Flink

Only the simplicity of the tale itself warranted me taking away one star. Otherwise, we have the sort of excellent art and heartwarming speculative tale one expects from Doug TenNapel.In this one, I got a big kick that the boy looked so much like my nephew--the sticky up hair, the big dark eyes, the obsession with portable video game player. :)Story: A boy and his father, on a Bigfoot finding expedition, have a crash landing. Survival--and how it relates to the particular bigfoot in question--is the immediate concern. But this morphs into a tale of friendship...and learning that the "other" may not be as bad as one may assume.There is danger. There is humor. There is generosity and self-sacrifice. It's a nice wee tale.Doug does a great job of making the boy and Bigfoot likable. He has a way of telling a visual story, and I always look forward to his next work. And one of his main thematic preoccupations (the relationship of boys and their fathers/father-figures) is at play here, too.If you have a young person on your Christmas list who likes comic books, and you want a nice tale without offensive material, this one, with its very sweet ending, is a good choice.Mir

I can see how the fast pacing and low page count of Flink could disappoint fans of Doug TenNapel's GN's -- TenNapel is such a fantastic storyteller that you don't want his stories to end. It is also the case that his other graphic novels have a neat way of taking time at the beginning to build the world and characters - after a good amount of this, his stories swell into a roller coaster of action.So, here are my two cents on Flink - from the perspective of father of a 12.5 year old son (and the once 12.5 year old son of my father):TenNapel's setup reflects the hyperactive nature of a normal 10-12 year boy like the main charecter Conrad -- a clever way of telling the story. Remember how slow and monotanous the begining of EarthBoy Jacobus was? The perfect pace for a retiring police detective with nothing in life to look forward to.The story is about a boy entering his father's world. The father never completly prepares the boy for this. Conrad's dad can see this coming in a way not as dramatic as the plane crash that occurs. Any dad who trys to love and raise his family wonders if he has gotten enough "how-to-survive" lessons passed onto his children, especial his sons. A swiss army knife is used as a great symbol here - one last tool-for-all-occasions that is passed onto Conrad before he ends up in the real world.When Conrad is on his own, he stuburnly clings to his video games; he finally ditches the game when he realizes the importance of his relationship with Flink. Instead of seeing my son going blip..bleep..blip like Conrad I was suprised to see myself! One of our society's wierder problems is that childhood (more accuratly childishness) is being perpetuated further into the adulthood years. Heck, I'm 35 and still read comic books! And ditching the internet, in order to strengthen my relationship with my family, is a day to day struggle for me.There is also a mirroring of two universal themes: 1. when a boy loses his dad and 2. when a dad loses his son. This is serous subject matter. I cannot think of another work that deals with these subjects in such a way that a dad and his 12.5 year old son can really look at it together. Actually I can: The Children's Homer: the Iliad and the Odyessy edited by Padraic Colum. But you can't read that work with your son in one hour (no pictures) and it is not nearly as warm and approachable as Flink. Homer should take lessons from Doug.Finnally, my son and I love reading TenNapel's GN's. With Flink my son and I, on the second reading, went slower and really pored over the details in the images. We also spent time looking at the slower moments and really imagining what it would be like to be in the character's shoes. We talked about the time when he was 9 and drove with me to Chicago to my dad's funeral... about friends of his who have had thier fathers desert their family... about what my son will be like when he is a father. We had some pretty good discussions. In other words we used our imaginations, slowed down and talked to each other about the story. Intentional? Happy accident of the story teller? I have read TenNapel's other GN's enough times to know how clever he is.To me, the storytelling is as detailed and crafted as the pictures, and well worth the price of admission - and the pictures are incredible!

Doug Tennapel shows his versatility as a master storyteller, making a quick 2007 return from Black Cherry earlier the same year. Whereas Black Cherry was a seedy noir gangster tale (and Doug's most "R rated" book to date), Flink takes us back to the kind of all-ages adventure he established earlier with Tommysaurus Rex.It wouldn't be a Tennapel book without CREATURES. Flink is no exception, centering its setting around the race of "Bigfoot" creatures, of which the title character is one. The other main character is a boy who befriends him. Both are coping with recent losses, and the father-son theme that permeates Tennapel's work has never been more evident.This is Doug's breeziest book to date, comfortably read in a single sitting. Pacing is snappy and there are fewer characters and less dialogue than his other tales. Buy it and share it with your family.

Flink is one of Doug's best stories and it sits right next to Iron West as having the best artwork of all of his books. The only problem is that the pacing is way too fast. The pacing in Doug's books has been very fast lately, but it hasn't felt like it takes away from the story until now. He's created this fascinating world of Bigfoots that we barely get a glimpse at and these great two characters that we barely get to know. It feels as if half the story is missing. Perhaps the reason why the book's length is so unfortunate is that what's left out clearly would have been great. I would love to see Flink made into a movie and fleshed out more.

Flink is a great tale of tolerance, particularly because (at least in my opinion), it maintains a reasonably realistic approach to the subject (despite the quasi fantastical premise), and doesn't cram its message down the reader's throat. All in all, the characters feel natural, and while this book doesn't have quite as much of the over-the-top flare that the many of Doug's other works have, it's still highly entertaining.

A shorter Doug T. work but still very enjoyable. Doug seems to have a knack for taking some common element or folktale and twisting a story out of it that makes you enjoy life.

Another adventure in Dougs world. Wish em good look with Big Foot company on Indegogo

Peu ou pas connu en France, l'étatsunien Doug TenNapel publie régulièrement dans son pays des graphic novels qu'il écrit et dessine. Ces romans s'adressent aux jeunes adolescent(e)s, ceux (celles) qui le sont en ce moment... et ceux (celles) qui le sont restés.Dans ce relativement bref ouvrage, en N&B, il s'agit d'un jeune garçon fondu de jeux vidéo qui va se retrouver, suite à un accident d'avion, sans son papa et perdu dans le grand nord américain. Il va rencontrer un "Big Foot", le yéti local, dont le nom est Flink.Me gardant de tout spoiler, j'insisterai juste sur la qualité de la narration, du suspense, du drame et de la gestion de la fin.Une fois de plus, TenNapel donne une lecture personnelle et touchante du surnaturel appréhendé et vécu par des ados.**** et 1/2