DWD's Reviews

An interesting read with a twist at the end Published 2005 by Dark Horse 72 pages. I will not include any spoilers here - suffice it to say that a 12 year old starts to exhibit powers that Jesus once exhibited - healings, etc. The artwork highlights the drabness and ordinary, humble origins of this boy and hints that others have been waiting for these powers to surface. The ending has a good plot twist - good enough that I read it 3 times to make sure I got it right. The end of this edition has a "DVD extras" discussion between author and artist full of the little clues they had put in along the way and their motivations for making this graphic novel. It's a welcome addition. Good work on this one. I give it 5 stars out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: Chosen by Mark Millar and Peter Gross. Reviewed on March 16, 2007.

"Glacial Period" comes up short despite self-proclaimed greatness. Published in 2007 by NBM Publishing. 80 pages. So, what do you get when a hotshot graphic novelist teams up with the Louvre to showcase their works of art with a twist? Well, you get a short sci-fi book that has a solid start but a contrived, odd end. In short, this is a half-hour read for most and the story was not all that great. It wasn't bad, but it just doesn't live up the self-promotional hype that fills the inside flaps of the front and back covers - such as "Here are the most intelligent comics the world has to offer" and claims that the other is a "mad genius" and his artwork is "breathtaking." Not really. This one is too sketchy (not the art style, the plot) to be considered great by this reader. I rate this graphic novel 2 stars out of 5. This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here: Glacial Period .  Reviewed on February 7, 2008.

History in a more approachable format (for some) All forms of media have their fans and detractors. History teachers (like me) often have mixed opinions about different formats. Movies show the viewer but often skip details or over-emphasize items in order to make the stories work better. Textbooks cover the basics but do it in a dry, boring manner. History books can tell the story with more detail, but give the topic to a bad writer and it is an impossible challenge to the reluctant reader. Audiobooks may help, but how many students will listen to a 13 hour history book? Historical fiction - it is a mixed bag, but has potential to keep the interest up and teach something along the way. The internet - it's literally all there - the good, the bad, the delusional. As a teacher, I have always espoused the theory that I have borrowed from Malcolm X - teach it "by any means necessary." There are good movies out there. There are good books. Well-written historical fiction

It was okay Originally published in 1999 by Wildstorm. Let me start with this: I am not a big comics fanatic. I read some of these bigger collections from time to time for entertainment, but I've never been to a comic book shop, I don't own a Green Lantern shirt and there's no Superman sticker on my car. But, I do know what I like and, for me, Astro City was an "okay" collection of new superheroes. This collections includes 5 stories, 2 of which I found tedious. In the intro, Busiek claims to want to get back to basics and stop the "deconstruction" of the superhero. Get out of the superhero's head and back to the action. But, the first and last stories are all about getting into the superhero's head. They were interesting stories, but they went against the spirit Busiek claimed to have been wanting to avoid. In short, kudos to Busiek for creating a whole new world of superheroes, but this still didn't grab me enough to make me lo

A rather depressing tale Slow Storm is a rather depressing tale of a sexually-harrassed female firefighter with family issues in Kentucky that encounters an illegal alien named Rafi during a thunderstorm that has spawned tornadoes. Rafi's home gets burned due to a lightning strike. That's about it for the plot with the exception of some clever writing comparing sneaking across the border to climbing over the "pearly gates" to get into heaven, this is an entirely forgettable graphic novel. I rate this graphic novel 2 stars out of 5. This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here: Slow Storm . Reviewed on October 5, 2008.

Batman, super-villains and the insanity of life in Gotham from the point of view of the police Ever wonder how Batman and his cronies seem to the cops? Ever wonder how cops deal with super-villains, super heroes and the insane amount of crime that Gotham City generates? Gotham Central is a great twist on the Super hero tale. Told from the perspective of Gotham's Major Crime Unit, this series puts a different point of view on the super hero story. Besides that, many of these cops are involved in super heroics of their own. Imagine NYPD Blue or Law and Order SVU with the occasional super villain and super hero and you've got the idea. Gritty, tough, action-packed and good. I rate this graphic novel 5 stars out of 5. This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here:  Gotham Central Vol. 5: Dead Robin . Reviewed on November 29, 2008.

So, what happens when you take a best-selling author of thrillers and have him work with a great comics team? Brad Meltzer You get a strong story, great art and some of the cherished ideas of comics are re-worked. To quote the introduction by Joss Whedon, "it's unlikely that Elongated Man is your favorite-ever character. But halfway into issue one he was certainly mine. Brad and Rags paint a portait of a man - and a marriage - that is so unassumingly lovely, it's unbearable to think anything bad might happen to either. And inevitable that it will." ****Spoiler alert**** Thank novelist Brad Meltzer for making you care and thank artist Rags Morales for making you feel the pain of Elongated Man's loss on page 31 (even now, I just glanced at THE page and I felt it all over again). Meltzer re-works some of the bad guys and makes them truly awful. Why shouldn't they be. Regular villains stalk, kill, rape, maim and torture. Shouldn't

A strong and relatively short re-telling of the classic tale Gareth Hinds If you are like me and are well read, are mildly interested in Beowulf but just plain lack the desire to read a 3000-line long medieval poem, this volume may be the answer. I plowed through this graphic novel in about a half an hour and certainly was entertained and a bit more enlightened as to the tone and nature of the Beowulf saga. I was aware of the outlines of the first two sections of this story which are about the battle against Grendel and the battle against Grendel's mother. I was totally unaware of the story of Beowulf's death from the fight against a dragon. To his credit, Gareth Hinds includes sections of a translation of the original text to narrate his text. Hinds' artwork is fantastic, especially his renderings of the beasts that Beowulf fights. Does it replace the original? No, of course not. But, it's a pretty good stopgap substitute and its pretty darned en

Didn't do much for me Marvel 1602 just didn't do much for me, which is surprising since I'm a casual comics fan but a serious reader of history. I figured (correctly) that there'd be no problem taking superheroes into a different time period. But I also figured (incorrectly) that the story would be more interesting and have more of a focus. Lack of focus is really the problem I have with the series. Is it a spy novel in which the familiar superheroes are involved in a complicated web of deceit and danger? Yes and no. Is there more than that and the entire world (actually every universe) is threatened with destruction and everyone must bring their unique talents to save the day? Yes. It degenerates into that. Degenerates? Yes. Degenerates. Every character is brought into the fray and the storyline is muddied by bringing everyone in for a token cameo and the whole story becomes an over-the-top "jump the shark" type of plot usually reserved

Originally published in serial form in 1986 and 1987. I was interested in seeing the movie. The reviews sounded interesting so I thought I'd read the book first. And with reviews like, "The greatest piece of popular fiction ever produced" and "One of Time magazine's 100 best novels" on the cover, how could I go wrong? I dabble in comics. I read the big collections. I have no figurines, no stickers on my car. I see the movies, but usually on DVD. I own precious few comic books, mostly borrowing what I read from friends or the library. On the other hand, I am a voracious reader and I like to think that I know a little about books. I appreciate the fact that this book was groundbreaking in its day. It offered a bleak, jaded and, frankly, more realistic look at the whole concept of superheroes. When it asks, "Who watches the watchmen?" that is an important question. Showing the Comedian committing atrocities in Vietnam is a nice

A sad, engrossing read I hated the first 20 pages of Stitches: A Memoir . It seemed like another self-pitying artistic look at a pseudo-dysfunctional family and I'm just a little tired of that right now. But... the story develops a bit more and pretty soon I was totally absorbed. I read it in two sittings for a total time of less than an hour, despite its 300+ page length. The story pulls you in. I was amazed at the literal insanity of Small's maternal family. It is also the autobiographical struggle of David Small dealing with his own struggles with mental instability. The stitches referred to in the title are stitches that David Small has to have after a radical surgery on his neck. He had suffered from a growth in his neck for years before his parents decided to have it investigated, an inexcusable act considering that his father worked at a hospital as a radiologist. Small's artwork catches and defines the mood so well. There are many pages with no text at a

Unfocused, does not really stand alone from the album I'd never heard of Neil Young's Greendale album before I picked up this graphic novel, but I decided the premise was interesting enough that I gave it a chance. "Greendale" might be your cup of tea if you like your reading material to touch upon tons of ideas but develop none of them. This book is a coming-of-age, anti-war, anti-importing-oil, anti-drilling-for-more-American-oil-so-we-don't-have-to-import-it, anti-big-electricity, anti-media, super-hero book in which our heroine uses some of her powers to control people's minds (?) and change their opinions about all of these topics by speaking a bunch of platitudes at the end of the book while the devil character (who wanders in and out of the book and is making deals with the Bush 43 Administration and big energy on his cell phone) is beaten. I'm not really if she uses her super powers to control peoples minds, but they do point out that herd a

Mouse Guard transports the reader into a new world (albeit, a tiny one) in which mice live in a medieval society with cities, towns and outposts, protected by the Mouse Guard, a group of trained soldiers who travel in small groups or individually, sort of like the famed Texas Rangers. While there's not a whole lot of background or character development there are a lot of wonderful pictures (just about any page could be blown up to make a wonderful poster) that move the story along at a whiz-bang pace - a thrill-a-minute introduction to this small world. These mice are not Mickey nor the Rescuers, these mice of the Guard are tough, fearless, smart and willing to sacrifice everything to live according to their principles. I rate this book 5 stars out of a possible 5 stars. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Mouse Guard: Fall 1152 . Reviewed on June 14, 2010.

I only discovered Mouse Guard last week and have already shot through both volumes: Fall 1152 and Winter 1152. Now, I am eagerly waiting for more to come out. You really need to start with Mouse Guard: Fall 1152 in order to understand what is happening in Volume 2. For some, the action is too slow, but I think Petersen has paced the story fairly well. In just this volume, a fearsome hunter is defeated, a hero dies, a new hero takes up his mantle (?), two romances start, a traitor is exposed, a political settlement is achieved (?), the good guys save the day and they may have discovered a fearsome threat to their homeland that they didn't realize was quite so close. Throw in all of this with some of the most beautiful comic art I've ever seen and you can see why I find Mouse Guard to be such a treat. I ratee this book 5 stars out of a possible 5 stars. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Mouse Guard: Winter 1152 by David Petersen . Reviewed June 21, 2010