Battling Boy

Battling Boy by Paul Pope

As a graphic novel, there isn't going to be much to say about the book or the story.

So I'm going to hop right to the amazon summary, "The adventure begins in the new graphic novel by comics legend Paul Pope.

Monsters roam through Arcopolis, swallowing children into the horrors of their shadowy underworld. Only one man is a match for them - the genius vigilante Haggard West.

Unfortunately, Haggard West is dead.

Arcopolis is desperate, but when its salvation comes in the form of a twelve-year-old demigod, nobody is more surprised than Battling Boy himself.

IT'S TIME TO MEET AN ELECTRIFYING NEW HERO.

An NPR Best Book of 2013" AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

If you read "IT'S TIME TO MEET AN ELECTRIFYING NEW HERO," and went DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN afterwards, you'd like this book.

The story starts with a city suffering under the onslaught of monsters; we see the city's hero (Haggard West) die within the first twenty pages. The desolation of the world is something felt in the dialogue but also depicted by the art. More on the art later.

Jump to a different world where seemingly Gods roam; understanding their strengths, helping other worlds defeat their monsters, and sending their children down the same path. This is where we meet Battling Boy. His Father sends him on something called a 'Rambling' as it is the eve of his 'Turning day' - what those are, the text doesn't tell us anything beyond that Battling Boy is sent off to train against monsters on a different world.

As the story unfolds, the art has a hasty style. All of the details are there, but the combination of dark tones starkly contrasted against a light blue, empty sky gives it an eerie feeling of a world where hope is present, but the world is already ruined.

It's kind of dark, science fiction for a young adult book but it carries a quirky charm of it's own.

Happy reading!