a review copy.)

Genius

First Second puts out so many great books for kids and teens that I think of them as an all-ages publisher, but Genius is clearly for adults. Not for any naughty content, but because the themes and fears expressed here aren’t going to resonate with younger readers. Genius is the story of Ted Marx, a former child prodigy who’s now just a cog, fearing that the discoveries of younger co-workers mean he’s at risk of losing his job as a think-tank physicist.

Although being a smart child, especially one who’s promoted into classes with older kids, is hard, it’s harder dealing with what happens once the brilliance fades. When you’re a kid, learning can be fun … and a refuge. Once you have kids of your own and a wife who may be facing a medical crisis and a father-in-law you have to care for although he hates you, well, smart doesn’t matter so much. There are too many other distractions.

Seagle gets this so right that getting to know Ted as the pages unfold can be painful. Knowing that you’re no longer the hot young thing is a speed bump that happens to many people, whether it’s about smarts or creativity or any other field. This is an involving portrait of the concerns of age, complicated by learning to worry more about the others closest to you than yourself.

Seagle’s ability to get inside minds and express their deepest concerns and motivations in just a few well-chosen words is used to its fullest here, accompanied by Kristiansen’s beautifully sketchy images. He’s not so much illustrating the events as capturing the emotions. At times, the light lines almost fade into the solid color washes, indicating how tenuous Ted’s memories or sense of being is.

The murky tones of beige and grey underscore the lack of clear answers in Ted’s life. The images are lovely yet foreboding, done in monochrome with a few highlights picked out. The use of light and shadow to suggest more than what we see is impressive, and the occasional impressionist page to indicate realization of an idea is astounding.

The conflict, where an intelligent person has to learn the value of other kinds of knowing, is a classic one. As Ted tells us, early on:

It turned out there were two kinds of knowledge: brain knowledge and heart knowledge. I was grossly over-developed in one. Painfully under-developed in the other. I worry that I still am in a lot of ways…

Albert Einstein serves as kind of a ghost mentor here, the closest thing Ted has to a deity. He reminds Ted that as Einstein got older, “It became more difficult to think in grand ways. Too many expectations… distractions…” Such as Ted’s 14-year-old son, Aron, who is more socially developed than he ever was, so Ted has to have The Talk with him about his girlfriend. Hope, Ted’s wife, isn’t feeling well, and Cece, his daughter, has his brains but would rather fit in.

Hope’s father Francis lives with them although he thinks Ted is a huge disappointment. Then Ted finds out that Francis, during his military service, was a bodyguard for Einstein. More, Albert entrusted Francis with a secret that might assure Ted’s career. Ultimately, many of us are looking for the one big break, the idea that will change everything. That quest might be futile, as this book shows us that it’s the small things that make up a rewarding life.

The publisher has made preview pages available. Genius can be ordered now from comic shops with the Diamond code MAY13 1161. It’s due out in early July. (The publisher provided a digital review copy.)

How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less

How to Understand Israel
in 60 Days or Less

by Sarah Glidden
DC/Vertigo, $19.99 US

An excellent introduction to the country as author Sarah Glidden visits for the first time herself. She’s signed up for a “Birthright Israel” tour, a free trip offered to Jews to explore the history and politics of the region. She’d researched before she went, as she explains:

What went wrong over there? And why aren’t there any answers without bias? Objective sources are very hard to find. Hundreds of pages later, I had alienated friends with my obsession… ignored important things in my life… and somehow knew less than when I started.

I’m going to spoil a bit (since the book came out three years ago) — she doesn’t find the definite answers she’s looking for. However, her watercolor art makes for an enjoyable read that captures what feels like an authentic journey, and her learning to accept uncertainty makes for a more realistic growth experience. (The nine-panel grid also makes the book easy to read, for those not as familiar with the comic format.) It’s as though I’m traveling with her and her friend Melissa through the Golan Heights, to the Sea of Galilee, Tel Aviv, Masada, Jerusalem, and a night in a desert tent as an exploration of now-disappeared Bedouin culture.

Some of the cultural pointers are obvious — discussion of security checkpoints or the ever-present threat of terrorism — while others are less so. The tour guide, for example, is a former soldier (as is everyone except the orthodox), and the bus group is accompanied by an armed guard (who’s also a medic). The 40 travelers are diverse, with some being Jewish converts, others more traditionally culturally religious.

One sequence in How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less struck me, as Glidden stays awake with jet lag thinking about all the people who have lived on this land. She draws them each in bed, creating a commonality that transcends the historical disputes. She also uses comics to allow herself to converse with figures from another time, as a way of visualizing the debates she’s struggling with over the Palestinian conflict and the pressure she feels to support one side or another. Amazingly, this is Glidden’s first graphic novel. It’s a good one, particularly for young adults who may identify with her love of travel and perspective as she is trying to find herself and her way in the world.

Jerusalem: Chronicles From the Holy City

Jerusalem:
Chronicles From the Holy City

by Guy Delisle, translated by Helge Dascher
Drawn & Quarterly, $24.95 US

In contrast, this is far from Guy Delisle’s first travelogue. Previously, he’s shown us life in Shenzhen (China) and Pyongyang (North Korea). Those are countries we think we understand the bad things about, and his experiences there play to our assumptions. However, this book is more challenging, due to our mixed perspectives on Israel.

(Well, maybe you’re sure who’s right and who’s wrong when it comes to the Arab/Jewish struggles. I’m not. I wish peaceful solutions were more obvious, because then maybe more people could agree on them.)

Delisle and his family are spending a year in Jerusalem because his partner works for Médecins Sans Frontières, which we know as Doctors Without Borders. Their first struggle is understanding exactly where they are. Their apartment is in the east part of Jerusalem, previously an Arab village, so according to Israelis, they’re in their country, but by other versions, they’re in the West Bank, which should be part of Palestine. That confusion is only the first example of a duality that complicates the everyday events of caring for two small children in another country.

In contrast to his previous books, Delisle is much more focused on the domestic in Jerusalem: Chronicles From the Holy City. Everything is complicated by having parallel systems. For example, whether you’re going to the Arab Quarters or not determines which kind of bus you take. The call to prayer for Muslims wakes their daughter just when she’s dropped off to sleep. Since they’re not particularly religious (at one point, Delisle declares his atheism), the way the city shuts down on Saturday surprises them. Much of his time is spent trying to negotiate getting the kids back and forth to school.

There are more disturbing challenges, as well. The couple is separated when border crossings are closed due to security events for an unknown length of time. (His wife works in Gaza, the most restricted region, with only one crossing.) Delisle visits a security checkpoint with an observation group working for the end of Palestinian occupation, which turns into a battle of stones and tear gas grenades. Whenever he travels internationally, returning is an ordeal because of the particular areas in which his wife works. Time is spent in a region full of militant settlers and worrying how to get in to help an area under heavy bombing.

Delisle’s panels don’t often use close-ups. They’re medium shots, to show us lots of the flavor of the surroundings. That approach also makes Delisle’s figures seem small and overwhelmed, sharing the complexity of living in the region. The color consists of monochrome tones of grey or taupe, creating an oppressive, unsettling mood, with the exception of full color for maps or historical moments. Yet in the midst of struggle, there are small moments of human bonding, whether attending an expat party or taking a day at the beach or simply meeting the neighbors at the local playground.

If he’d spent more time there, he would have become more comfortable. By the second half of the book, he’s found a place to work and is beginning to settle into a routine. He draws himself having an art exhibition and discussing comics with students. Just as he begins to understand, it’s time to leave.

The struggles Delisle goes through simply to live comfortably for a year may make the reader sympathetic to those being oppressed, not necessarily because of the politics, but just out of concern for those downtrodden by any bureaucracy. Jerusalem: Chronicles From the Holy City is a dense, lengthy, rewarding read that uses the personal to shed new light on the political. If you’re only going to read one of these books, make it this one.

Letting It Go

Letting It Go

by Miriam Katin
Drawn & Quarterly, $24.95 US

Instead of tackling the current situation in Israel, Miriam Katin can’t let go of the past. Her son has gotten involved with a woman who lives in Berlin. As a Holocaust survivor, Katin reacts badly. She has issues coming to terms with her son wanting to live “on the ground soaked with the blood of Jews.”

It’ll take some reading before all of that comes clear, though, as Katin wanders through sketches of life in the city, annoyed by bugs and music as she’s trying to work. She eventually takes two trips to Berlin, once to visit the son and girlfriend, and once when her work is put on display at the Jewish museum there.

This is a very New York Jewish story. Those without connection to the region or religion may find it all a bit confusing, between the oddly paced storytelling and why a horrific event from 70 years ago should affect everyone’s decision-making today. Katin takes the undercurrent of “never forget … and keep holding a grudge” for granted among her readers, as though we all shared her perspective. Her mother (I’m assuming — several characters aren’t clearly identified), in contrast, is worried more about the girlfriend not being Jewish than she is with where the two will live.

With the thick, creamy paper and Katin’s borderless style, reading this book feels like flipping through a sketchbook, particularly given the colored pencil images she’s created and the sometimes confusing selection of what she portrays. There are some lovely location images, although I found it unintendedly funny how Katin draws herself with big-eye glasses and a triangle for a nose. I was also put off by how crude some of the sequences are, as she gets grossly ill on the first visit and suffers from bedbugs on the second.

The ending comes abruptly, without much resolution. Throughout, I got the feeling that Katin had a lot to share, but her pacing needed a firmer hand to make this a more cohesive work, and she would have benefited from more editing. (I also find it awkward that, every time I look at this book, I get the Kelly Clarkson song stuck in my head.)

The Property

The Property

by Rutu Modan, translated by Jessica Cohen
Drawn & Quarterly, $24.95 US

Like Miriam Katin, the characters in The Property are still dealing with Holocaust ramifications. Mica and her stubborn grandmother are traveling from Israel to Warsaw, Poland, in order to find out what happened to the family’s property during the War. This story is fictional, though, which means everything ties together much more neatly than you’d expect in real life.

Much like a grown-up Tintin, Modan’s story features strong, clear lines and a pervading sense of mystery. Relatives are dreaming of reclaiming property that would provide a financial windfall. A family friend, Avram, appears on the same trip, but it’s unclear what his motives are, although his pushiness quickly becomes annoying. The grandmother has mood swings and is keeping secrets from her descendent. The granddaughter meets a tour guide, who turns out to be a comic artist and becomes involved in the situation. Later, there’s a crazy historian who wants to recreate the ghetto but conveniently provides some key clues.

One nice technique is how the trilingual aspects are handled — capitals are used for Hebrew, italics for Polish, and mixed-case for English. There’s also a sequence where the grandmother, in a cab to her old apartment home, sees how the city used to look, colored sepia through the window. It’s immediately clear what’s going on, an accomplished use of the comic language by Modan.

As the two women struggle with their pasts and each other, I found myself engrossed, curious to find out what would happen. It’s a real page-turner, and the easy-to-read style makes it happen smoothly. I liked the sensation of hope throughout the story. No matter the affect of the secrets revealed, even if unsettling, there’s a feeling that things are improved because of the entire experience.

(Drawn & Quarterly provided review copies.)

You’re All Just Jealous of My Jetpack

Tom Gauld‘s cartoons, one per page, cover history, literature, and technology, in the same way Kate Beaton’s do. The best way to recommend this volume is to simply send you to read his cartoons. If you see one that tickles you, you’ll likely enjoy more of them. The comics originally appeared in The Guardian, and a European sense of humor may be an asset.

The title comes from this particular comic, in which science fiction tells off “proper literature”. Reading — the great works, genre conventions, famous writers, popular expectations, and how it contrasts with other media and technology — is a frequent topic of Gauld’s. There’s a Bronte Sisters videogame, Shakespeare’s cast reductions, Kenneth Grahame’s cast changes, and Frankenstein’s monster explaining famous characters to a dense reader. He also has a modern perspective on classic subjects, for example, envisioning a Gothic novel with a Blackberry and texting or showing us future “Innovations at the British Library”.

You may find yourself consulting the internet if you don’t recognize a particular reference, so the cartoons are vaguely educational, if you approach them with curiosity instead of resentment for being smarter than you are. There’s an odd contrast between the assumed intelligence of the reader at the same time Gauld’s strips are puncturing pretension. It’s an anti-snobbery.

A few of the strips don’t need much more than their title, such as “Samuel Beckett’s Adventures of Tintin” or “Professor Ian Rigby: Academic Stunt Driver”. All are well-done, with simple-yet-complete drawings wrapped around strong, unusual concepts. Even somewhat familiar punchlines — British food is bad, cliché-using writers should be stopped, novels change when adapted into movies — are cartooned in creative ways.

I’m guessing that Gauld loves language, because he uses such excellent vocabulary. Visually, his figures are unique — the occasional person has a face, although one with dot eyes and a lump representing a nose. No mouths. More often, the figure simply consists of an elongated triangle for a body and a black dot for a head. They’re purely representational, and their simplicity is attractive.

It’s a pleasure to see such imaginative ideas expressed in such an approachable form. I got a kind of enjoyment from this book that felt fresh and surprising because of how different the subjects and look of these strips were from other comics. (The publisher provided a review copy.)

Feynman

Much of the material will be familiar to readers of Feynman’s biographies, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! and What Do You Care What Other People Think?, but seeing the incidents play out visually gives them new life. If you aren’t familiar, Feynman will be particularly inspiring, as it demonstrates how marvelous the universe is, particularly with the right attitude. Reading through it made me wish I’d stayed in the sciences, especially physics, because Feynman makes it all look fascinating and fulfilling. He got successful enough that he could concentrate on what he found fun, making discoveries along the way. Not a bad way to go about things!

Feynman had amazing accomplishments — he participated in the Manhattan Project in New Mexico, lectured in front of Einstein, graduated MIT and Princeton, won the Nobel Prize, investigated the Challenger disaster — but also impressive is his attitude, demonstrated from a young age, of curiosity and an unwillingness to be cowed by authority and the inclination to question almost everything. I also loved his devotion to teaching (an area many universities tolerate at best) and his insistence that science needed to be able to be explained to lay people.

Ottaviani excerpts many of Feynman’s public speeches and writings, so the book has plausibility and authenticity. It also has heart, as Feynman struggles first to marry Arline and then to live with her in spirt of his work and her sickness. That part made me cry, so I was glad for the sillier stories about safecracking and learning art and hanging out at the beach.

There are sample pages at the publisher’s website, Tor.com, and Publishers Weekly. The paperback version of this book is due out next week. (The publisher provided a review copy.)

Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong

In Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong, Hicks adapted a story by Prudence Shen (she’s posted online how she went about the process) that captures the changing alliances during a political showdown in high school. Charlie is almost accidentally popular (or as someone calls him, “the worst cool kid ever”). He’s the captain of the basketball team and until recently, was dating the head cheerleader. She’s just dumped him, but his geeky buddy Nate isn’t much help consoling him.

Nate’s got a plan, you see. There’s enough money in the school budget for either his robot-building club to go to a major competition, or for the cheerleaders to get new uniforms. So Nate’s going to run for student body president to tilt the decision in his group’s favor. The cheerleaders don’t like that, so they select Charlie as their candidate, and the resulting election quickly gets ugly.

There’s a lot more to this story than just the mean girls vs. the nerds, although their escalating pranks are quite entertaining and very well-cartooned. (That part of the premise is resolved halfway through the book, at which point there is a surprising twist and all-new challenges to tackle.) Charlie is more of a prize than a personality at first, until it becomes clear that his lack of ambition and action is a key survival strategy. It makes his later choices, once he starts making them, all the more surprising and affecting.

Hicks’ figures are impressively expressive, making this a smooth read and beautifully capturing all the mercurial emotions of adolescence. Even the cast members with smaller roles are distinctive personalities. The robotics club, for example, is made up of the sensible Ben, the skilled and caring Joanna (obviously my favorite), and the creepy truth-telling twins.

Hicks’ pacing is accomplished, particularly in the silent reaction sequences, which demonstrate her artistic confidence. They’re balanced by her use of comic language conventions, such as giant puppy-dog eyes to show a character pretending exaggerated sympathy or the quasi-robotic moves of the cheerleading squad. I also appreciate the way she marks scene changes with establishing panels of the new setting.

Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong will be released early next month. In the meantime, you can read it online. You can also enter a contest if you’ve preordered the book. (The publisher provided a review copy.)

I will be attending the 2013 MoCCA Arts Fest in New York City on Saturday! It’s my first convention of the season, so I’m looking forward to it. This year the show is under new management with the Society of Illustrators, and the Comics Reporter interview with Anelle Miller, Executive Director of SoI, gives me great reason to expect it to be better than ever.

Her new book, Will & Whit, has much the same charm as Page by Paige, with similar beautiful linework, but by expanding the cast, Gulledge demonstrates new skills. It’s a terrific read, enjoyable to explore and yet deep in meaning.

Will & Whit

Will, short for Willhemena, is an insomniac who creates artistic lamps because she’s afraid of the dark and coping with unexplored grief. She lives with her aunt Ella, who runs the family antique store in a small Virginia mountain town.

Will’s friends are equally creative. Autumn is a blue-haired puppetmaker whose parents are pressuring her to pick the right college. Noel cooks, and his little sister Reese is addicted to electronics. It’s the end of summer, and they’re pondering what will come with the fall, whether they want to admit it or not. Another set of young people are putting on an arts carnival, and as the two groups interact, hearts get bent. At the same time, hurricane Whitney is predicted to hit the area hard.

There are so many wonderful and unusual themes in this book. The obvious is the play of light and darkness and what those things can symbolize, but I also greatly enjoyed the way the characters repurpose and appreciate older things and how they support each other’s artistic pursuits. Plus, how can I not love a heroine who quotes Doctor Who episodes?! (Specifically, “Blink“, which of course is perfect for a story about what you see in the dark.)

Will & Whit is more conventionally formatted as comics than the earlier book, but that just shows off how strong Gulledge’s storytelling is. I adored the character expressions and gestures. The love between Ella and Will, for example, as they sit in the kitchen too early in the morning talking about the details of the day is so visible in the active drawings. Her grasp of how young people interact is great, too.

Gulledge also uses a pointillist technique for the shadows (some of which populate Will’s imagination and symbolize her feelings) that’s quite gripping. It contrasts with the solid, firm lines of her characters, making the shadows look insubstantial and a bit scary, just as Will sees them.

Having recently moved from Virginia to the Midwest, it was a personal pleasure to see small-town Southern life, particularly during a blackout, when everything slows down. That’s another evocation of the old-fashioned, antique way of life, and another impressive way Gulledge ties her events and themes together. This is a strong, amazing book, just like Will herself.

Will & Whit can be ordered from your comic shop with Diamond code MAR13 0778. It’s due out May 7. (The publisher provided an advance review copy.)

Primates

In 1960, Goodall lived in Africa for a long-term observation of chimpanzees. It’s a good thing that she didn’t mind spending a lot of time alone, doing nothing but watching animals, because she discovered them using tools. That was a revelation, since until that time, it was thought only humans could do so. In 1971, Biruté Galdikas was the first to closely observe wild orangutans. Dian Fossey wanted to see mountain gorillas, and her writing allowed her to get to Rwanda, where she also fought poachers, ultimately leading to her death.

Maris Wicks’ art is nicely simple. It makes me happy to read about these people and monkeys; they’re cute, but their experiences are also clear and inspiring. I’ve only read one of her comics before (Yes, Let’s), but I’ll be on the lookout for anything else she does in future. She does great work with the various apes and their behaviors, so important to a book about observing them.

Jim Ottaviani, on the other hand, has been writing about scientists for years, but his clear explanations bring historical figures to life as people. He’s very good at picking out telling moments that are often quite funny, as when the mentor of all three, Louis Leakey, grades his own exam in college. From the portrayal here, he was quite the impulsive man, selecting women without classic training because he thought they’d do better and be more patient. I’m curious to read more of his story sometime.

That’s not the only way that this book is a starting point. To make it okay for younger readers (I suspect), some of the details (like what happened to Fossey at the end of her life or the malady Galdikas suffered) are handwaved or glossed over. But then, to talk about the lives of three women and their accomplishments in under 140 pages must have been a struggle in itself. Still, what’s here is inspiring.

Primates can be ordered from your comic shop with Diamond code APR13 1147. It’s due out in early June. There are preview pages at the publisher’s website, and their blog has a great book walkthrough. (The publisher provided a review copy.)

Relish: My Life in the Kitchen

Relish explores food as memory and meaning. In chapters punctuated with illustrated recipes (which relate to something in the chapters and sound really tasty), Lucy tells of key moments in her life, all of which revolve around food. She remembers Mom’s work as a restaurant chef, foraging for berries, raising chickens, baking as self-comfort, traveling to Rome with Dad and Mexico with Mom, trying weird Japanese food as a teen, and working as a catering assistant or at a farmers’ market.

An uncle ran a gourmet food store. Dinner parties were populated by artists. When the parents divorce, Lucy and her mother move from the city to the country and begin gardening. It’s not just a portrait of the New York food scene at a now-gone point in time, but a way to sink into a lifestyle many of us will never know.

Like many children of well-meaning parents of a certain era, Lucy’s discovery of junk food (through a friend without such discerning guardians) leads to a life-long appreciation, although given her background, it’s one that’s balanced against all her other food loves. One strange little chapter, about sharing food cravings with her mother, reveals new insights (on a re-read) about relationships and gender and inheritance. Making food for someone is about love and sharing, as several chapters illustrate, and so I’m not sure what to think about the one focusing on her father, who mostly eats in restaurants but still seeks out his ex-wife’s cooking.

Lucy’s colors are amazing. Her lines are deceptively simple, her expressions poignant, but it’s her palette that I love best. The recipes show the ingredients and techniques in well-composed steps. Even a roast leg of lamb seems possible to achieve. Although I already knew how to make pesto or chocolate chip cookies, the recipes reminded me I should do so more often. And assembling ingredients is more fun when they’re little pictures instead of a boring list of quantities. You’ll even learn how to make sushi rolls and sangria and categorize cheeses.

It’s rare that a book you’re anticipating greatly lives up to its promise and even exceeds your expectations. Relish is one of those cases. After reading it, I’m inspired to pay more attention to what I eat and what it means.

Lucy is on tour to promote the book. (The publisher provided a review copy.)

The Initiates

Author Etienne Davodeau proposed to Richard Leroy an exchange of knowledge. Davodeau will come work in Leroy’s vineyard, and Leroy will explain wine making and tasting to him. Meanwhile, Davodeau will provide Leroy a reading list of graphic novels and introduce him to their authors. We, the readers, will be enlightened by the discoveries they make about what creative work in various fields has in common.

The greyscale art has a certain bleakness that represents well the hard work in the vineyards, but it also provides a realism that underpins these two real-life friends and makes us feel we know them and share their journey. There’s a ton of conversation, but it’s all kept visually interesting as the two travel together and move through a variety of settings.

It makes sense for the visit to the fields to begin in winter, as the vintner prepares the vines for coming growth, but I was surprised to see Leroy’s first exposure to the comic business to be a visit to a printing plant. There’s a certain similarity in the established businesses, each with their speciality methods and particular equipment, but printing is near the end of the comic’s creation, while the growing of the grapevines has just begun. That’s not the only difference between the two crafts — much is made of the winemaker’s connection to the earth and the seasons, the way different soils and weather affect the grapes, while comic-making is a solitary, quiet work done locked away. Yet the visit to the printers shows that even that is dependent upon others to create the final product.

Both also involve a lot of labor, from the weeding and staking and plowing in the fields to the time spent drawing. This book is over 250 pages, with plenty of detail, and as the seasons pass in the narrative, I’m led to think about the time spent capturing these illustrations, although we rarely see artists drawing in this book. Most of the knowledge in that area comes from visiting conventions and exhibitions.

When it comes to the comics read and their creators, the more you’re familiar with European creators, the more you’ll understand the references. Leroy does read two familiar American works, Maus and Watchmen, although he doesn’t like the latter. There is a list at the back of the various books (which aren’t always mentioned by full title in the story) they read, which helps a little. There’s also a list of the wines they drank. It’s actually refreshing not to be familiar with the particular works discussed, since it helped me concentrate on the universalities of artistic creation.

My favorite part, though, featured a creator I loved — Lewis Trondheim guest-stars to discuss his Approximate Continuum Comics. Leroy doesn’t like it much, particularly wondering why Trondheim draws himself with a bird beak, which leads to some informative discussion about autobiographical work.

For the wine, there’s a chapter on “biodynamics”, or what sounds like homeopathy for plants, which gets a little mystical, while one involving a visit from an assistant of Robert Parker discusses reputation and ratings. On the comic side, they visit an established publisher. Even the comic chapters feature wine, as everyone tends to go to lunch and enjoy. However, there’s another parallel, too. The winemaker trims his vine buds, so only a few grapes are allowed to grow on each, and the publisher only selects a few books, those they have faith in.

Learning so much about wine and what makes it good, I was reminded of The Drops of God, but I preferred The Initiates for concentrating more on a single vintage. I was inspired, by the end, to better appreciate just how much hard work goes into a delicious wine or a beautiful comic. This would make a wonderful gift to any artist, or those aspiring to be. (The publisher provided a review copy.)

Pogo: Through the Wild Blue Wonder

To someone today, Pogo can be something of a difficult read to start. For one thing, there’s the dialect. I find that reading the strip works best if I can set aside a chunk of time, so that my brain has time to adapt to the rhythms and pacing and I can concentrate on the meaning. (Shakespeare in the original works the same way.)

Then there’s the time period. The comics in volume 1, Pogo: Through the Wild Blue Wonder, date from 1949 and 1950 (both dailies and Sundays). Expectations and references were different, but the outstanding art and expressive cartooning remains as attractive as ever. As are the jabs at human nature.

Pogo is appealing as an every-Possum, with those around him misleading or maltreating him either out of greed or accidentally. I was surprised to see how often, in the earliest strips, he’s taking care of others, whether a tadpole kid or a gangly bloodhound. Much of the humor comes from a cock-eyed view of the world, made more entertaining by creative takes on common sayings or the silly things people (or swamp critters) do when they’re trying to put one over on someone else.

I hadn’t realized how much I’d appreciate grumpy ol’ Porkypine, with his lonesome nature hiding a caring heart, particularly during the holiday strips. A particular sequence, about halfway through the dailies in the first book, has the crew creating a newspaper, which allows for various gags about the business.

The nature of the animals varies — some are human-like, talking, while others are more like pets. At one point, Albert the alligator is put on trial for eating a puppy, who acts just like one. This is also where we first meet Deacon Mushrat, the hypocritical preacher who speaks in gothic font to better demonstrate his old-fashioned attitudes.

I’m glad to see how much context the well-done text pieces provide. The introduction, by editors Kelly and Kim Thompson, lay out plans for a series of twelve volumes total to collect all of Kelly’s syndicated Pogo and talk about the difficulties in finding good-quality sources for reprinting. A lengthy introduction covers Walt Kelly’s life and career. The table of contents not only list the strips by date but also include short descriptions of the contents of the week, for aid in cross-reference.

Pogo: Bona Fide Balderdash

The Sundays, which appear in a section after the weekday black-and-white strips, are introduced by Mark Evanier, who explains the mechanics of the format and their reproduction here. The colors are outstanding (and freshly restored). Evanier calls Kelly’s choices “unconventional”, and they are, with purples and yellows and oranges and the occasional blue tree, but they suit the general mood of Pogo, a world with talking animals where anything could happen.

Following the Sundays are the strips that make up the “trial run” of Pogo in the New York Star from 1948 to early 1949, and then some annotations about the historical context by R.C. Harvey.

Pogo: Bona Fide Balderdash has fewer text pages, but that’s to make space for the full years of 1951 and 1952, plus Harvey’s annotations. This time, they’re split between the dailies and Sundays to better match the flow of the book. This volume includes Pogo’s first run for President, in 1952, driven by P.T. Bridgeport, inspired by the same-initialed Barnum.

Pogo is well-loved for a reason. The strips are beautifully drawn and keenly observent of human nature.

Superzelda: The Graphic Life
of Zelda Fitzgerald

Instead, there’s an awful lot of “then they went to…” New York, Paris, Alabama, Italy, Hollywood, as though a listing of events really tells us something about the person who lived through them. It doesn’t. Perhaps speculating on Zelda’s true feelings and motivations would have made it harder to seduce the reader into the jazz-age escapism of her scandalous early days.

The material is interesting to read, just because Zelda’s life was interesting, but it’s flawed in serious ways. Visually, I believe a biography should be be done by someone who’s capable of handling likenesses, or at least keeping their main character recognizable from chapter to chapter. However, in this book, there were panels where I didn’t know which person was intended to be Zelda, because the faces varied so much.

It’s particularly disturbing, since Zelda was a famous beauty in her youth, and that aspect of her character doesn’t carry through at all. If we weren’t told so frequently how pretty or striking she was, I wouldn’t have known that this character, as drawn, was supposed to be attractive. You’d expect a visual medium to be much better at portraying that piece of her life. What is conveyed well in the images is the time period, with the locations and clothing captured elegantly in a two-tone, black and blue-grey, fashion.

Much of the dialogue and captions are taken from the characters’ actual words, I think, but there are no specific sources listed, just a note about “all of the novels, stories, and letters of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, the biographies of both of them”. Anyone seriously interested in this subject will want to read further, since this superficial overview is ultimately unsatisfying, leaving one wanting more, but they’ll have to find the books themselves.

There’s also a lot of name-dropping of figures of the 1920s and 30s, many of whom won’t be recognized by contemporary readers. Notes would have been helpful, or less reliance on such inserts. I did enjoy reading about Zelda’s life in illustrated form, although I was left frustrated. Perhaps that’s a reflection of how much we still don’t know about her, not just this presentation.

The publisher provided a review copy and has posted a preview.

Transposes

Dylan Edwards presents, in comic form, the stories of seven real-life transgender (female-to-male) queer-identified men. One is traveling for a hookup in a story about the mechanics of sex. Another reflects on his life so far in a tale about finding his identity. The third covers someone discovering what gay FTMs are. The last story covers both partners in a couple, tracing their lives both separately and together.

Not all the stories are positive. One involves an unfortunate encounter that ends badly, with lasting consequences. The “Avery” story I found confusing between the flashbacks and the characters not being fully introduced to the reader. It also raises questions of male privilege that are barely acknowledged and I wish had been explored further… but since this is a collection of autobiographical tales, Edwards was restricted to the stories his subjects told.

The art is straightforward, which is well-suited to the real-life subject matter. One clever technique used is the way Edwards, when he wants to indicate talking without the actual words being important, fills a word balloon with words that mean more as symbols than text content.

Those unfamiliar with the subculture may wish for a different book, since this isn’t a very good primer on the topic. Edwards, in the illustrated introduction where he explains his goals for Transposes, lists some personal questions about being QFTM that he’s specifically not going to answer. As a result, this volume isn’t a good starting point to the subject for those not already familiar with the terminology and what it means (such as “T” for transitioning). In some ways, he’s preaching to the choir, reflecting for this particular group of people their experiences (or close enough to be interesting reading) in comic form. They and those sympathetic to them will most enjoy this book.

Alison Bechdel provides the foreword. There are preview pages at the publisher’s website. (The publisher provided a review copy.)

Beautiful Creatures

Ethan is stuck in a small Southern town. He’s pretending not to be as smart or bored as he is, biding time until he can leave. Then Lena arrives. She’s the girl he’s been dreaming of — literally. She doesn’t fit in: she’s goth-looking, she reads, she writes, and she’s the niece of the crazy old shut-in.

When they get together, they have Civil War flashbacks, visions of themselves back then. They can read each other’s minds, and soon enough, Ethan is meeting her family of “casters”. (They don’t like the term “witches”.) In just a few months, Lena will be “claimed” for either the dark or light side, and the rest of the clan is fighting over which it might be for her.

The book is full of twists as Ethan and Lena tries to figure out what’s going on, accompanied by the reader. There’s a lot of material and characters shoved in here, which means not everything gets the focus it needs. Teens, particularly, will appreciate the drama as a pair of star-crossed lovers strive to stay together in spite of fate and family trying to drive them apart.

The Yen adaptation is impressive and substantial, with hardcover binding, a lovely foil dust jacket design, and opening color pages. The character designs are well-done, with the teenagers attractive and expressive. The captions, which I’m assuming are taken from the books, are evocative, if a bit abrupt in telling key points of the story. Typical of an adaptation, the subtler elements will only be noticed by those who already know the story from the books; new readers may find things proceeding at a fast pace, with little time or space to reflect on the emotional impact points. I liked the Southern atmosphere, but too many revelations seemed thrown at me, and I was more interested in the family dynamics than the magical battles, which took precedence.

Review done, gripe time now. Even thought the subtitle says “Manga”, I put this review under the graphic novel category, because that’s where I think American-made comic adaptations of novels belong. “Manga”, for me, only refers to those books created in Japan. When Yen brought out their Twilight adaptation, they subtitled it “The Graphic Novel”, so I’m not sure why this one is tagged “The Manga”. (The publisher provided a review copy.)

An Enchantment

Christian Durieux tells a classic story of a man and a woman, strangers to each other, and one magical night in the setting of the museum. The unnamed he is a famous retiring official, guest at a banquet thrown in his honor but bored with the company and the pomp and the pretense. So he sneaks away into the galleries with a couple of bottles of wine, only to encounter a mysterious woman there to appreciate the paintings.

If the characters were younger, she’d remind us of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl cliche. They wander, look at the art, drink, talk about his history, and discuss how the Louvre has changed. The setting of the museum complements the tale, with its grandeur symbolizing the official’s high status. Durieux captures the feel of the building’s size and mystery, with something new around every corner.

The large hardcover format gives the work the feel of a picture book for adults, an evocation that echoes the fable-like story that the author labels “a graphic poem”. Finally, it descends into pure escapism through art. I did feel a little left out, culturally. If I knew more about the history of the museum, I might recognize some of the allusions, and I also wished I was more familiar with the classic works shown. There is a list at the back, with work, artist, and museum location, in case I wanted to look them up to learn more about them. (The publisher provided a review copy.)

How to Fake a Moon Landing:
Exposing the Myths of Science Denial

Because I’ve previously talked about a lot of this material, I’ll focus here on the new chapter. I’m not sure why fracking was chosen as the topic, since I don’t know of anyone who thinks it’s a good idea — but then, I’m a sympathetic audience for the book, since I already believe that you should evaluate scientific claims with your brain instead of your heart. For me, this chapter was one of the most depressing. (The color doesn’t help — it’s a moody grey-green throughout.) There’s something vaguely poetic and doomed about someone who, for example, believes visiting the moon was a grand media conspiracy, but someone who thinks fracking isn’t destroying the environment and poisoning people is just stupid or greedy. Assembling all the evidence in one place just rams the danger home again and again.

That’s the biggest problem with this book — I’m not sure those who most need to read it will. Especially since it’s in comic form. The close-minded still think that medium is for the unintelligent or immature; they’re the same types who are denying climate change or trying to avoid teaching kids about evolution, prioritizing belief over facts.

The most informative chapter, to me, was the one about the origins of “Chiropractic” and how anti-medicine some of the practitioners were. I also suspect that an American author wouldn’t have dared create the “Evolution” chapter as it stands. It criticizes some of the body’s physical features, stating, “No creator would invent such a complex and dangerous design.” Few people raised in the US religious stew would risk stating such a thing outright.

As before, the last chapter, “Science Denial”, is the most powerful and direct, tracking our current psychological avoidance of evidence back to the tobacco industry in the 1950s, desperate to deny the link between smoking and cancer. I enjoyed having an excuse to reread the book, and I hope it does well, particularly in libraries and schools.