Literally Graphic reviewed Bloom by Kevin Panetta
Review of 'Bloom' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
while there are certainly a minimum age at which point this story will not be interesting enough to retain the reader's interest, the story itself does not include anything offensive unless you are a homophobe. Homophobes might find this book triggering as it does include some queer relationships. One of the "bad" characters is a bit of a bully, but the plot arc is such that they get left behind, and there's a pretty destructive fire.
According to his website, "Kevin Panetta is a Washington, DC based comic book and graphic novel writer. He has written licensed children's comics from Boom! Studios. His first creator-owned series, Zodiac Starforce, debuted from Dark Horse Comics in August 2015."
Savanna's website bio, written in the first person says the following "I’m a traditional and digital artist. I can draw comics, illustrate, storyboard, color and paint. I am a very quick worker, and I …
while there are certainly a minimum age at which point this story will not be interesting enough to retain the reader's interest, the story itself does not include anything offensive unless you are a homophobe. Homophobes might find this book triggering as it does include some queer relationships. One of the "bad" characters is a bit of a bully, but the plot arc is such that they get left behind, and there's a pretty destructive fire.
According to his website, "Kevin Panetta is a Washington, DC based comic book and graphic novel writer. He has written licensed children's comics from Boom! Studios. His first creator-owned series, Zodiac Starforce, debuted from Dark Horse Comics in August 2015."
Savanna's website bio, written in the first person says the following "I’m a traditional and digital artist. I can draw comics, illustrate, storyboard, color and paint. I am a very quick worker, and I am very flexible in my art. I am from New Orleans, LA and I have a BA in Film from the University of New Orleans. I love film, comics, fine art, and illustration."
A cute, wholesome, and slow burning romance, Bloom is a coming of age story about the son of a baker who wants to move from the small town to the big city. But in order to leave, he has to find a replacement for himself and while interviewing new baking assistance Ari finds more then he's looking for!
As far as the art goes, it's nice. I am, sadly, a bit tired of the one colour effect at this present point in time but it is pulled off well. I had a modicum of difficulty telling some of the side characters apart, but overall I felt like the art and story worked together extremely well.
As far as sexuality and gender are concerned, we get a pretty A+ performance. Certainly, there's more diversity in sexuality then in gender, but there's certainly not a lot of traditional gender binary being preached in this book that features so much tender masculinity.
Looking at race, while it's not really touched upon directly there's a lot of diverse visual elements we attribute to the social construct of race and the story seems to be taking a lot of inspiration from the stories of the children of immigrants.
The only thing that comes close to ability vs disability is the focus on how Ari's father is getting too old to run the bakery. Does that count? You decide!
Class is touched on a bit in the story in the fact that the bakery is not doing particularly well and a lot of conversations revolve around what the central family can and cannot afford. This lack puts Ari in some conflict with other people in the story who don't have to worry about such things.
