The book covers a surprisingly large amount. It starts with the history of alocohol itself, how it's made and its effects on the human body. And while prohibition formally lasted in the US from 1920-1933, the book sets up all the precedents for it, beginning with the Plymouth Colony. (No doubt there were antecedents in other countries as well, but the book does have the subtitle "America's War on Alcohol" so the focus here isn't unjustified.) There's also a surprisingly refreshing amount of coverage for Native American and Black temperance efforts. They're perhaps not as detailed as I would personally like for them to be, but that they're called out specifically and distinctly from the more widely publicized efforts from white populations is good to see. Although, I think leaving it unstated why minorities had to have their own efforts is a bit of a miss, particularly when why women's efforts are explicitly shown why they were excluded from men's. (To their credit, though, some of the reasons for segregation are talked about a little more as the story gets to the more formal prohibition era of the 1920s.)
I largely picked the book up because the artist on this particular volume is Roger Langridge. His storytelling abilities, I believe, are under-appreciated in the shadow of his incredible cartooning talent. His characters are drawn with such a superb line that people often overlook his story pacing and structure, I feel. So I was curious to see what he would do here, particularly on a relatively sober (if you'll excuse the pun) topic with another writer. That writer is Jason Viola, whose work I wasn't familiar with previously but I do know he's written several of the books in First Second's Science Comics line.
Unfortuately, I don't think the two creators make a very good pairing. The book isn't bad by any stretch, but I don't feel like either is playing to the other's stengths in any way. Viola's style is pretty straightforward and expositional. It's not dull, and he does mix in a fair amount of dialogue, even using period-appropriate dialects and slang. But the pacing doesn't allow for Lagridge to play to any of his slapstick strengths. Conversely, Langridge's page and panel layouts -- with only a few exceptions -- don't bring as much visual interest to Viola's story as they might. I don't know precisely how they collaborated on the book -- it seems pretty clear that they did collaborate at least somewhat, and it wasn't a case of Viola just turning over a full script that Langridge executed on -- but it comes across as two professionals just doing their jobs but neither being particularly excited or engaged in their collective work. Maybe I'm reading too much into things, though.
As with the other books in the series, this one is aimed at 9-13 year olds, and both the writing and drawing seem spot-on for that range. I really appreciate what First Second is doing with this series as a whole, both in their just bringing in talented creators to begin with and for tackling subjects that, by and large, haven't been done to death already. Even if this isn't my favorite book by Langridge, it's still pretty solid and will absolutely work well for one of those 9-13 year olds who wants to learn about that part of American history.
The book came out last month, and should be available through any bookstore. It retails for $13.99 US. I believe First Second's next books in the series are on Ellis Island (by Felipe Galindo Feggo and Tait Howard; due out in January) and The Great Depression (by Tim Stout and Joe Flood; due out next October).
0 comments:
Post a Comment