The Good Neighbors Book One: Kin - Holly Black and Ted Naifeh

"What are you?" "I'm bored, that's what I am. But the word you are looking for is faerie."

This was another graphic novel I found in the library's rotating collection. I knew Holly Black as the author of The Spiderwick Chronicles (which I never really got into) but this one looked like it was targeting older readers. I think also from skimming the dust-jacket that maybe I thought this was something else I'd read about, but in any case I did enjoy the book.

Rue ("like kangaroo or 'You'll rue the day we met, mwa-ha-ha!") Silver is a high-schooler whose mom has left recently after an argument with her father. Since then, her father has shut down and hasn't gone anywhere, and Rue has started to see really weird things. She'd known for some time that her mom was crazy, but now she fears she's starting to go crazy too.

What she's really seeing, though, are fairies. Their world and ours are crashing together, and Rue (for reasons that will later be revealed) can see them. When her father is arrested for the murder of one of his students (and the disappearance of his wife), Rue starts digging into the questions and discovers a lot more about fairies, her family, and herself.

The book actually reminded me a bit of some of Neil Gaiman's work (particularly the bits of the Sandman series that involved Faerie). It helps that the drawing style (done in black and white) is a little reminiscent of Dave McKean's illustrations (though a little less stylized). The way that strange beings populate the background, showing us the world as Rue sees it, is unsettling, particularly because nobody is acting out of the ordinary.

It's a good modern-day fairy tale, drawing on old legends of the "good neighbors" and keeping the frightening bits instead of just the Tinkerbell aspects. This book was originally from 2008, so I'm going to keep my eyes open for a followup.

Batman: Face the Face - James Robinson et al.

Found this one at the library. Since I never know any more what Batman timeline any given book might be following, I just try to roll with whatever's happening and hope that it makes sense. In this particular volume, Batman has been gone from Gotham for a year. Commissioner Gordon was gone for awhile and is now back. Harvey Dent is no longer Two-Face, but has had both surgery and psychiatry to put him back together.

In fact, Batman put him in charge of Gotham during his absence, and Harvey Dent has been out on the streets, doing his own vigilante justice (but not killing them). Until now. Batman has returned, only to find that somebody has been killing off Gotham's villains with Two-Face's twin revolver. All the evidence points to Dent, of course, but no murder mystery is that easy. Dent himself is struggling with the reappearance of Two-Face in his own mind, and isn't himself sure if he has committed the murders or not.

The artwork in this volume is not bad, though I've always found Two-Face to be a bit much. In particular, despite the however many times that Dent has had his face destroyed and repaired, every time it happens it looks the same again, right down the center, eyeball and teeth and everything. The scenes of Dent arguing with himself are a little like that scene with Gollum in the movies: okay, yeah, it's all taking place in his mind, but we get the point long before the scene is over.

What I found most interesting about this particular plotline was Batman's thoughts about Robin. (I believe this was Robin Number 3.) It actually ends up showing a more human side of Batman than we usually get, and I actually liked it; Robin brought out a different attitude in Batman and change the way he thought about being on a team.

The overarching mystery plotline is okay, but involves a couple characters I'm not familiar with, so I wasn't really invested in that part of the story. I'd be more interested in Batman's year off, I think.

Mouse Guard: WInter 1152 - David Petersen

"No swordplay?" - Saxon "Don't seek combat, Saxon. Seek resolution." - Celanwe

I enjoyed reading the first Mouse Guard book, but I think I liked the second one even more. After the events of Fall 1152, the mouse colonies are ill-prepared for the winter. Their supplies are low and much of their energy had been spent fighting the enemy within. Various Guard Mice have been dispatched from Lockhaven to the other mouse cities to call for an assembly and ask for supplies.

Most of the story focuses on one particular group of mice that we're now familiar with: Kenzie, Saxon, and Lieam have been joined by Sadie and Celanwe, known only to a few as the legendary Black Axe. Their travels lead them to an encounter with an owl, and a trip through old (but not entirely abandoned) weasel territory deep underground. The artwork is amazing and Petersen is really coming into his own. I love the different architecture (particularly in Darkheather, the weasel's former home). And if you thought the battle with the crabs was impressive in the first book, the owl is much scarier.

I have to admit, now I'm hooked. I see that Petersen is working on a new six-issue mini-series about the Black Axe starting this year, and I'm excited to see it.

You Can't Say You Can't Play - Vivian Paley

And yet, is there not a natural desire to include certain people and exclude others? Or is this desire in the same category as, say, biting? Some two-year-olds have a strong need to bite people; when they learn to curb the impulse they are much relieved. Perhaps being destructive is a burden. Yes, it must surely come as a relief when one's good times are no longer predicated upon someone else's bad times. That is, if the comparison to biting is correct.

I first heard about Vivian Paley on This American Life, an episode titled "The Cruelty of Children." Paley was a kindergarten teacher and recipient of the MacArthur Genius Grant, and her book is about introducing a new rule to her kindergarten class: You Can't Say You Can't Play.

Paley had noticed that some kids often rejected others in the course of playing. Usually they gave some excuse: we already have enough people for this game; you don't have the same sort of doll, but if you get this sort of doll we'll let you play; it'll be your turn to play with us next week. Although almost every child rejected somebody else at some point in time, generally there were a few who seemed to do most of the rejecting, and a few that seemed to be most often rejected.

There are rules in school about hitting or biting; but why not create a rule that prohibited rejection? Paley wasn't sure if it would work, and engaged her students in conversations about it. She also checked with the first through fifth graders (many of whom had been in her class for kindergarten) to get their response. The results were interesting: of course the kids who did most of the rejecting were the most resistant to the rule, and the outsiders thought it sounded fair.

The older kids all seemed to agree that it sounded like a fair rule, and that they thought it would work in kindergarten, but it would never work with them—they were too set in their ways, too mean already. You have to start early, they told Paley. Well, in the end Paley did establish the rule (hanging up a sign with large letters). Despite initial resistance, the rule quickly became the norm. Arguments about it were more questions of interpretation rather than questioning the rightness of the rule itself.

It's a very short book, told anecdotally and recounting many of the conversations Paley has with the kids. Interspersed with these accounts are pieces of a story about Magpie and Annabella that Paley made up to tell her students. The stories often reflected concerns the kids were thinking about, and Paley uses them as a way to teach through story. However, the way the stories were inserted were a little disorienting at first. Having read NurtureShock recently, I found this sort of qualitative rather than quantitative science to be vague and free-form.

However, I came away from the book thinking about the possibilities of teaching inclusion rather than allowing rejection. I spoke to our school's kindergarten teacher today about the book, and I'm considering getting a copy so that it can be circulated at the school. (The copy I'm reading is on interlibrary loan so it'll have to go back.)

It's not the most well-written book, but it's very short and conversational, and the topic is quite relevant to me personally. I often wonder how to teach my own daughter how to include her little sister in her games, even while teaching her how to respond when her classmates shut her out of theirs. I'd encourage you to look for this book especially if you have young children of your own. Despite the fact that it's been around since 1992, I don't think it's an approach that I've heard being commonly used and I'm curious whether it would be feasible to implement on a wider scale.

The Father-Daughter Dance is a fairly old book (published in 1993) which I came across at the library. I checked it out because I was curious about what the authors had to say about the father-daughter relationship. They talk about the idea that the relationship between fathers and daughters has a tremendous impact on society—women raised a certain way by their fathers are then prone to repeat unhealthy patterns of behavior with other men; and then these patterns are reflected in how the next generation of kids is raised, and so on. While I thought this view really discounted the impact of relationships with sons, but the idea that father-daughter relationships are important still holds.

The target audience is most likely adult women, particularly those who have not-so-perfect relationships with their fathers (and/or other men); a lot of the writing comes out of psychotherapy sessions Minninger has had treating women. I think it's the sort of book they hope fathers will read but don't really expect until their grown daughters ask them to. That said, I did find it helpful to think about some of the unhealthy patterns outlined in the book and to consider whether I'm moving in that direction with my own (still-quite-young) daughters.

The six unhealthy patterns they describe, one per chapter, are:

• Lost father, yearning daughter
  
• Abusive father, victim daughter
  
• Pampering father, spoiled daughter
  
• Pygmalion father, companion daughter
  
• Ruined father, rescuing daughter
  
• Anguished father, angry daughter
  

The authors draw from literature, movies, actual people (particularly famous women), and other sources to paint pictures of the different behaviors, from how a daughter is treated as a child to their relationships with their fathers and other men as adults. While I didn't see myself totally reflected in any single one of these patterns, I could tell that I'm in more danger of falling into some than others and it was helpful to have a sort of early warning. I came away from the book feeling mostly satisfied with my current relationship with my girls and equipped with some foreknowledge about things to watch for.

After describing these unhealthy patterns, the book also talks about mother-raised children, solo dances (when one party is deceased or otherwise unavailable for reconciliation), some sections about potential solutions including redecision therapy, and finally a few examples of a healthy father-daughter relationship. One particular chapter gave some theories on why opposites attract, and why many people fall into a pattern: break up and then find somebody similar to the person you just left. There is also a section about our tendency to prefer pretense (hiding potential conflicts) over actually resolving conflicts.

Overall I think it's a well-written book but it is a little heavy on anecdotal rather than based on scientific evidence, so that made the book a little less effective for me personally. Also, I think that my situation as a stay-at-home dad is not something that was widespread enough when the book was written that it's really addressed in much detail. I think it could certainly be a helpful book, particularly for grown women who have difficult relationships with their fathers, but unless there is an updated version I'm not sure it's something that I'd suggest for everyone now.

Top Shelf Asks the Big Questions - various artists

I bought this with a bunch of other Top Shelf comics. I usually enjoy reading comics anthologies because it gives me a taste of a lot of different artists' work. This one was a little disappointing to me, though, because I just personally didn't like as much of it. It was published in 2003, and there's a tribute to Peanuts done by various artists which has some nice essays and cartoons, but most of it just left me flat.

The two pieces I really enjoyed were both very short: "Democracy" by Jesse Reklaw and "Une histoire pour Mathieu" by Andréas Kündig. There were a few other okay pieces, but overall I liked the Flight anthologies better.

ChaseR: A Novel in E-mails - Michael J. Rosen

Everyone in the country has mice, and they're everywhere, and there's no trapping in those little humane traps we used to set so you can drive the mice somewhere in the country to be free. WE'RE THE PLACE YOU DRIVE THEM TO!

Chase Riley just moved to the country from Columbus the summer after seventh grade. It's a very small farming community and he and his parents live on about 90 acres of land. Well, Chase is in for a bit of culture shock. For one, there's the seventeen-year cicadas, which are in full force when the family arrives that summer. Then there's all the hunters: Chase is shocked by what he sees as the bloodthirstiness of families and classmates he meets, and it only gets worse when one of his dogs gets shot and injured. The book is about many things, but mostly it's about coming to terms with living in a different place, being in a different culture, and if you know me then you know that's a pretty relevant topic.

The entire story is told through e-mails that Chase sends: to his friends back in Columbus, to his older sister in college, and so on. You don't get anybody else's responses, just Chase's outgoing messages. Sometimes there are personal messages; sometimes a few in a row to the same person. Sometimes he sends out an e-newsletter to his entire buddy list, like an early form of blogging. Of course, there have been other books told through correspondence (or text messages, or Facebook status messages) so this is not an entirely new concept. Still, it fits the character and the time period.

But the book was published in 2002, and the particulars of electronic communication have changed so much that I'm not sure young adult readers today would relate to ChaseR. Aside from concerns about hogging the phone line for dial-up, this is a world that is pre-cellphone, pre-iPod (he talks about tapes!), pre-Facebook. He does make some excuse about not having instant messaging. The book was written at a time when people still made ASCII art because e-mail only came in plain text and monospace fonts. It was a time before widespread blogging, before Twitter and Facebook meant that we're in constant contact with our friends, for good or ill.

So while I did enjoy the book, it seemed more like a period piece, something that could only have taken place at a particular point in history, unlike The Penderwicks, for example. I think it would be interesting to see what some of today's teenagers think of the book, particularly those around here—would they feel more of a bond to Chase or to his new neighbors?

The Unvisibles - Ian Whybrow

Oliver Gasper and Nicky Chew are complete opposites. Oliver is loud and obnoxious, the class clown, constantly making jokes and "mucking around." Nicky, on the other hand, does his absolute best not to draw any attention to himself. He's quiet in class, doing well enough in his classes to succeed but not so well that he stands out. They're next-door neighbors, but they really have nothing to do with each other. The Gaspers are an argumentative bunch and are constantly shouting at each other; Nicky and his mother are quiet and contemplative. But all this changes when Oliver discovers a formula that turns him invisible and he's unable to change back. He asks Nicky for help and the two of them become "the Unvisibles."

I got the book from the rotating collection at the library, and it was a fun, quick read. It's also British, so some of the slang and vocabulary wasn't immediately familiar to me. I don't think it's something I'd read to Ridley at this point, partly because of the British-isms but also because some of the humor is quite rude. (Oliver, in the prologue, is riling up his class with a drawing of a Willybeast with an "incredibly rude weapon-system.") However, I did enjoy it myself.

The characters are pretty extreme types, from Oliver's dad to Reginald Pugh, the antiques dealer who frequently rips off the Gaspers. There's a side plot involving the Chews' neighbor, Mr Dudzinski, a very nice guy who takes a liking to Ms Chew. The book reminded me a little of some of Roald Dahl's books, with cartoony people and outlandish circumstances. But that's a good thing. I loved following this odd couple as they worked out how to make Oliver visible again, while also learning how to be friends.

The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy - Jeanne Birdsall

Batty was watching a purple-and-orange bug when Jane screamed ... Batty recognized the scream as Jane's, and as Jane had a habit of screaming, more often than Skye, for example, Batty wasn't worried.

I found The Penderwicks while I was at the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver and got to spend a blissful hour and a half sans kids and responsibilities. I bought a number of sale books that I'd never heard of before, simply based on what caught my eye based on the cover and a quick flip-through. I thought this one would make a good book to read to Ridley and bought it (and its sequel).

The Penderwick sisters are Rosalind, Skye, Jane, and Batty, and they each have very different personalities. They actually reminded me a lot of the kids in Half Magic; and when one of the characters later refers to Magic by the Lake I wasn't too surprised. Rosalind is the oldest and most responsible; but at twelve, she's also starting to be interested in boys. Skye is a tomboy, and makes no attempts to hide her likes and dislikes. Jane is the romantic who writes her own Sabrina Starr adventures. And Batty, at age four, lives very much in her own world, with her ever-present butterfly wings and the Penderwicks' dog Hound at her side.

The girls and Mr. Penderwick spend their summer vacation at Arundel Cottage, owned by the imposing Mrs. Tifton. She is incredibly snooty and proud of her garden. Her son, Jeffrey, quickly becomes a good friend to the sisters after some amusing first impressions. The plot basically covers their three weeks at Arundel, with all sorts of drama, from getting chased by a bull to Mrs. Tifton's dreadful boyfriend Dexter.

While Ridley wasn't really old enough to appreciate all of the interaction (Rosalind's conflicting emotions about boys, for instance), she really did enjoy hearing the story and was immediately ready for the sequel as soon as we finished this one. For my part, I did feel that there was sometimes a little too much conflict (between siblings, between the girls and Jeffrey, between Jeffrey and his mother) the story did feel real and the characters well-developed. And as a father with two young girls, I appreciated having a book with strong girl characters, each with her own interests, gifts, and flaws.

The story was published in 2005 so it's not an old story. But with the setting at the summer cottage, outdoor adventures, and rarely any mention of videogames or television, it almost seems like something from ages ago. (Jane does type up her stories on her dad's computer, so you know it is a modern story, but I don't remember any cell phones.) It's a nice, almost timeless-feeling story that I think will hold up well next to the older stories that inspired the author.

Definitely a keeper—I'm looking forward to the next one as well.

Zot! 1987-1991: The Complete Black and White Collection - Scott McCloud

When I first heard of Scott McCloud, it was as the author of the groundbreaking Understanding Comics, which had already been around for years before I got around to reading it. And while I vaguely knew about Zot! I didn't think about it much. As McCloud put it:
When Understanding Comics hit the stands in May 1993, fans saw it as a book by the guy who did Zot!, but within a few months, Zot! was demoted to "that series McCloud did before Understanding Comics." I'm very very much in that second group. When I saw this collection, I figured it was worth taking a look at it, to see what McCloud did before all of his non-fiction meta-comics.

Zot is sort of a Peter Pan-like figure, childlike and optimistic (plus he can fly). He's from a parallel universe in which crime is rare, sickness is all but eradicated, and a lot of the problems of our own world seem nonexistent. Even on his own world he's sort of a superhero, facing down various over-the-top villains with a smile on his face. In our own world is Jenny, a teenager who struggles with high school and her parents' separation and eventual divorce, who longs for escape. Zot is able to travel between worlds and befriends Jenny, and the stories take place in both worlds.

As I understand it, Zot! originally started in 1984, so this particular book doesn't have the beginning of the story and Zot's origins. However, even without that introduction, I quickly found myself immersed in Zot and Jenny's worlds, and it was especially cool to see how the comic developed and matured over the last four years of its run. McCloud experimented in a lot of ways, and Zot! was an alternative to the traditional superhero comics. It went from a lighthearted sci-fi story to a sometimes very real portrayal of the issues facing teens.

This collection also includes McCloud's notes about some of the things he was trying to do at the time, and he explains the things he's proud of and the things he's embarrassed about. While there were some minor edits made for this collection, most of it is a warts-and-all approach. While I'll still think of McCloud as the Understanding Comics guy, it's very cool to have this piece of his history filled in. I may eventually look for the collected first ten issues of Zot! so I can see how it all started.

A Whole Nother Story - Dr. Cuthbert Soup

The wheel is arguably the greatest innovation of all time, though the name of its inventor remains a mystery because in those days there were no patents. There were no patents because there were no lawyers. That is, until after the wheel was invented and ran over some people. Then there were lawyers everywhere.

I had never heard of A Whole Nother Story until it arrived at the library, but I was intrigued by the description on the back: a psychic hairless dog, top secret government agents, international superspies, corporate villains ... and, of course, a sock puppet named Steve. And, guessing that "Dr. Cuthbert Soup" was not in fact a real name, I looked at the dust jacket flap and discovered that he's the founder and president of the "National Center for Unsolicited Advice" (an idea I had myself once), and that he'd been a smoke detector at a mall until he was replaced by a machine. Yep.

The book reminded me in many ways of A Series of Unfortunate Events; partly because of the three kids on the run (but with their father), but mostly because of the way the narrator is as much of a character as everyone else in the book. Also, it's pretty over-the-top, from Agent Aitch Dee and El Kyoo, to international superspy Pavel Dushenko (and his pet chimp Leon), to the mysterious henchmen known only by their numbers.

Ethan Cheeseman is a genius who has invented a machine possibly capable of time travel (but it's not quite functional yet); everyone else is after him, which means that he and his three "attractive, polite, relatively odor-free children" are constantly on the move. It's a comic story with plenty of close-calls and bumbling bad guys, and I enjoyed almost every minute of it. I say "almost" because there were a few pretty sloppy things that I disapprove of, first and foremost that he refers to the chimpanzee as a "monkey" in one instance. (Sure, it's fine for Pavel to call Leon his "leetle minkey" but the narrator should know better.) And, sure, it's a kids' book involving a time machine, but stuff about speeding up a beam of light (and the resulting effects) is just ridiculous.

Every so often there's a break in the story for some pieces of Unsolicited Advice (usually tangentially related to the story) which are also very funny, the sort of thing I really wanted to read to somebody else. I'll probably need to check this one out again eventually to read to Ridley once we get through our current reads.

The difference between this and Lemony Snicket is that it's more upbeat, there's a little less of the melodrama, and it ends happily. For a very silly romp of a book, I highly recommend A Whole Nother Story.

The Brixton Brothers 1: The Case of the Case of Mistaken Identity - Mac Barnett

Dear Mom,
I won't be home this weekend because I'm wanted for treason and I have to clear my name. Also, I took the last Sprite from the fridge.
Love,
Steve

Steve Brixton is a huge fan of the Bailey Brothers Mysteries and always has The Bailey Brothers' Detective Handbook at hand so he can refer to such useful tips as how to identify crooks (watch for the limp!) or good hiding places (Secret tunnels!). He even has a Genuine Detective's Investigation License which he got by mailing in a bunch of cereal box tops. He dreams of solving mysteries and catching criminals. But not this weekend. This weekend he has to write up a report on Early American Needlework, due on Monday, so he trudges to the library to check out a book for research. As he's checking the book out, however, the lights go out and the building is overrun by a bunch of thugs in greasepaint and black gear, and they're apparently out to catch him!

It's a hilarious story that really riffs on old classics like the Hardy Boys and Encyclopedia Brown: Steve tries to follow the advice of the Bailey Brothers, which only works some of the time. Meanwhile, he becomes the most wanted "detective" in Ocean Park, and learns some surprising things about Librarians. There is a mystery to be solved, but the fun of the book is in its absurdity; the way that the adults in the book treat Steve as he tries to solve the mystery and clear his name.

I hadn't heard of this book before it showed up at our library, but the cover copy was goofy enough to catch my attention: "We think you'll agree: Steve Brixton's first adventure is his best adventure yet." I'm looking forward to the next in the series, whenever that's available.

Here's my slightly longer review on GeekDad.

The Girl Who Ate Kalamazoo - Darrin Doyle

A feeling of dread moved into McKenna's gut, bringing all of its clothing, trinkets, bedding and toiletries. Dread had settled in to stay.

I received an advance copy of The Girl Who Ate Kalamazoo from St. Martin's Press for review on GeekDad, but subject matter didn't really fit there. I may be able to write it up for a different site instead, but for now I'll review it here.

Imagine, if you will, that a twenty-something girl named Audrey Mapes, apparently normal in every way (except for her missing feet, for which she wears prosthetics or uses crutches), literally ate an entire city. House by house, block by block. It would be in the news, certainly. People would write books about her, about her family, about her upbringing. They would try to pin down some sort of meaning to her actions, to her very existence.

Doyle's book begins with A Note from the Editor presuming just that—that the average reader is sick and tired of hearing about Audrey Mapes, that nobody really needed another book about the Girl Who Ate Kalamazoo more than a decade ago. But! This one is different. Mr. Doyle purchased at auction a box of notes, written by Audrey's sister McKenna, which paints a new picture, a much more intimate, personal look at the family which produced the world's most famous "eatist."

The book is sort of like Audrey: normal except for this inexplicable ability to eat anything and everything. It's not really fantasy or science fiction or even "magical realism"—it's pretty straightforward fiction most of the time. And the writing is excellent: Doyle is a master of the turn of the phrase and makes up analogies and draws connections in unexpected ways.

The Mapeses are a dysfunctional family, and each of them—the parents, the three kids, the grandmother—have their own bizarre qualities and idiosyncrasies. Even though it's told from McKenna's point of view, you never entirely feel sympathetic for her, either. They're just not a very likable bunch, but as enthralling as a train wreck.

The ending left me feeling a little hollow; I was expecting some sort of Owen Meany-like ending, something tying together all the loose ends and imbuing the whole episode with a newly-discovered significance. That didn't really happen, and yet that is its own sort of meaning, I guess. However, other than a sort of dissatisfaction with how it turned out (and that, at least, is very true to life) I really enjoyed reading this. It's an imaginative and remarkable story, spooled out at just the right pace.

Instant Egghead Guide: Physics - Brian Clegg

I got a copy of Instant Egghead Guide: Physics from St. Martin's Press to review for GeekDad. It's a quick overview of physics, from matter to energy to quantum theory to relativity, and it's all written in an easy-to-understand format. Each topic is a two-page spread which fits into the "60-Second Science" claim they make on the cover. For each topic, Clegg gives you The Basics, On the Frontier, and Cocktail Party Tidbits. Of course, the last bit is the sort of thing you'll remember: fun facts about various discoveries, anecdotes about famous (and not-so-famous) scientists, that sort of thing.

While I remembered a lot of the basics from high school physics, I haven't actually taken any physics since then and this served as a good refresher and an update, since some of the things I learned back then have been superseded or supplemented with new theories.

My biggest complaint is the way they avoid writing out formulas. Instead, they write them out in English which (in my opinion) just makes them harder to read. Other than that, though, it's a good book for getting up to speed on the current state of the world of physics in a short amount of time. You won't be able to solve any physics problems, but you'll have a sense of how things work.

Caliber: First Canon of Justice - Sam Sarkar and Garrie Gastonny

I got a copy of Caliber from Radical Publishing when I was reviewing some of their books for GeekDad. Basically, it's the Arthurian legend, set in the Old West (the Pacific Northwest, specifically). It's a clever adaptation: Excalibur becomes a pistol which only Arthur Pendergon can fire, and that only if it's on the side of the Law. Merlin's role is filled by Jean Michel Whitefeather, a Native American with ties to the white settlements.

I don't know the Arthurian legends well enough to say how well this adaptation fits, but I liked the idea. However, I did find it a little hard to distinguish some of the characters, particularly after the seven-year gap between Arthur-as-child and Arthur-as-young-man. It's a combination of artwork and writing that muddles things a little. Overall, though, I liked the artwork, which is a painted style that is almost photographic in some panels. The writing is okay but not superb, which is (unfortunately) often the case with comics: stilted dialogue that doesn't really capture the personalities of the characters.

And one really overused convention: overlaying a line of dialogue on the last panel of a previous scene. It's borrowed from cinema, when you start to hear audio for the next scene before it changes visually. However, it doesn't quite have the same effect in comics because you can't hear the voices, so you don't get an immediate sense of who's talking, what's going on. The biggest problem here, though, was that it was simply overused.

Decent but mostly for its ties to Arthurian legend; on its own it's a little weaker.