Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #662146 in Books
• Published on: 1998-02-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Jon J Muth is one of the few people drawing comic books who wholly deserves the name of "artist". In his still uncollected series Blood he, and his partner for Moonshadow John DeMatteis, produced one of the most affecting, intelligent, genre-redefining comics of the last 20 years. Blood seemed unsurpassable. But the literate, haunting, truly beautiful Moonshadow came along and comics themselves grew up a little. Michael Moorcock said of Moonshadow: "This is an outstanding graphic tale, told at a level of literary and visual sophistication which introduced new standards and aspirations to the genre". Muth's artwork is absolutely superb and unique--only Bill Sinkiewicz comes near--but DeMatteis' writing lives up to the job and he has penned here a sometimes heart-breaking tale of love and loss and growing up in, and leaving, an alien zoo! This is how all comics should be. --Mark Thwaite

Customer Reviews

This is what it's all about
A very good read, especially for people who like a lot of Vertigo works (especially Neil Gaiman works). It's kind of a mixture between a Science Fiction story and a Fairy Tale for adults which takes you to many different roads and shows you the intergalactic journey of a boy who has had no contact with the outside world ever and is suddenly put out in the real world, with his only knowledge being the stories he read in his books of Orwell, Tolkien and Shakespeare. With great painted art by John J Muth (Sandman) and written by J.M. DeMatteis (Spiderman: The Child Within. Not for superhero lovers though.

Moonshadow
I like this book, a lot as it happens, and yet I am ultimately disappointed by it - in personal rather than critical terms - and not by the body of it, but, as is so often the case, by the ending.
This is "mystical" (the book makes apology for this) and would be quite beautiful if attached to another story but which here has the feeling of a cheap trick, becuase so much of the book has a surreal, dreamlike, washed-out feeling - kind of insubstatial - it seems to demand something definite. Instead it fades out depressingly, gets more and more vague until it stops just short of ending with: "and then I woke up, and it was all a dream!" The expansive worldview becomes somehow provincial, with no mention of the spaceships, high adventure or exotic locations around which the story revolved before - it seems hauntingly disappointing, because it ends long after it should, (probably a reasonable illustration of the way life itself works, but there it stands.
And besides, if the credits never rolled on "Return of the Jedi," what would we see but Han, Leia and luke becoming fat and old and beset by the ordinary tragedies of life after the struggle is done?)
You might remember the poem at the end of "Alice;" the eventual end of the fairytale kingdom in "The Princess and Curdie," or the moment when Fenchurch disappears in "Mostly Harmless" you'll have a good idea of what to expect - this book is a distillation of moments like these, that uncomfortable realization that the story is going neither as you expected nor as you would wish, and it is a testament to the brilliance of this book that I cared as much as I did, and still do, and didn't just shelve it - Moonshadow is an imaginative and brilliantly realized work which should be read and re-read, and perhaps its dreamlike melancholy is its most potent strength.

'Second star to the right and straight on till morning!'
I saw Moonshadow in '500 Essential Graphic Novels: The Ultimate Guide' with the picture where Moon says, 'Second star to the right and straight on till morning!'. It was a beautiful little piece and stated that while Sandman was the best-selling fantasy comic, Moonshadow was simply the best fantasy comic. The picture and description made me think this would be a childhood fable like Peter Pan merged with the innocence and artful creations in Little Nemo in Slumberland. For better, for worse Moonshadow is nothing like that.

It's very interesting to read other people's comments because I know a lot original fans were unhappy with the ending. But having read this for the first time 2 days ago I have to say my favourite books are the first and the last. Moon as a child being loved by his mother under the deep blue starry skies of space above the alien zoo really hooked me. The final chapter, the whole of Goodbye Moonshadow was very touching and beautiful drawn and I was glad to be rid of the cartoony elements that plagued the midsection for me.

The alien zoo was brilliantly conceived, but I got frustrated by Ira in character and in appearance - I got fed up with Moon for chasing after someone who was a dick to him but I suppose the whole idea was that Ira was a challenge, and that Moon saw good in him when even I couldn't, that no-one is beyond redemption. The early joke about gang rape was annoying (I particularly hate jokes about rape and writers who make them - I always picture someone who's been through it having to read it) and it made me wonder if I had made a mistake buying Moonshadow.

I found some of the stuff in between, the cartoony looking characters and some especially silly names a bit frustrating like G'L Doses. Some of the midsection events and characters were not as noteworthy as I would have liked but I get the feeling a lot of strange characters and random events may be code for things that happened in DeMatteis's own life.

The nude portraiture was always beautifully done although I felt the artists and writer were strangely shy of depicting sex and nudity for Moon's own sexual awakening. Muth also failed to give Moon a penis in 2 full-frontal pictures so he looks like a Ken doll.

Muth's rendering of humans is a class in excellence and elegance, his women in particular. I also loved the visualisation of Moon as a toddler, the young man at the end (who looked very similar to Lucifer in Nirvana, possibly Muth himself?) and the old man throughout.

I was especially fond of every single depiction of Sunflower by Muth, and I was very, very annoyed by what happened to Sunflower right after the alien labour as I had just fallen in love with her (again I suppose it's another fact of life, bad things happen to good people) and I frequently enjoyed her backstory, probably the best things about the first half of the book.

I only just finished it yesterday and I keep returning to it so I think it will keep me engaged for a long time. I wish the writer had done things otherwise but there is no denying the originality here and the tale is about growing and changing and things happen that you don't want to happen, as in life. Some of the meanderings and cartoon aliens in the middle section frustrate me as I feel this comic hovers perilously close to being a Heavy Metal strip. Ultimately it is still head and shoulders above anything I've read in comics for a long time and my problems with it are probably exactly that.

My problems.