The Disney Bros.

November 16, 2020
While Nikolavitch (H.P. Lovecraft: He Who Wrote in the Darkness) aims to monumentalize the brotherhood of Roy and Walt Disney, this dramatic biography trains its focus on the grasping, brilliant, brutally cruel man whose name lasted as company founder. This Walt is the Steve Jobs of the mid-20th century: a middling craftsman who redefined his trade through vision, micromanagement, and stubbornness. While Ruiz’s quirky lines, raised eyebrows, and jaunty colors echo the style of what the Disney brothers put on-screen, the engine of the story is more business than art. Roy did the money and is mostly presented gnashing his teeth at Walt’s extravagances. Walt’s only setting is full-speed ahead (“We’re idling, gentleman!” he shouts in frustration at his artist bullpen) and he erupts at any industry interruption, whether unionizing animators (“they’re all commies”) or WWII (“their stupid war!”). Nikolavitch frames Walt’s drive and imagination as twinned reaction and homage to his unhappy Missouri childhood, an ersatz Americana vision of which was mined for his posthumous Florida theme park. The result manages to capture Walt’s genius without skirting his “Uncle Scrooge” side. Disney loyalists may not appreciate this critical take, but open-minded graphic bio fans will be treated to a peppy tale of a complicated American icon.

December 1, 2020
A behind-the-scenes look at the Disney brothers' rise to success. This graphic biography begins in 1928 Hollywood, when Walt Disney makes the bold decision that his fledgling studio will deal with distributors directly and retain ownership rights to their creations. Together with creative partner Ub Iwerks, Walt creates the character of Mickey Mouse and adds a soundtrack to their cartoon, an innovative feature at the time. While Walt continues to take creative risks and strive for the highest quality, his brother and business partner, Roy, manages the studio finances. As they gain rapid success during the early 1930s, Iwerks quits out of frustration with the lack of credit given to him as a creator. Progressive chapters reveal the brothers' troubled childhoods on a farm in Missouri with an abusive father. Brief, rapid-fire vignettes relate Walt's subsequent successes and innovations as well as professional and personal struggles, including protests by unionized workers and the tragic death of his mother. Less flattering aspects of his dealings with the likes of Nazi filmmakers and J. Edgar Hoover are hastily rendered, and readers who lack knowledge of the historical events may be confused. The cartoonlike illustration style feels suitable to the subject matter, however the choppy pacing and inconclusive attempts to probe the Disneys' psyches may leave curious readers unsatisfied. Some comments, such as one regarding a Depression-era "job picking oranges that pays so bad even a one-eyed Mexican wouldn't want it," are presented without context or analysis. An uneven ride through Disney history. (afterword) (Graphic biography. 12-adult)

COPYRIGHT(2020) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

December 1, 2020

Gr 9 Up-As a counter to the plethora of idealized biographies of the Disney empire's sibling founders, this nuanced graphic profile doesn't paint them as out and out villains-but it does acknowledge Walt's ruthless mania for total control of his productions and the possibility that he was an FBI informant during the McCarthy era, not to mention the warm reception Roy received on a business trip to Nazi Germany. The language is occasionally rough, too, as Walt fulminates about being "screwed over" by business partners and rejects naming his soon to be iconic mouse "Mortimer" because it sounds "fruity." Using a cartoon style reminiscent of that in classic Disney shorts, Ruiz focuses on the two men to the near exclusion of their families, their associates, or even passing reference to most of their works. Though he inserts frank scenes of the Disney boys with their physically abusive father, he is generally oblique with biographical details, only presaging Walt's early death from lung cancer with increasingly frequent scenes of him lighting up, for example, and leaving Roy just months before his death sitting alone on a bench in Florida's newly opened Walt Disney World. A prose afterword analyzing the Disney formula for enduring success provocatively compares the Mouse to another potent cultural symbol, the Nazi flag. VERDICT Readers who grew up steeped in the "Magic Kingdom" version of the legend may be in for a rethink.-John Peters, Children's Literature Consultant, New York

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.