Customer Reviews

Southland Tales Book 1: Two Roads Diverge (Bk. 1)

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After much delay in the release of these graphic novels, Southland Tales: Two Roads Diverge has finally hit the stands; although it may be tough right now to find a copy at your local bookstore or comic shop. And that is truly a shame because this book is good; VERY GOOD. It is the first among a series of three books to be released telling the back story of the forthcoming Richard Kelly production Southland Tales.

This first novel focuses on Boxer Santaros, a Hollywood movie star who wakes up in the middle of a desert with amnesia. As Boxer tries to put his life back together the audience is introduced to several eccentric and quite interesting characters. The most prominent being an adult film star named Krysta Now. It seems the world Boxer knew has changed drastically since he last remembered it. A pair of nuclear attacks on Texas soil have set the stage for an ultra conservative police state America. We are led to believe that Boxer holds the key to the salvation of the earth before it's immenent destruction.

If you are a fan of Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko, get this book. If you are interested in fresh ideas with well written characters and poignant art work, get this book. If you are looking for something different from everything else out there being sold on the media market, GET THIS BOOK. You won't be disappointed. The only shortcoming of Two Roads Diverge is its length. I would have liked to have seen a bit more, but the story does leave you hanging and eagerly awaiting the release of the next two novels.

Southland Tales: Two Roads Diverge, went on sale today in stores. It is the first of six chapters of Southland Tales. Chapters I-III are graphic novels. Chapters IV-VI are the film Southland Tales, which is expected to be in theaters this fall.

The title "Two Roads Diverge" is taken from the Robert Frost poem "The Road Not Taken," and the poem is used as a framing device in the narration throughout. We meet Boxer Santaros, a movie action star with amnesia, Fortunio Balducci, a gambler who rescues Boxer in the Nevada desert, and Krysta Now, an adult film star and entrepreneur who promises to to get them across the militarized California state line. The story by Richard Kelly (writer/director of Donnie Darko) is inventive, profanely funny, and mysterious. The art by Brett Weldele is kinetic, frequently abstract, matching the surreal tone of the story perfectly. The art moves back and forth between the characters' perpectives and those of the sinister forces surveiling them, for an appropriately paranoia-inducing effect. This complex, fascinating, multi-part story is off to a great start.

The book includes a bonus section of photographs from the movie and the movie shoot.

This graphic novel is a great read and will work perfectly in setting us up for the final three chapters, which will be told in the motion picture. If you were having any doubts as to whether or not to buy this book, definitely check it out. The art is great, and familiarizing ones self with the characters in these graphic novels should prove to be a great help in better grasping certain aspects of the movie. Can't wait for the next two novels to be released!

The setting is in the United States some time after terrorists set off two nuclear weapons in El Paso and Abilene, Texas. While the event did not completely politically fragment the United States, it did turn the states into armed singular entities. There are armed guards on the border between Nevada and California and they have orders to shoot to kill anyone that approaches the border anywhere but at an approved crossing point. Even then there is a thorough search and a hard-to-obtain travel visa is required.
Boxer Santaros is one of the most well known actors in the world and he has disappeared. Somehow he reappears unconscious in the Nevada desert and is rescued by Fortunio Balducci, a man on the run due to his gambling debts. Not all is at it appears to be for the charred body of a man is found in a vehicle and armed men break in when the body is being examined.
Santaros and Balducci make contact with Krysta Now, a porn star from California performing poetry readings in Nevada. Krysta is psychic and has connections that can get them travel visas to California. She also has a screenplay that is a portent of the future that she has Santaros read with the idea of making it into a movie. Krysta agrees to help acquire the necessary travel visas into California but there are hints that she is simply acting as a mercenary.
This story is designed to set the background for what is clearly going to be a complicated and extended saga. Therefore, you have to read it with that firmly in mind. With hints of some kind of heavy governmental oversight as well as the U. S. militarily occupying Syria and actively engaged in warfare there, there is a lot to process in this story.
When commenting on stories such as this one, it is necessary to make some reasonable extrapolation on the quality of the subsequent stories. In this case, with so many potential plot devices, the subsequent installments will most certainly be exciting.

I found it to be a bit too short. Although one could chalk that up the fact that I waited so long for it to come out, I wanted it to take longer than 20 minutes to read it.
Beyond that, loved it! Intriguing... I thought the "sketchy" nature of the drawings was good. Felt free. Alive. I like the fact that there was not a ton of exposition. It was just here are the characters, and you find stuff out as it goes along.
As in Donnie Darko, it seems like this is a very fully realized world with it's own set of physical laws and philosophies and yet never really bothers to explain too much. Great ending that makes me want the next book YESTERDAY!

These graphic novels are great. They are smart, easy to read, filled with mystery and conspiracy, and they all have a great build up to the next big event (the end of the world). Overall, its an awesome take on an old tale; the events leading to the end of the world. Buy these books, and have some hope that the movie that comes after to cap everything off is good, but I have my doubts.

I'd love to review this book, but I've been waiting for over a month to receive it. I'm assuming that since there are no Amazon reviews, than no one else has either.... Anyone actually get theirs?