Reviews

Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened by James W. Powell, Jason Rodriguez

nssutton's review

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3.0

cute quick read. started it on the train, finished it during my lunch break. don't feel the urge to start a postcard collection of my own, but someone did leave an index card in it with their word scramble strategies - reminded me of when kristen would do that at the targum desk.

spiffysarahruby's review

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4.0

I'm kind of disappointed that this book has so many negative reviews for this anthology because I really enjoyed it.

I work in a library and as everybody knows who has ever worked in a library, you come across a lot of found objects (mostly because people forget to check the books they're returning for their book markers); playing cards, bills, odd, rambling letters, and on occasion a postcard. That's kind of why I liked this book so much--it reminds me of my shelving days and finding things in the stacks or in recently returned books.

I also love the idea of inventing a story to go along with a postcard. Postcards are pretty small so there's never really much of a message as far as length is concerned. Content is another story. These authors and illustrators really proved that a lot can be read into a small message.

I truly loved about half of the book and the other half I liked. I can honestly say there weren't any stories in this anthology that I didn't enjoy to some extent.

Seriously folks, if you want to read a book, just read it--don't let bad reviews scare you away. You might miss out on some real gems!

offbalance80's review

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4.0

One rainy Saturday I chose to curl up with this book, and discovered a wonderful way to disappear for a few hours. In its pages I was delighted, amused, heartbroken, and even scared a few times.

This is a great book to introduce to people who've never read or understood how great a graphic novel could be. It certainly reminded me.

dawnoftheread's review

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2.0

Interesting concept, but mostly forgettable.

zekehero's review

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5.0

People who like something different would really do well to give this book a shot. The premise is simple: The editor found a box of old postcards, filled out with messages, and gave them to respected writers and artists for them to tell a story. The results are extremely interesting and the art and writing is top notch.

bluenicorn's review

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1.0

I LOVED the concept of this book. Find an old postcard, draw/write a story to explain/go with it. Awesome. I just found the follow-through... kind of weak. And it was oftentimes too difficult to even read what was on the postcard. And then he writes a spiel about "wow, when i read this postcard, i though that's crazy, and i knew that my good friend [fill in the comic's name:] would know what to do..." I don't know. Conceptually great, maybe just not executed how I would have wished.

krismoon's review

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4.0

The graphic novel "Postcards" has a very interesting and thought-provoking premise: the editor found/procured old postcards with either cryptic or telling messages from sender to reader. Each team consisting of a writer and illustrator would use one of the postcards as inspiration to tell the story behind it. Some of the stories are clever, funny, sad, or just confusing (only one of the stories was confusing and I feel a little dull-witted for not getting it, but uh... I didn't get it).

curiouslibrarian's review

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5.0

I love the conceit of this book: take an antique postcard, and then create a comic based on the message, picture or both. All the stories are so different from one another, and so different from what I would have come up with if I had been given the postcard. They brought in some wonderful artists and writers for this book. (Although, honestly, I was less than impressed with Pekar's story at the end.) I really hope that they do another collection of these comics, and I would love to read more of these stories!

moxiedoll's review

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3.0

The concept behind this was truly interesting and the editor seemed to put his heart and soul into it, but some of the stories fell flat.

sillyduckie's review

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Digital library copy was hard to read.