Jamie Rhodes (1)Critiques

Cool project: it's a biography of place more than people, with short comics set in different time periods over the life of a castle -- I love the juxtaposition of history and imagery. I understand why the short synopses are at the end of each comic, and I think they add a lot, but I wish more of the story was more apparent in each comic section. I also really appreciate the variety of comic artists involved.

Advanced reader's copy provided by edelweiss.

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.

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.

I liked the concept of telling stories about the people inhabiting one castle in five different eras, but I found the execution far too frustrating to enjoy. The art and writing combined to make most of the stories difficult to follow or completely opaque unless one read the introduction and the notes afterward. It smacks of, "If you have to explain why a joke is funny..."

And frankly, if you're going to include a historical context for each story in order to explain it, how about including a historical context for the bloody castle at the heart of the book. Would it have hurt to include some actual photos or a layout of the castle and the manor house that was constructed later? Maybe include a map showing where it is located? Or maybe explain what a "folly ruin" is if you're going to use the term repeatedly and address how that modification altered the original structure?

I'm confused by this graphic novel. If it is supposed to be a textbook for an elementary or middle school classroom, then it might be cool. As a graphic novel, it leaves something to be desired. I love the idea - the history of a castle. The stories are about interesting time periods. However, when there have to be pages of text after the panels to explain what happened in those panels, I think that something is failing in the execution.

(A review copy of this book was provided by the publisher.)