Product Description: Master of Elusion, foe of tyranny, and champion of liberation The Escapist! Operating from a secret headquarters under the boards of the majestic Empire Theater, the Escapist and his crack team of charismatic associates roam the globe, performing amazing feats of magic to aid all those who languish in oppressions chains. The history of his creators, Joe Kavalier and Sam Clay, was recently chronicled in Michael Chabons Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. The best of the Escapists adventures are now collected into one volume for all to enjoy!
This thrilling volume of Michael Chabon Presents The Amazing Adventures of The Escapist collects the first two issues of the comic book and features an original story penned by Michael Chabon, the comics debut of novelist Glen David Gold, a new story written and drawn by Howard Chaykin, the painted artwork of Bill Sienkiewicz, and a wraparound cover by Chris Ware!
Pure fun ^ What fun to have real comic artists take a stab at creating the comics imagined in "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay". It's definitely light reading, but I enjoyed the artistry and creativity.
Cool Concept, but that's it (almost) ^ If you're like me, and loved Cavalier and Clay, you probably hit "buy" before you even got beyond the title of this book. And if you're as die-hard a fan as I am, probably nothing I can say here will dissuade you. I mean, come on, The Escapist? The hero from C & C's comics? The "real" Escapist, in "real" comic form? What could be cooler? Well, for the first story in this collection, it is that cool. The first escapist comic, described detail by detail in the book, is here painted with modern graphic-novel style art- not at all like an early comic book, but who cares, right? But as the story continues, you start to notice something. At first you avoid it, but it creeps up on you... it's not as great as you imagined it. As the book goes on, this becomes clearer. The stories simply don't stand on their own. There is so much meta and just not enough good fiction. The art is great, but the plots are sloppy and poorly conceived. Only one or two stories are good enough to stand on their own, and too much time is spent playing with concepts surrounding the fictional "Escapist" timeline introduced at the beginning of the book. It's simply no fun to read. The last story almost redeems the whole collection, though. The Escapist here movies beyond all the corny attempted recreations of authentic originals and into the genre of graphic novel, where it could stand on it's own. If the whole collection was like this, I'd recommend it for sure.
I love Michael Chabon ^ I love this writer and his books and being able to see his characters in action was a real treat.
good value ^ I found this product to be a great value for the money. I shopped and compared at various sites.
$18 of Disappointment ^ For those people who are expecting a comics masterpiece from the author who brought you The Amazing Adventures of Kavlier & Clay, save your time and money. This collection of stories is short on pretty much everything that could have made it worthwhile!!!
Couched in terms of "lost adventures" this book features a number of fantastic artists doing questionable work. The whole book is full of ego as Chabon waxes nostalgic about a character who did not exist. If this was limited to the text between the stories, that would probably be ok, but the ego spills over and all of the stories are told with a big nudge and obnoxious wink.
Additionally, this book is very short, very small, and worth nowhere near the cover price.
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