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Title: The Mysteries
Author: Bill Watterson
Illustrator: John Kascht
Published: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2023
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 70
Total Page Count: 535,030
Text Number: 1960
Read Because: personal enjoyment, hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: A picture book for adults, sparse text in black on white set against dark, square, claymation-y illustrations. It's very intentional but almost intentionally unsuccessful, a conflicting aesthetic (fables and caricatures, ominous and satirical) to match a narrative about humanity demystifying its great dangers only to find itself on the brink of extinction. Interesting, sure, if only for the change in tone and aesthetic for Watterson; successful, though... There are panels I love, but I can't see beyond a smugness that, like most doomerism, fails to accurately map to real world mysteries/dangers. There's a line to be drawn from the Enlightenment to climate change, sure! But that line is industrialization and capitalism, not just that the general modern public is cocky and incurious.
Author: Bill Watterson
Illustrator: John Kascht
Published: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2023
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 70
Total Page Count: 535,030
Text Number: 1960
Read Because: personal enjoyment, hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: A picture book for adults, sparse text in black on white set against dark, square, claymation-y illustrations. It's very intentional but almost intentionally unsuccessful, a conflicting aesthetic (fables and caricatures, ominous and satirical) to match a narrative about humanity demystifying its great dangers only to find itself on the brink of extinction. Interesting, sure, if only for the change in tone and aesthetic for Watterson; successful, though... There are panels I love, but I can't see beyond a smugness that, like most doomerism, fails to accurately map to real world mysteries/dangers. There's a line to be drawn from the Enlightenment to climate change, sure! But that line is industrialization and capitalism, not just that the general modern public is cocky and incurious.
