“You will receive your reward within the next 5-6 weeks”

My coupons which supposedly went into the US Mail service two days ago will now, somehow, take a mind boggling 5-6 weeks to wend their way across the country to my house! 5-6 weeks?! Does their three legged delivery tortoise have alzheimer’s?!

FIFTEEN to TWENTY business days for something that has SHIPPED?! Does shipped mean something different on the Coke-a-Cola planet than it does on mine? Where in the world could something be put in the United States Postal Service and take THAT long to get to Florida, Western Mongolia? Did they staple my coupons to the back of a three legged tortoise? WTF?!

First and foremost let me say that the artwork in this graphic novel is delightful. Subtle tones done in a watercolor style and a marked lack of clutter makes the art very easy on the eyes. Too often artists try and cram as much detail into a piece as possible. Here, in ‘Koko Be Good’ each panel plays like a painting.

The story is another thing. I did thoroughly enjoy the book, but found the beginning to be a tad confusing. There’s not real ’start’ to the story. We more or less swoop in from above to observe a time and slice of life involving several people. Jon who’s confused about his choice to move off to Peru with a girlfriend it feels he hardly knows. Koko a wild street kid fighting off the verge of adulthood and responsibility and Faron a young boy, friends with Koko, being brought up in a broken and abusive home. We really don’t get much deeper into their lives than that even with over 300 pages to work with.

The ending of the book felt forced, rushed and left me feeling like I missed something. I wasn’t expecting a typical ‘boy loses girl, boy finds new girl’ ending but they way it played out was odd and something of a let down.

All in all it’s an amusing, extremely well drawn and colored, story that could have done with a bit more depth but still stands out as something well worth reading.

Four Stars.

Gibson tries too hard to be funny, often holding the joke up in the reader’s face and practically yelling; “This is funny, isn’t it?!”, instead of letting the humor work itself out in the book. It feels more like he’s gone back over an earlier version and tried to shoehorn as much comedy into it as possible. The author has talent, don’t get me wrong, and with some polish and some practice and maybe a little less heavy of a hand I think it’s safe bet that he has a good chance to turn out some fine writing. Unfortunately ‘Stuff of Legends’ feels more like a parody OF fantasy novels than a novel on it’s own. Sadly it’s not an ‘Airplane’ quality parody but more a ‘Scary Movie IV’ quality. I blame Hollywood and their incessant and increasingly bad parody movies..

I honestly didn’t like the majority of characters in ‘Stuff of Legends’; Eliott is a twit, a fifteen year old who still plays with dolls and acts more like an 11 year old girl seeing her favorite boy band at the mall than someone growing up in the places and settings of this novel.
Kess is an immortal elf (why are elves immortal?) who is Eliott’s baby sitter, this relationship is never fully or reasonably explained, who is also something of a twit giving magic far too powerful to a child who has no connection with reality.
Jordan the Red I somewhat liked. He’s grumpy, retired and just wants to be left alone. Unfortunately too much of the “LOOK THIS IS THE FUNNY PART” bits revolve around his character.
The rest of the players in the book are just filler to get the story from point A to point B, unremarkable, two dimensional, forgettable.

The world it’s written into is a mishmash of mythologies & geographies never quite saying it’s ‘Earth’ but at the same time mentioning Egypt and other locations on our planet. Also, one of my biggest pet peeves, the book brings modern things into a fantasy setting. Using ‘cool’ from the 1950’s, the dollar as a monetary unit and going as far as to mention CPR just feels weird in a setting with swords and dragons.

Three Stars.

Update (even before posting I update!): I just realized they have a large print version of the novel and get this! There are six copies and my just placed hold is only the fifth in line! WOO!