Fresh Approaches: Noteworthy New Editions and Reissues
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Joy Fleishhacker -- School Library Journal, 03/30/2009
The Murder of Abraham Lincoln
Though you may have already purchased some of the fine informational titles published to mark Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday, make room in your collection for one more. NBM Publishing has reissued Rick Geary’s The Murder of Abraham Lincoln, originally released in 2005 as part of the author/illustrator’s "Treasury of Victorian Murder" Series. Combining thorough research with edge-of-your-seat storytelling, this true tale traces the last days of the doomed president from his inaugural speech on March 4, 1865, through his assassination and its aftermath.
The concise narrative incorporates diverse threads and is packed with details that will mesmerize readers—Lincoln’s prophetic dream of his own death, John Wilkes Booth’s careful and cold-blooded preparations, the identification of the perpetrator’s body after his death by the initials he had carved into his right hand as a child. Geary also raises questions that still go unanswered, such as the fate of pages missing from Booth’s journal. Filled with crystal-clear maps and realistic architectural renderings, the precise pen-and-ink drawings depict the events with drama and a chilling sense of realism. Readers will find this book impossible to put down and may just head to library shelves for more information (Gr 7 Up).
“Classics Illustrated”
Eye-catching additions to Papercutz’s recently relaunched “Classics Illustrated” series (titles originally published by First/Berkley in the 1990s and long out of print) offer graphic-novel retellings of several well-known literary works. H. G. Wells’s The Invisible Man, adapted and illustrated by Geary, presents a gripping version of this pioneering work of science fiction. The narrative is quick paced and absorbing and the artwork stunningly lush as the title character makes a spiraling descent from scientist to sociopath (Gr 6 Up). Kyle Baker’s adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass blends familiar poems (“Jabberwocky”) with the protagonist’s loquacious first-person narrative and crisply colored, almost stylized illustrations (Gr 5 Up).
Teachers and librarians looking for fresh materials to mark Edgar Allan Poe’s 200th birthday may be interested in The Raven and Other Poems, illustrated by renowned cartoonist Gahan Wilson. The slick volume presents the title piece as well as “Annabel Lee,” “The City in the Sea,” “Eldorado,” and five other selections. The illustrations combine pastel hues, ink lines and cross-hatching, and eerie images for a spine-chilling effect (Gr 8 Up). Finally, in the series’ first foray into the world of Shakespeare, Papercutz will reissue a graphic novel version of Hamlet in June 2009. Adapted by Steven Grant with art by Tom Mandrake, the retelling puts the play’s original language center stage as events unfold in the vividly detailed panels. A panorama of changing emotions play across the characters’ expressive faces and are also revealed through their body language and echoed in the atmospheric backdrops. Fight scenes are presented with flair, the ghost is particularly dramatic, and the image of the drowned garland-strewn Ophelia is unforgettable (Gr 9 Up).
Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing
This horror-fantasy comic book series was originally created in the 1970s by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson for DC Comics. The action centers around Alec Holland, a scientist working on a secret bio-restorative formula in Louisiana, who falls victim to a bomb planted in his lab, runs from the fire consumed in flames and splashed with chemicals, and falls into the swamp, from which a creature that looks like a humanoid mass of vegetables later emerges. Alan Moore, the writer of the much-lauded (and recently made into a movie) Watchmen (DC Comics, 2005), took over the series in the 1980s along with artists Stephen Bissette and John Totleben, deconstructing and reimagining the Swamp Thing not as Alec Holland transformed into a plant, but—and somehow much more chillingly—as a self-deluded plant entity that “was trying its level best to be Alec Holland.” Vertigo/DC Comics has recently released an archival hardcover edition collecting issues 20–27 of The Saga of the Swamp Thing, including the never-before-reprinted debut issue and a new introduction by Len Wein. The storytelling is multilayered and enthralling, and perfectly matched to the artwork’s dark tones, haunting imagery, and elemental-looking characters. For mature high schoolers.
Pub Info
GEARY, Rick. The Murder of Abraham Lincoln. illus. by author. NBM/Comicslit. 2009. Tr $15.95. ISBN 978-1-56163-425-5; pap. $9.95. ISBN 978-1-56163-426-2.
WELLS, H. G. The Invisible Man. adapt. and illus. by Rick Geary. “Classics Illustrated #2.” 2008. ISBN 978-1-59707-106-2.
CARROLL, Lewis. Through the Looking-Glass. adapt. and illus. by Kyle Baker. “Classics Illustrated #3.” 2008. ISBN 978-1-59707-115-4.
POE, Edgar Allan. The Raven and Other Poems. illus. by Gahan Wilson. “Classics Illustrated #4.” April 2009. ISBN 978-1-59707-140-6.
SHAKESPEARE, William. Hamlet. adapt. by Steven Grant. illus. by Tom Mandrake. “Classics Illustrated #5.” June 2009. ISBN 978-1-59707-149-9.
ea vol: Tr $9.95. Papercutz, dist. by Macmillan.
MOORE, Alan. The Sage of the Swamp Thing: Book 1. art by Stephen Bissette & John Totleben. Vertigo/DC Comics. 2009. Tr $24.99. ISBN 978-1-4012-2082-2.
