Jamie Rhodes (1)

As with any collection of short stories (or short graphic fiction), this is a bit of a mixed bag. I greatly enjoyed the art/stories of a couple of these, found a couple more to be rather unengaging, and felt the last to be incomprehensible in its artistic depiction of the tale—a shame, since I believe that one had the potential to be the most exciting.

As for the historical aspect, this is more a history of England than a history of a castle, and while it's mildly interesting as such, I had been hoping for something a little more dependent on the castle for its storytelling lens. The castle is present in all these tales, but only occasionally does its existence seem to matter.… (plus d'informations)

A pleasant discovery from my local library that I found while scanning the shelves. This book offers a lot of interesting insight into the history of the English castle and has an interesting perspective on how the role of the castle, and the people within it, changed over the centuries. The artwork and overall tactility of the book is fabulous (what I've come to expect from all Nobrow books!) Especially love the limited color palette as it ties all of the stories together.

Unfortunately, the narrative component doesn't quite keep up -- the actual historical facts seem sketchy and some of the narrative sequencing is downright confusing. Many of the stories could only be fully appreciated with the addition of the historical context (much repeated from the introduction) following each chapter.

Would love to see a continuation to this series with more robust storytelling.… (plus d'informations)