Another must-read graphic novel collection about the true believers of the music world.
Jackson’s graphic novel details the further adventures of a cast revolving around the ultimate hipster record store.
In this graphic novel, Jackson continues his chronicle of the staff and regulars at the titular Blackwax Boulevard, introduced in Blackwax Boulevard: Five Years, What a Surprise(2017). This sequel collects more of the author’s renowned webcomics and concentrates on the day-to-day events that come up in the lives of the main characters—record store owner Hardy, all-knowing cashier Marsalis, and regular customers like Veronika and Salimah—as they deal with both the challenges of keeping their ramshackle shop in business and the outside-world problems that walk through the front door. Readers follow all of Jackson’s passionate and hyper-articulate avatars as they go about their days and deal with broader issues like racism, sexism, sexual assault, and public accountability. The artwork is rendered in black, white, and gray, with exquisite cartoony broad strokes, and the stories are largely episodic, threaded together by a handful of continuing plot lines, including Marsalis’ forlorn love life and the legendary opinionated critic Chester Vick’s interview with Terry Gross for National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air” (“You know,” he tells the increasingly shell-shocked Gross, “FM radio has effectively been hijacked by the catatonically dull tastes of club hoppers from Norway – snort – and soccer moms from Michigan who grew up on 'Baby One More Time.” It’s a snappy blessing to have these immensely engaging webcomics collected in another volume. The points of view expressed in these pages never pull their punches and spare no sensibilities, with often-raw language issuing from even the gentlest of characters (“You really think,” yells a small child at one point, “I don’t hear about grown-up stuff like this at school when I’m not worrying about dodging bullets?!”). This collection and its predecessor are bracing and hugely involving.
Another must-read graphic novel collection about the true believers of the music world.Pub Date: March 3, 2023
ISBN: 9780999259658
Page Count: 202
Publisher: Frotoon Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2023
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
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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