Ande Parks

First and foremost this is not retelling of Truman Capote's book about gruesome murder of entire family in 1959. Goal here is to present the Capote, novelist and story writer from New York as he tries to talk with the both police and incarcerated murderers in Kansas to collect the materiel necessary to write one of his most famous books - "In Cold Blood". Capote with his extravagant clothes and big-city attitude was so much out of place in Kansas that it took some time for him to acclimatize and finally be able to openly talk about the murders with police, people in the city and murderers themselves. Faced with gruesomeness of the murder itself and grief of relatives and friends of murdered family Capote was scarred forever.

Authors decided to concentrate on Capote himself. To do this they removed from the picture people that worked very closely with Capote (especially here I mean Harper Lee) and concentrate solely on Truman.

With this approach the investigation of the murder is put out of the focus in this graphic novel- as a matter of fact if you don't know anything about the case you will definitely be puzzled. This is story of Capote and his internal struggle with murder and everything around it. Everything else is removed.

Art is very good and manages to present the reader with those minutiae that are essential for a story like this but often present quite a challenge for the graphic presentation.

So if you are looking for investigative journalism like story this will not be it. If you are looking for a insight into the psyche of a very interesting person then this is book for you.… (mehr)

Now this was action packed. Imagine story that is a mix between "Escape from New York", "Mile 22", "Raid", "16 Blocks", "Gauntlet" and "Proof of Life".

Some will say this graphic novel reads like a movie script and they would be right. This is "movie script" in as far that story is very simple - mercenary expert in extraction of people from highly dangerous environments gets stuck in Paraguay, in Ciduad de Este, and hunted by corrupted government officials and criminal underworld because he is trying to extract the daughter of a very important person from the clutches of the kidnappers.

To say all tropes are in is not required - it would be like saying that starships and weird creatures are part of every space opera.This is an action event through and through, characters are slightly underdeveloped but again this is not drama nor criminal investigation that would flesh out the characters. Again no need - entire story is a race with time, fighting great odds to ensure our two heroes manage cross the city border into safety. We are spectators as action scenes play out in this great city and as our heroes try to get to the safety outside of it.

I can understand that good people of Paraguay might feel offended by description of lawlessness in Ciudad de Este but we need to come to terms that stereotypes exist and always will (hmmm, Russians are always baddies, I wonder why eh). Ciudad is here just a metaphor of large metropolis and underlying criminal shadowy world that is present in every major city.

Art might be off-putting to some but I liked it. It is a little bit cartoon-ish and I don't mind it. Decision to go without colors was in my opinion a great one (but then again I am fan of b&w graphics since Alex Raymond, Hal Foster and Al Williamson).

Good action romp and very interesting book. If you are fun of action stories that do not diverge or branch into ever more complicated story-lines give this one a chance, I think you will like it.… (mehr)