Once Upon a Time at the End of the World (2022), Issue 2

March 1, 2013

Gr 3-6-Ten-year-old Boyd Linney is a bounty hunter, primarily focused on bringing righteous law and consequences to his various family members gone wrong. His hobbyhorse morphs into a double-barreled shotgun when needed, and Boyd demonstrates an unforgiving will that begins as satirical but changing into something grimmer and unresolved. Five short interstitial stories appear between chapters of Boyd's ongoing story, and these are truly comic, brief sketches with unambiguous punch lines. Eliopoulos's art is slightly less clean than his work in the "Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius" (Marvel) series, but it suits the excellent color and design work he's done to make the book feel scruffy, textured, and temporally appropriate. The spare, essentialist facial cartooning is still able to convey subtlety of emotion, but the linework and loose layouts fully support any sense of dramatic tension in the enjoyably ludicrous action sequences. The closing chapter in which Boyd is able to stop being so serious and relate to his grandfather like an ordinary kid is the most successful, but it also highlights the strange morality at the heart of the narrative.-Benjamin Russell, Belmont High School, NH

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2012
Grades 4-8 Just try not to get hooked by the first page of this sand-blasted graphic novel, where a little half-pint kid named Boyd Linney rides into town under a voice-over: Bounty huntin's simple . . . Ain't hard math. Good thing. Nobody's taught me math yet. After shooting up the local saloon (not to worry, his shotgun's more prop than weapon) and catching the ire of the sheriff, the boy busts his daddy out of prison. But this isn't a jailbreakBoyd's aiming to collect the bounty on the heads of his whole no-good, down-low family. Cosby's got the gritty western flavor down pat and, without overstepping kid-friendly bounds, shows a surprisingly grim moral ambiguity. At the same time, the book is often hilarious, with well-dropped humor beats and a cute kid hero who's also a complete badass, thanks in large part to Eliopoulos' (Okie Dokie Donuts, 2011) clean, crafty cartooning. A handful of backup stories by the likes of Roger Langridge and Colleen Coover make for diverting chapter breaks. There's sure to be more, but here the legend begins.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)