There's a new review of WHTTWOT up at Broken Frontier, a comics news and commentary site that looks to be very active, European, and previously unknown to me. Writer Bart Croonenborghs penned a thoughtful and balanced review--generally positive but not entirely gushing, I must say, which is fair and fine with me. Curiously, the piece opens by referring to me as a Canadian, which I've written Bart to correct (not that there's anything wrong with that). Edited to Add: It's fixed now.
Here's the concluding paragraph, which has an insight about graphic novels and my approach to writing them that I appreciated:
With Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? Brian Fies has created a true graphic novel. Graphic in the sense that the way the story is told can only be told by using the comic vocabulary and novel by intermingling the effects of real world technological achievements, human relations and the cultural landscape that happened during the fifties until the present in a nation.
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He possibly thought you were Canadian because you actually mention that the country exists a couple of times. (One that stands out in my memory is a mention of the completion of the Trans Canada Highway as an example of progress infrastructure.) American authors in general aren't especially well-known for that, especially when writing about Innovation! and Progress!
ReplyDelete(It's another reason I love the book, though, unsurprisingly :) )
Well to be honest, I read somewhere that you were canadian but I can't find any mention of it anywhere anymore so I guess I should take my coffee intravenously next time before writing a column :-s
ReplyDeleteI have since amended the article so that no one will think you're canadian anymore due to me, Brian :) Sorry for the mistake and best of luck with promoting the book!
Bart Croonenborghs
Staff writer
WWW.BROKENFRONTIER.COM
Ronnie: I'm also polite. That might've been it.
ReplyDeleteBart: Thanks, and thanks again for the review.