TenNapel is a successful and accomplished maker of cartoon images -- he created Earthworm Jim, and has spent the last decade or so making excellent graphic novels like Ghostopolis (see my review) and Bad Island (also see my review) -- who I never see discussed among the usual comics circles. This is, as far as I can tell, because his books are all for younger readers and mostly published by companies like Scholastic (which has an impressive getting-comics-into-the-hands-of-kids operation, benefiting Kazu Kibuishi and Raina Telgemeier as well as TenNapel), and because they are very slightly formulaic and young-adult-ish in the best way: they're about kids old enough to take responsibility and do serious things who start to do just that. They're also very energetic and full of wild inventive energy -- so far, Ghostopolis is the best of the ones I've read, but Cardboard, which has the wonderful McGuffin of magical cardboard which can be worked into any object, person, or thing, is coming up close behind it. Like Fat Albert, if you're not careful, you just might learn something -- but TenNapel's enthusiasm for his characters and stories is worth that risk.
(Antick Musings notes the generosity of the Thing 2 Foundation in lending its own precious copy of Cardboard to Antick Musings for the purpose of this review.)
Blog Archive
-
▼
2012
(395)
-
▼
October
(32)
- Read in October
- Daniel Handler Gives the Best Quotes Ever
- Like a Hurricane
- Dotter of Her Father's Eyes by Mary M. Talbot & Br...
- Two Small Guidebooks to the City of Angels
- Reviewing the Mail: Week of 10/2
- Two Graphic Novels With Nothing in Common
- En vidrigt bra kväll med Elliott och band
- Broken Fences - Årets upptäckt !!
- Reviewing the Mail: Week of 10/20
- Why I Am Not a Hollywood Mogul
- Elliott Murphy på ingång
- Words Blogger's Spell-Checker Does Not Know
- En gammal och en ny
- Reviewing the Mail: Week of 10/3
- Gör det nu !!
- Tiden går för snabbt!
- An Immediate Change of Mood
- The Saddest Song I've Heard This Year
- The Great Amazon Squeeze, Once Again
- Jackson Browne 64 år
- Reviewing the Mail: Week of 10/6
- Lundell arg och engagerad igen
- A Flurry of Back-Dating
- Distrust That Particular Flavor by William Gibson
- The Utterly Fantabulous Seventh Anniversary Hoe-Down!
- 15-Love by Andi Watson & Tommy Ohtsuka
- Pity the Billionaire by Thomas Frank
- Don Felder - elva år efter Eagles
- Quiet by Susan Cain
- Cardboard by Doug TenNapel
- Reviewing the Mail: Week of 9/29
-
▼
October
(32)
Popular Posts
-
NoiseTrade offers a lot of free music -- usually samplers or live EPs -- but occasionally there's a full album up there. Now is one of t...
-
Just nu hinner jag knappt med livets vardagliga nödvändigheter, men snart kommer oktober och då lättar det. Och det kommer en massa spännand...
-
Haruki Murakami Bingo , from the inimitable Incidental Comics . This is only one square -- clickthrough for the entire thing.
-
Det kan man ju inte tro... Lucinda Williams fyller 60 i dag! Jag tror att det var Emmylou Harris som en gång sa något i stil med: "Jag ...
-
And via James Nicoll : I Am A: True Neutral Human Bard (5th Level) Ability Scores: Strength- 12 Dexterity- 12 Constitution- 14 Intelligence...
-
There are no value judgements stated or implied here; I'm mostly trying to keep track of this myself, so I can refer back to this post i...
-
But I am stealing it anyway, because it is awesome: (It also reminds me of some psuedo-Impressionist watercolors -- also with tasteful A.A. ...
-
The kinds of nonfiction that hit major bestseller lists run to a type: serious but friendly explanations about how the whole world is expla...
-
This is today's 9 Chickweed Lane , a well-drawn but molasses-slow and idiosyncratic at best comic strip; if its creator allowed commenti...
-
Elliott Murphy, Blidösund, Stockholm, 2013-07-17 För ett år sedan såg jag Elliott Murphy för första gången och jag anade inte att det skull...