Jason and the Golden Fleece

May 1, 2009
Gr 3-5-Perseus fares considerably better than Jason here, with a solid awareness of how to balance visual depiction and expository captions, evident right from the striking prologue. While the artwork is cartoony and the dialogue deliberately casual and modern, the style doesnt prevent the artist from providing heroic vistas, or the author from slipping in a couple of humorous moments, and the action is sufficiently thrilling. Jasons story is told in a loose, sketchy style that has an amiable energy and a blocky representationalism that holds a degree of charm. Unfortunately, the artwork and narration exhibit some seriously clunky storytelling that seems unable to muster a sense of either heroic spectacle or simple narrative transitions. A particularly bizarre circumstance has Jason go from having stubble to a full beard over a period that may be as short as a day. The fact that this happens right after a sequence in which Jason tells Cupid-struck Medea that he loves her for reasons that are never expressed through words or pictures seems to indicate a marked absence of a clear plan as to how to reinterpret this myth and make it accessible or even consistent. Each volume closes with a brief glossary, discussion questions, and Web links to a set of preselected Web sites. None of these features really elevates these titles to an academic level, but "Perseus", at least, is sufficiently entertaining not to need overt curricular justification."Benjamin Russell, Belmont High School, NH"

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