Michael Kupperman

I was looking forward to this, as I imagined it would be, but what I actually got was disappointing.

The art is pretty basic, with lots of close-ups on the same image (which made me think of those memes where you zoom in on a photo until it's blurry), even though there's nothing new to see. Lots of sparse backgrounds and heavily drawn characters, with the text kept separate from the art.

While Kupperman's quest to understand his father and his history are admirable, and complicated by the fact that his father seems to have blacked out everything related to Quiz Kids and then developed dementia, there's not much substance in this novel. What little he does uncover is nothing that couldn't be discovered by a stranger.

What it's really about, of course, is Michael's relationship with his father. There's an incredibly effective and emotional scene where he asks his father why he didn't try to be more involved in his life, and his father says he simply didn't think to try.

A lot of memoirs fall into this trap, I think: a very personal story, with a lot of meaning for the author, that leaves everyone else a little cold.… (more)

I vacillated between 3 and 4 stars for this one. I wish I could give it 3 for the story and 4 for the layout, flow and graphics. I decided to place more weight on the graphics since, after all, this is a graphic novel. My goal is to read every nonviolent nonchildren's graphic novel at my local library this year. This is not a tall order as it is a small library. This book was about a child of a child star who resented his father and decided to write a book about him. In his research, he discovered that his dad was, gasp, human! Near the end of the book he said maybe I shouldn't have written about him? Nah, I'm in too deep! The book is almost done! Let's finish this thing! Dad will get over it even though I can see how traumatized remembering the past made him. The End.… (more)