Flash Gordon Adventures, by Art Baltazar & Franco, (Nov. 2024, Papercutz), $7.99, ISBN: 9781545812181
Ages 7-12
I grew up watching reruns of the old Buster Crabbe Flash Gordon serials with my Dad, and I am a dedicated fan of the 1980 Flash Gordon movie in all its cheezy glory (“Flash! I love you! But we only have 14 hours to save the earth!”). Finding out that Art Baltazar and Franco are doing a Flash Gordon Adventures graphic novel series for Papercutz made my afternoon! If you’re familiar with Baltazar and Franco’s work, you know you’re going to get funny jokes, snappy dialogue, and colorful, vibrant, cartoony illustration. If you haven’t enjoyed their work yet, you’re in for a treat. A series of vignettes framing an overall story makes it easy for readers to put the book down and pick it up as they please. Parents (ahem… or grandparents) will appreciate familiar character like Flash, Dale Arden, Zarkov, Ming the Merciless, Barin and Vultan; new readers will get a kick out of meeting the new characters. This first volume introduces Ming – historically a big bad – as a silly ruler who has his human prisoner, Dr. Zarkov, creating evil goatees and lizard-making machines for him while Flash and Dale befriend other resdents and play football and swim. InvestiGators creator John Patrick Green has a story at the end of this first volume, in which Flash and company learn about anti-cavity toothpaste in hilarious fashion. Flash Gordon is a fun addition to your graphic novel collections, especially for intermediate readers.
Mom Read It 