Reviews

Oil and Water by Steve Duin, Shannon Wheeler

saidtheraina's review

3.0

A group of people travel from the pacific northwest to the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Bought this when Wheeler was a guest at the Olympia Comics Festival. It's not as developed as, say, [b: A.D. After the Deluge|6398040|A.D. New Orleans After the Deluge|Josh Neufeld|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348799216s/6398040.jpg|6586728], but is fairly unique in that it's from the perspective of a relief worker/reporter group.

Read with: [b: Rolling Blackouts|28116811|Rolling Blackouts Dispatches from Turkey, Syria and Iraq|Sarah Glidden|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1453685234s/28116811.jpg|48126474]

andersonh92's review

challenging reflective sad fast-paced

3.0

Loved the graphics, but the story was a little disjointed. It was informative, but it felt a little disconnected, and I had trouble following the story and characters. Overall, heartbreaking climate destruction that is probably still harming us today.

tromatojuice's review

4.0

Interesting fact added to the story, nice drawings but the story lacks a solid narrative. Would still recommand it.

tararhoseyn's review

3.0

The drawings of oil rigs and oil streaming into the gulf were beautiful and moving, but the characterisation just wasn't there for me. At many moments Duin is self-reflexive and doesn't shy away from showing the voyeuristic gaze the Oregonians inhibit, but the dialogue was too flat and not enough integration (symbolic, etc.) was made between the oil spill and the characters to make meaningful connections between the two.

The introduction by Bill McKibben (!) was great.

starnosedmole's review

2.0

Bits and pieces of the BP oil spill's aftermath are captured in this graphic novel. The most powerful pages are not the illustrated ones, however, but the intermittent pages of text which cover facts about the spill, oil and the environment in more detail. A quick read, but as stirring as I'd anticipated.

queerbillydeluxe's review

1.0

I was not impressed with this graphic novel at all. They "characters" they chose to highlight from the Gulf were questionable at best.

librarydino's review against another edition

1.0

I was not impressed with this graphic novel at all. They "characters" they chose to highlight from the Gulf were questionable at best.

zachkuhn's review against another edition

3.0

Interesting outside story of Louisiana after BP.

janetlun's review against another edition

This book is a good read, pulling you into a better understanding of the horrible Deep Water Horizon spill and its effects on the people, economy and ecology of the Gulf Coast. It's also a great example of how a graphic novel* approach can be so much more powerful that prose. It also shows how including the journalists in the narrative can be more effective than the traditional pretense of an omniscient and invisible reporter.

Wheeler's illustrations are excellent. At Steven Duin's and Shannon Wheeler's reading at Powell's Books, Duin mentioned how he'd write up a section, and give it to Wheeler with suggestions on how to turn it into comics panels, and Wheeler would explode with laughter. The final result of the collaboration is splendid.

*We need a new term. "Graphic novel" should apply to just novels, but "Graphic memoir" or "Graphic non-fiction" just doesn't sound right.