August
12 Dark and Light

Capote in Kansas, by Ande Parks and Chris Samnee (Oni Press, 128 pages, black and white, $11.95) is a surprisingly excellent graphic novel telling the tale behind author Truman Capote’s research into his true-crime novel classic, “In Cold Blood.” Parks has done convincing research and the book unfolds naturally and beautifully. What really makes the book work is Samnee’s excellent composition and beautifully drawn and paced pages. This has a classic, timeless feel to it and will certainly inspire more than a few readers to go out and read Capote’s novel. Grade: A

The Dead Boy Detectives, by Jill Thompson (DC/Vertigo, 144 pages, black and white, $9.99), is the writer/artist’s second manga-esque venture into Sandman territory. This time, she focuses on Paine and Rowland, the ghosts of dead English schoolboys, and turns them loose on a modern mystery set in a girls school. The book is light, cute and well drawn, with Thompson giving the standard manga art style a tweak that makes it her own. While adult readers and Sandman fans may find the book lacking in conflict or the edge of the adult stories Thompson drew with Neil Gaiman, Dead Boy Detectives has all the ingredients that should make it a hit with young girls and acceptable to their parents. Grade: B-

Queen Bee, by Chynna Clugston (Scholastic, 112 pages, black and white, $8.99) is another book for young girls, though this skews a bit older while avoiding the language and innuendo that permeates her popular Blue Monday series. Story concerns geekish middle-schooler Haley who has an inconvenient power of telekinesis that does nothing but embarrass her. So she works out a battle plan to become one of the popular kids at her new school and runs into competition from Alexa, who also has a telekinetic power. Clugston writes vivid and accessible characters and gets the genre down on the page in her distinctive art style, which is beautifully reproduced in this slick volume. Grade: B+

Heartbreakers Meet Boilerplate, by Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett (IDW Books, 104 pages, color, $9.99) revives the onetime Dark Horse sci-fi action series and introduces the retro robot concept of Boilerplate. The book is dominated by the Boilerplate concept, which is that of a 19^th century robot who fought in conflicts with Teddy Roosevelt and the Russo-Japanese war. Guinan creates authentic looking vintage photographs and articles to tell the history of the robot, but it’s the unusual look of the present-day comic story that uses a combination of photography, drawing and painting  called Paintography to create a look that can be best described as resembling Richard Linklater’s  films “Waking Life” and the upcoming “A Scanner Darkly.” What’s disappointing in this book is the story and the original Heartbreakers concept, which seem to get lost in the techniques and backstory of Boilerplate. The experimental art and basic ideas are cool enough to carry the book and raise expectations for these characters’ next tale. Grade: B+

2 Sisters, by Matt Kindt (Top Shelf, 336 pages, black and white, $19.95) is a “Super-Spy Graphic Novel” according to the title page, though it’s far from the normal comicbook action-adventure adventure approach. This is, instead, an intimate story of one of two English sisters recruited to spy in occupied France during World War II. This thick, large book feels and reads like a true novel and Kindt’s art is beautifully effective, often going on for pages with no text. That technique leaves a degree of ambiguity to the story and how it connects to sequences that seem completely unrelated to the main spy tale that may annoy literal minded readers. Still, the beauty of the book and the simple elegance of the art and story make up for any deficiencies in clarity. Grade: A-