Reviews

Sharaz-De by Sergio Toppi

cynt's review

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4.0

If I were to have any criticism on this book, it'd be that the amazing art distracts from the story.

rhubarbandcustard's review against another edition

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5.0

OMG, SO beautfiul, both the artwork and the stories. They're told with an economy and efficiency that leaves the right amount of room to hear swirling sands, or the flap of a falcon's wing.

middlekmissie's review against another edition

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5.0

In Which There is Crazy, Wonderful, Strange Art (and some words, too).

http://bookfix.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-whole-new-world.html

lindsayb's review against another edition

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5.0

When I was a kid, I used to "sneak" into my mom's library and spend hours looking through Faeries, enthralled with the illustrations of the pretty faeries, the folklore, and the terrifying nasty ones. I say sneak, not because my mother didn't allow me near her books, but because the illustrations and descriptions were explicit--revealing the dangerous side of the fairy tale/folktale world with which I was unaware, having kept mostly to Disney. If I ever have kids, I want this to be their Faeries book.

A long time ago, I started to read The Arabian Nights, but fell away for some reason or another. Clearly, after reading this, I need to get back to it. And I need to check out more Toppi, but seeing as he's Italian and his work isn't published all that extensively in America (much less English), this feels like an uphill battle. I'm hooked though. I don't often buy books anymore, especially before reading them, but I'm so glad I did so with Sharaz-De...I'm fairly covetous of it already.

alan_allis's review against another edition

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3.0

Stories are good, illustrations even better. Not the best Toppi book, but surely better than 99% comic books.

izabrekilien's review against another edition

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5.0

Reviewed for Books and livres

Déjà, j'aime beaucoup les contes des mille et une nuits. J'aime les contes, à la base.
Mais là, illustrés magnifiquement par Toppi - l'influence de Klimt se fait encore plus sentir, c'est un véritable festival pour les yeux. Su-perbe !

hrhacissej's review against another edition

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4.0

Stunning artwork (@Beth K - check out the Zentangles!) accompanies this retelling of the Arabian Nights.

dosymedia's review against another edition

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4.0

Master draftsman, Sergio Toppi, tells several brutal stories concerning the cruelty of petty kings within his Arabian fantasy that are framed by the tale of a woman who spins stories nightly to stop such a king from murdering the young women of his kingdom. Though the original One Thousand and One Nights has a great variety to its tales, Toppi chose those that were united by their subjects’ depraved natures and while that gave this album a cohesiveness, it also became monotonous. The artwork, however, still feels fresh after four decades and contains the emotional range that was missing in the written text. So, while Sharaz-de is impressive within its own right, for me it better served as a teaser to Toppi’s original works which I hope will be more balanced.