Written by Kevin Baker Illustrated by Daniel Zezelj By Dan Kois “Luna Park” is the first graphic novel by Kevin Baker, author of the best-selling City of Fire trilogy, but its craftsmanship suggests that he’s thought long and hard about the storytelling strengths of comics. Spare and thoughtful, “Luna Park” is a reverie on the horrors of Russian history masquerading as a gritty New York crime story. It tells a noir tale through muscular language, vivid scenes and arresting images drawn by Croatian-born Danijel Zezelj. If “Luna Park” doesn’t quite hold together, losing its emotional thread in an extended, dreamlike finale, Read More
From Coney Island to Russia: Time Travel via Graphic Novel
Luna Park is the dazzling collaborative debut of novelist Kevin Baker (Dreamland, Strivers Row and artist Danijel Zezelj, the author of more than 20 graphic novels. Their graphic novel starts out as a noirish tale set in a Coney Island closed for the winter and being gobbled up by a Russian mobster from Brighton Beach. The year is 2009, but the narrative takes the reader hurtling through history to the war in Chechnya, as well as to Coney Island’s Luna Park, Dreamland and Steeplechase Park in the early 1900s, and the Russian Civil War (1917-1923). The trip is vertiginous, but Read More
