What's New at Green Man Review

Yes, it's Sunday, and that means reviews. Lots of interesting stuff, if I do say so myself, so scoot on over.

What's New at Green Man Review

Yes, it's Sunday again, with more goodies at Green Man Review, including a new music review from me and a couple of fantasy/science fiction trilogies that were pretty damned good.

So click on through.

It's Sunday at Green Man Review

Lots of reviews, but not the one I had hoped to finish. But click on over -- there's still lots of good stuff.

What's New at Green Man Review

All Graphic Literature this week, specifically, the rest of Matt Wagner's Grendel series.

Go for it.

It's "What's New" Day at GMR

Which means newly posted reviews.

And if you're looking for mine, there's one hidden in the introduction this week.

Comics

It's not just me -- SEK has a post at Lawyers, Guns & Money on the rhetoric of comics and graphic novels, with a suggested reading list. The comments are devoted to suggestions (yes, I made a few). Worth checking out.

Reviews in Brief: Welcome to the Jungle by Jim Butcher and Ardian Syaf

A little bit of something sort of new: moving from manga to graphic novels again here, with a new work by Jim Butcher that marks his entry into comics. Welcome to the Jungle is a prequel of sorts to The Dresden Files, his series on the adventures of Harry Dresden, Chicago's only wizard for hire.

It looks open and shut: a murder outside the ape house at Lincoln Park Zoo, a blood trail leading back to the gorilla's enclosure, the victim the son-in-law of an alderman: the gorilla did it. Karrin Murphy, head of CPD's Special Investigations Unit -- the "spook squad" -- wonders why the gorilla only cleaned up part of the evidence and locked itself back in its cage. Needless to say, the gorilla didn't do it -- it's much worse than that.

Ardian Syaf's graphics are pretty damned good -- I like them, which is not the usual case for me with Western comics: the frames are lean enough, and he takes enough liberties with frame-follows-frame page layouts that I never lost interest, and he manages a clear narrative flow throughout. The colors, by Digikore Studios, are clear and rich, and just as sophisticated as the drawings. Character designs are good, although everyone seems to spend a lot of time frowning.

The story seemed a bit thin, but I'm used to the novels in the series; come to think of it, there's a fair amount of description in the stories, and after all, a picture is worth. . . . So, maybe I'll just not worry about that too much.

One plus: the cover gallery at the end, with alternate covers by Chris McGrath -- I'd love to see McGrath do a series. (The cover illustrated is by McGrath, as it happens. I'll see if I can dig up a sample of Syaf's art on this one.) In fact, I'm going to be on the lookout for examples of his work: his covers are very realistic but also kind of dream-scapes. Very nice.

Del Rey did this one.

Here's Syaf's cover for the first of the series.

Reviews in Brief: David Petersen's Mouse Guard: Fall 1152

Another graphic novel, this one directed to my attention by a review at, of all places, Green Man Review.

It's the autumn of 1152, and the Mouse Guard is slowly becoming aware that trouble is brewing. Since overthrowing the rule of a weasel warlord, the Guard has patrolled the forest routes between mouse towns, making sure that traders and farmers are able to travel safely. A trader has gone missing, and three of the Guard are dispatched to find him. They find his grain cart and, after defeating and disemboweling a snake lurking in the vicinity, the merchant, but they also find evidence of a plot to overthrow the Guard and subject the mice once again to a tyranny.

This one is a delight. Yes, the Guards are mice, and they look like mice, with little pink feet and beady little eyes -- no disneyfication here. The story is absorbing, with terrific actions sequences and wonderful, moody forest scenes. The remarkable thing about this is that you quite readily believe it all: it's that well done.

The drawings are just great. As you might expect, given the physiognomy of mice, you don't get a lot from facial expressions, but Petersen brings it across with body language, which is terrific. He's also done a unified color scheme, with most scenes in warm tones, umbers and siennas, golds and coppers, with just the right touches of gray and blue. He's done some things with the formal aspects of layouts that are a lot of fun and very pleasing, quite often mirroring the layouts on two-page spreads to set up a nice rhythm.

This one really is a gem -- I included it my GMR "Best of 2008" list, so you know I was impressed. It's well-conceived, beautifully executed, and refreshingly original.

From Villard Books.

You can view Chapter 1 at Amazon.com. Petersen has also set up a Mouse Guard website.