Mouse Guard : Fall 1152 Author: Visit Amazon's David Petersen Page | Language: English | ISBN:
1932386572 | Format: PDF
Mouse Guard : Fall 1152 Description
From Publishers Weekly
Here's a distinct comic book image: mice with capes and swords defending themselves against their predators as if they were the Knights of the Round Table. It's a gimmick, but one that Petersen plays completely straight. His art is a perfect mix of the realistic and the fantastic: the mice and other animals always look realistic no matter how adventurous the situations get, including facing snakes and crabs in the first two chapters. Petersen doesn't let things get overly cute, either. These mice are fierce, dedicated fighters, and the violence their job entails is not forgotten. While the book always looks good, the story is pretty thin. The action is never boring but in the beginning it never moves the plot forward. Soon a plot about a traitor in the guard kicks in, leading to some exciting moments covered too briefly, and the character development is thin as well. Luckily, the art makes up for the storytelling shortcomings—Petersen's character designs are enormously appealing, and the book is hard to put down for that reason. The story is suitable for all ages, and kids in particular should enjoy this adventure.
(Apr.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
The Mouse Guard protects its fellow creatures and patrols the passageways used between the villages of the Mouse Territories. In this tale, three members of the guard investigate the disappearance of a traveling grain merchant. During their quest for the truth, the three uncover a plot to attack Lockhaven, the home of the guard; fight hungry snakes; escape a fiery death; and find a long-lost hero. Petersen has crafted an involving graphic-novel fantasy, populated with realistic-looking mice wearing colorful capes and wielding wicked weaponry. His lush colors and vivid settings give the story a majestic quality fit for a large canvas (or, perhaps, even a movie screen), and the characters are as bold as the brush strokes. The story line is, however, weaker than the art, which keeps the book from being truly great. Even so, this will probably circulate well among graphic-novel fans and may even attract readers who enjoy the Redwall books. King, Kevin
See all Editorial Reviews
- Age Range: 9 and up
- Grade Level: 2 and up
- Series: Mouse Guard (Book 1)
- Hardcover: 192 pages
- Publisher: Archaia; First Edition edition (July 21, 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1932386572
- ISBN-13: 978-1932386578
- Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 8.4 x 0.9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
The quest to locate child-friendly graphic novels is amusingly difficult. You wouldn't think finding quality comics would be so hard. The public perception is that comics are just made for kids anyway, so shouldn't this lead to an abundance of riches? Hardly. You're lucky if you can find three new books a season that aren't parts of already existing series. Now, I had heard of "Mouse Guard" before. While drifting about the most recent Comic Con I took some free samples of the "Mouse Guard" comic books. They were nice items, but too short and shoddy to stand up to serious library circulation. A friend told me they'd be bound together at some point, but I never really believed it and "Mouse Guard" fell out of my thoughts. Months later, I received this in the mail: a beautifully bound edition of six or seven of those comic books, now in a handsome edition. More than library-worthy, "Mouse Guard" is bound to remind kids of Redwall and the like. The feel and the art, however, is vastly different.
Author/illustrator David Petersen puts it like this; Over the years he'd scribble little ideas about this miniscule world. One of the first read, "Mice have a culture all their own; too small to integrate with other animals." The result is a story that would fit right into England circa 1152. An elite guard of mice is trained to protect the travelers in their realm from natural predators. Three of these guards, Kenzie, Lieam, and Saxon, are dispatched to discover why a local merchant went missing not too long ago.
I'd heard a lot of buzz on this book online and at my local comic shop, so I gave it a chance. I don't believe it lives up to the hype.
Mouse Guard is a very thin story. If you replaced the mice characters with humans, I doubt anybody would be interested. The art is striking, but sometimes confusing as many of the characters look similar, and Peterson's sequential art storytelling leaves a lot to be desired. The action is often muddled, particularly because the author avoids the use of sound effects most of the time. Some well placed sound effects text would have clarified many of the scenes. I'm a veteran comics fan, and I still had to review pages several times to get a solid idea of what had happened.
The chapters open with brief prose sections, sometimes explaining what happened at the end of the last chapter (very helpful, in one confusing instance) or detailing a piece of action that took place between chapters. One very important character makes his first appearance in the prose, violating the general rule of "show, don't tell" in comics (and in all writing, for that matter). It highlights the weakness in the storytelling.
Speaking of characters, don't look for much in the way of development here. The individual characters are generalizations at best. There are several moments of intended pathos that just don't work because we know so little about these violent little mice.
The hardcover is well bound and designed, though the jacket is thin and tends to ride up (on mine anyway). At the end there are some guest artist pin-ups, and an "extras" section which includes a few maps of mice towns and a thoroughly unnecessary list of mouse vocations - very generic mideval-ish kinds of things. The coloring and paper are high quality, and service the art well.
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