City of Spies

City of Spies is a new fantastic all ages graphic novel written by first time graphic novelists, Susan Kim and Lawrence Klavan (both of whom are acclaimed and award winning writers in other mediums) and drawn by Pascal Dizin, also making his graphic novel debut. This is quite the debut graphic novel for all three creators, as City of Spies just oozes with great characters, a great plot, and lots of adventure, humor, and tugging at the reader's heart.

The central character of City of Spies, is Evelyn, a Jewish girl of about ten years of age, who is sent to spend the summer with her aunt, Lia Spiegleman, who lives in the Germantown section of New York City, circa 1942. Evelyn writes and draws a comic journal called The Amazing Adventures of Zirconium Man and Scooter! (of which episodes are show throughout City of Spies), which is seemingly a thinly veiled version of adventures she'd like to have (she draws Scooter as she looks).

As entertaining as Evelyn's comic is, for me the adventure that Evelyn gets into outside of when she's doing her comic is even more interesting, which involves her meeting a neighbor boy, Tony, and the spy activity they come across, the way their friendship develops, and Evelyn's changing relationship with her aunt. For some crazy reason, I've never read any of Herge's Tintin, even though I love the look of Tintin, but City of Spies, to me looks and reads like what I think Tintin comics are. City of Spies (which was originally going to be titled Germantown, a title I actually liked better) is published by First Second, with 172 pages in full color for only $16.99. I certainly hope to read more comics by Susan Kim & Laurence Klavan and can't wait to see what artist, Pascal Dizin, does next. To see more art by Dizin, check out his website at: www.dizin-art.com.