Storytellers: Svetlana Chmakova and Gabrielle Charbonnet, adapted from the novel by James Patterson.
Publisher: Yen Press
Year of Publication: 2011
Page Count: 256 pages

What I learned about Writing/Storytelling:

1.  You can sometimes slip values into your story without being preachy.

2.  This book contains another example of starting with an opening hook then cutting back before the opening scene. In this case the narrator uses the phrase “But I’m getting ahead of myself” and then it cuts back.  Here’s the first page of the book:

 

 

 

3. What’s cliche to me may not come off that way to young readers experiencing these tropes for the first time.

What I learned about art/storytelling:
1.  Here  you have characters talking to each other, but it’s not a two shot, it’s just angled on both characters one at a time but you can tell they are looking at each other:

It’s probably best done with similarly sized panels that are on the same row. I’m not sure if there’ any other trick to it.

2.  On the final two panels of this page, the first half of the death sentence is a zoomed out shot, but they zoom in for the second half,  providing shading to convey emotion:

3.  Body language and facial expressions are important. (And this artist fails at it, more on that below.

4.  Aspect to aspect establishing shots are neat. Rather than one by the book opening big panel, we have several panels showing different aspects of a scene.  It’s a tried and true manga device, but it works well:

Recommendation: C

Notes/Reviews/Synopsis:
So, this odd thing was heavily promoted at Barnes and Nobles with a rack in the front of the store.  I purchased it on impulse. The plot is basically, “What if Harry Potter was the X-men?” Children with magic powers are rounded up for being different.  And there’s a Voldemort type bad guy who controls the government, so he’s also like Palpatine in Star Wars, I guess. Plus there’s a kid resistance movement, I guess like the rebels in Star Wars, but with Kid Power.

The only people who can save the world are a brother and sister who have the potential to use the ultimate magic beyond any other magic, as declared by the prophecy (Cross marketing appeal to boys and girls!).  One would suspect the original novel was probably very cynically put together, this book has everything popular.  Or I guess its possible the author just likes this stuff, who knows.

This appears to be created by Americans who use a manga style.  It reads left to right. The main problem (or oddity) of the book is that the events of the book are heavy, with the protagonists put in jail, tortured, sentenced to be executed, experimented on, etc, but the art looks really lighthearted.

It’s possible this was a decision to keep it enjoyable to young adults,despite the grim and gritty scenes, I don’t know, and I wonder what the tone was like in the original book.

Check this out:

They’re going to be locked up forever for having magical powers, but she’s sticking her tongue out at the jailors?  That’s the reaction to being sentenced to Guantanamo Bay for life?

Then the next page suddenly wants to sort of be serious:

But it never keeps this serious tones for long, because the art looks too excited and expressive, in a happy sort of way.

 

In this bit below, the girl is supposed to be angry, but when you draw a mouth like that I just take it as excited in a not unhappy sort of way:

Despite these issues, I have to give props to the book for at least one thing: it’s a lot smarter and thoughtful on issues of power and violence than possibly any comic published by Marvel and DC. The resistance movement is very egalitarian.  For example, at the end of the book, the main characters are called heroes by their fellow members of the kid resistance movement, but “only for today”:

That panel may have been smarter than Civil War….
(Sorry, that line was too good to resist.  I’ve actually only read the first issue of Civil War.)