A short pause in the summer reading recaps to bring you the best graphic novel I’ve read all year, Ghostopolis by Doug TenNapel.
My favorite part of this story was how much backstory all the characters had. You could tell from the start that this was a huge world with characters who had lived there before the reader entered the story and would continue to be there afterwards. I have found that some graphic novels aimed at the younger set feel like they just popped up out of nowhere–like the characters only existed the moment they were drawn on the first page.
Other things to love: the dry sense of humor. The Afterworld TenNapel imagines. (I had one small qualm with the timeline in the Afterworld but I will get over it.) The artwork which has its own attitude and its own sense of humor.
Bottom line: Do you like well-told stories about what might happen when you die? Do you like graphic novels? If the answer to either of those is yes, I recommend this book.
