John Morris has posted a lengthy review of Midnight Sun on his blog, CreativeKungFu. John has a lot of good things to say about the book, but in the interest of full disclosure, this probably isn’t the most objective review out there. See, John and I have known each other for years, having first met as students at NC’s Davidson College in the late 80s. We were later bandmates in Come on Thunderchild and its earlier incarnation, Elextroluxe. Since then, music’s taken a back seat for me, but John continues to perform in a mind-boggling array of Charlotte-area bands including The Alternative Champs, Tyre Fyre, Snagglepuss, and Nighthawk.

One thing that John mentions that I’m glad to see touched upon is the humorous aspects of the story. Midnight Sun is for the most part a straight drama, but like any genuine representation of human goings-on, there’s intended to be some humor there as well. With “serious” graphic novel memoirs getting a lot of attention from legit press, there’s been a sort of backlash among fans of comics’ pulpy, raunchy, funny qualities that’s given rise to an unfortunate perceived division between folks who like “serious” comics and those who deem anything that’s non-funny pretentious.

Also, John’s a pretty kick-ass painter and figure artist, so have a look at the art on CreativeKungFu while you’re there.

Here’re a couple of early (and positive!) mentions of Midnight Sun around the internets:First, Scott Tingley has posted an expanded review of the book over at comicsintheclassroom.net. Scott mainly reviews books for younger readers, so I was slightly surprised that he wanted to read a copy of the book for a possible review. As he notes, there’s some off-color language (no “F bombs,” though), some drinking, and a few other odds and ends… I guess, though, that shouldn’t preclude older high school students from being able to check it out. On the other hand, I know as an occasional teacher that folks can get pretty touchy about comics in particular, given the visual element.

Second, over on the Comic Geek Speak podcast (episode #346), Midnight Sun gets a great mention from one of that shows guest contributors, Charlito from Indie Spinner Rack. This episode is titled “Looking Ahead to 2008” but Midnight Sun managed to sneak in there despite its December 28th release date since the episode was posted on the 21st, and presumably was recorded much earlier. Even though I know the ISR guys, both as a fan of the show and from working on a story for the ISR anthology, Awesome, it was really cool to turn up on Charlito’s list. More surprising, though, was that one of the CGS hosts (Shane, if I’m recalling correctly) knew the book from its earlier incarnation as a serialized comic.

Anyway, I’m appreciative of the kind words from both…

A couple of early mentions for the book around the internets…

From Justin of the review site/blog, 13 Minutes:

Midnight Sun (SLG): Ben Towle’s little masterpiece finally sees print in one complete smaller-than-digest-sized format. One of the best books from 2007!

And from fellow comics educator Scott Tingley’s site Comics in the Classroom’s holiday book review section:

I just got finished reading a copy of Midnight Sun by Ben Towle . It is a black, white and blue 130 or so paged reimagining of the crash of the Italian airship, the Italia in 1928. It is not meant to be an accurate retelling, but it would be of interest to airship enthusiasts (I’m sure they exist), history buffs and anyone interested in a terrific, grown-up graphic novels. There is a little swearing and drunkenness, but it is the intensity of the situation that makes this for Young Adults and above. I have only read the pdf version of it but, by all accounts, the final version is quite attractive

Thanks, folks!