Spirits and Bandits

Gr 8 Up—During the Song dynasty, a few displaced outlaws try to maintain personal integrity while navigating the corrupt acts of local ruling officials. Based on Nai An Shi's Water Margin, a major classical work in the Chinese canon, this long-running comic adaptation seems to mirror the traditional 100-chapter text but feels loose and rambling, lacking clear structure or storytelling. Iconic Chinese heroes Zhishen Lu and Chong Lin are introduced in these volumes, but the former's comic boorishness fails to raise a smile, and the latter's noble tragedy also lacks compelling charisma. The translation is halting, and the placement of word balloons on the page often feels haphazard, so the stilted, unnatural dialogue becomes a dissatisfying puzzle to assemble. Many transitions between events are papered over with expansive exposition demonstrating the worst of tell-not-show, which seems inexcusable in a graphic medium. Each volume ends simply when a page or chapter count has been reached, with no sense of cliff-hanger, rising action, or resolution, and it feels impossible to see these segments as part of a larger whole in the absence of such storytelling markers along the road. They seem, instead, meandering and interminable, and with 20 volumes published, they may continue that way for some time.—Benjamin Russell, Belmont High School, NH