While I know that we can all agree that it probably isn’t entirely kosher to pen a review your own product, so let’s not call this a “review” but rather some some soft-sell marketing spin. Last weekend I received my copies of the CAG graphic album Iconic and I just have to tell you how excited I am about the book. Yeah, yeah, admittedly I contributed a story to the project, but mine is only one of the 10 stories that appear in the tome. Having just read the other nine stories I really have to say that I very much enjoyed them as well. (There is one about Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper that offers us a new take on these two characters that is positively chilling.)
Also of note are the John Henry story, plus the “sequel” to A Christmas Carol. As a long-time fan of the legend of Prometheus, I was drawn to the re-telling of that legend in it’s Sci-Fi setting. The re-telling of the story of Robin Hood took me a bit of time to get to patch into the legend on which it was riffing, but again, a fine tale.
Not to go all “Hey this is the best thing since sliced bread” route, I’ll talk a little bit about the parts of the book where I had a (small) issue or two.
On the “less than completely glowing” side, while the most excellent forward by comicbook author and high-school teacher Gary Cohn served as a very fine overview of the genre and hopefully will help “legitimize” the book to our potential audience, it was (for some reason) written in white text on a gray patterned background which made it a tad difficult to read. Then (a personal peeve of mine) due to the square-bound binding, the center of the pages tend to disappear into the interior margins. This is actually a common production error that many production folks fall into when moving from saddle stitched magazines (which can lay flat) to square bound books (which can’t). Thus they need to leave a slightly larger interior margin to allow for the binding. (I recently read a very good — square bound — Graphic Novel which suffered from the same problem.)
Then, of course there is the (slightly smaller) size of the book (9" x 6"), which really isn’t a negative, but given that CAG is targeting young readers with the book is actually a positive thing, as it is CAG’s intention that this more compact format makes the book more accessible and less formidable to this market segment, than would the traditional larger-format GN.
Anyways, if you you want to get a very cool gift for a young reader (or yourself) who wants to learn some history, be entertain, and perhaps explore some classic (dare I say “Iconic”) themes, follow this link and score yourself a copy (or three).
The Perfessor
This is the place where I discuss all things Sacred and Profane. Stop by and check me out. Leave a comment (or not), as this is done for my own amusement. If you too are entertained, all the better, but that is not the motivation here. For I, am a...Writer with attitude! Comics, Sci Fi, movies, TV, Books, the Internet, Pop Culture, you name it. I talk about all of these things and more. These are the things that entertain me. I can only hope that some of them will entertain you as well.
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2 comments:
Looking forward to getting a copy.
Marc, send me an email and I'll get you a digital copy. By-the-by, loved your top 10 characters who deserve a reboot. I just blogged about it
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