Decelerate Blue - Softcover

Rapp, Adam; Cavallaro, Mike

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1596431091 ISBN 13: 9781596431096

Publisher: First Second, 2017

Synopsis

The future waits for no one.

In this new world, speed and efficiency are everything, and the populace zooms along in a perpetually stimulated haze. Angela thinks she's the only person in her family―maybe the only person on the planet―who sees anything wrong with this picture. But the truth is she's not alone.

Angela finds herself recruited into a resistance movement where the key to rebellion is taking things slow. In their secret underground hideout, they create a life unplugged from the rapid-fire culture outside. Can they free the rest of the world before the powers that be shut down their utopian experiment?

From revolutionary and award-winning playwright Adam Rapp and veteran cartoonist and animator Mike Cavallaro comes Decelerate Blue, a dark, breath-taking new vision of an all-too-plausible future for America.

About this title

About the Author

Mike Cavallaro’s comics include Parade (with fireworks), a Will Eisner Award-nominee; The Life and Times of Savior 28, with Eisner Award-winning writer J.M. DeMatteis; and the Foiled series with Jane Yolen. Mike is an instructor at the School of Visual Arts and is the Vice-Chairman of the Manhattan Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society.

Adam Rapp is a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and filmmaker. His young adult novels include Missing the Piano, The Buffalo Tree, and 33 Snowfish, and his first adult was The Year of Endless Sorrows. Rapp directed his first film, Winter Passing, with Zooey Deschanel and Will Ferrell, in 2005.

From School Library Journal

Gr 10 Up—Welcome to a brave new world that is marketing-forward and tech-heavy. Culture has been reduced to snippets of perfectly packaged and abbreviated elements. It's a world run by the Guarantee Committee (GC), and the inhabitants are "protected" and monitored to ensure that they are keeping everything short. Students at Hyper High no longer study the classics; instead, they take Brief Lit, which abridges the classics and simplifies the language. It's a world that 15-year-old Angela hates. She wants to revel in language and luxuriate in art, so it isn't difficult for her to commit to an Underground community that she discovers by accident in Blackhawk Caves. In the Underground, Angela falls in love with Gladys and becomes an active part of the resistance. As with all great tragedies, it is a love destined for heartbreak. Rapp and Cavallaro successfully rely on the problem play format and use it to weave a cautionary tale about our fast-paced world. Cavallaro's choices of predominantly black-and-white artwork complement this gripping, thought-provoking narrative. Frames are employed to create unique panels that propel readers to the conclusion, and the spare use of full color heightens the emotion of the piece. VERDICT Fans of George Orwell's 1984 and Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 will find much to ponder in this notable graphic novel.—Jodeana Kruse, R. A. Long High School, Longview, WA

About this edition

• Publisher: First Second
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1596431091
• ISBN 13: 9781596431096
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208