Greendale

Love Cliff Chiang his art is amazing but the story was just too bland for me.

Really disappointed by this one. No substance or thought.

Cliff Chiang's stunning artwork could probably command at least 4 stars all on its own. The story feels disjointed, though. Greendale is the story of Sun Green, a Northern California high school girl who comes from a family of earth goddesses (for lack of a better term). The women in her family seem to have some bizarre connection to the planet, and they are all stalked by Randall Flagg some weird devil guy who controls events using his harmonica. Come to think of it, he does look a little like [...]

What a fascinating companion piece to Neil Young's album (which I listened to for the first time while I read this). It's an interesting tale of environmentalism and activism and spirituality. With an engaging story and great art. Recommended.

Take a 2003 protest album and turn it into a graphic novel: that's basically what the creators of this book were tasked to do.Personally, I'm not an ardent Neil Young fan. I enjoy quite a few of his songs, but I only ever bought one of his albums and that was a greatest hits album back in the 90s. So, I really had no preconceptions walking into Neil Young's Greendale.Whatever the album is about, the graphic novel is about an eighteen-year-old girl named Sun Green. She comes from a long line of G [...]

Unfocused, does not really stand alone from the albumI'd never heard of Neil Young's Greendale album before I picked up this graphic novel, but I decided the premise was interesting enough that I gave it a chance. Greendale might be your cup of tea if you like your reading material to touch upon tons of ideas but develop none of them. This book is a coming-of-age, anti-war, anti-importing-oil, anti-drilling-for-more-American-oil-so-we-don't-have-to-import-it, anti-big-electricity, anti-media, su [...]

This suffered from extremely klunky writing. There were a lot of interesting ideas like a genetic, matrilineal chain of earth magician women, but hippie rambling and anti-Bush foot - stomping made it all ring way too hollow. The nostalgia for the 60s was painful in the extreme, the California eco-fantasy was irritating to slog through, and the Iraq war/Enron anger/oil economy protest was too thin to engage. I don't know if it was Niel Young's writing that was so awful or the adaptor of his album [...]

Broad in scope and ambitious in intent, 'Greendale' however falls short in its placement and introduction of phenomena. Events, while fascinating, read as arbitrary or as incomplete thoughts. In the intro, Neil Young writes "I made it up and I don't know what the hell is going on, so don't feel bad if you feel a little out with this." Given the superb quality of the prose and the art, I do feel bad for feeling a bit 'out of it' with this book. It felt like it should have been 100 pages longer, b [...]

I picked this up because the first few pages caught my attention. I liked the story and the artwork but I wasn't aware that this was a "thing." A movie, an album, a movement of sorts. And maybe that's where I got lost. It wasn't until the last quarter of the book that I started to feel like I was missing something. Something I never found.Maybe it's because I'm not a Neil Young fan. But I am a huge tree-hugger, so you'd think I would have been able to pick up what they were puttin' down. Oh, we [...]

I did not enjoy this graphic novel at all. What could have been a good story (although a bit preachy) was hampered by too much reliance on graphics instead (not in addition) to words. I frequently felt like I was being asked to solve some sort of visual puzzle to figure out what was going on. I am quite sure I missed many parts of the story due to this. If I want to solve puzzles I will pick up one, I don't want to have to guess at what the author is trying to say.

The artwork is gorgeous, but the story remains just as dippy (and continues to not make a lick of sense) as its aural and cinematic counterparts. Go figure.

To be honest, I am not a Neil Young fan, which is important for me to say because I had no contextual awareness, no clue as to what inspired this graphic novel and who he is.With that in mind, this is the story of a young girl's coming of age and coming into her own awareness of how each of us can and should make a difference. At some point I feel like this novel is politically charged. I did enjoy the touches of magical realism. It did make me a little more interested in checking out Neil Young [...]

I have no idea what I just read. I remember liking the Greendale concept album more than most reviewers but I dont remember it focusing on the mysticism and a Stephen King devil substitute Randall Flagg ripoff. Very strange

As a Neil Young fan, and of the "Greendale" album in particular, I was a little wary of anyone wanting to convert its story into a graphic novel. I think its fascinating that Young is intent on feeding this story through so many mediums. I haven't seen the film he directed, but I did see the rather impressive stage musical performed in the suitably dank and rustic bowels of Dallas's Undermain Theater. That production breathed a very specific and unique life into the story of the Green family, an [...]

I think I'm partial to Neil Young, because something about his voice reminds me of my dad. He does have some classics that I love too "Heart of Gold” and "Cinnamon Girl." Prior to reading this graphic novel, I watched the rock movie "Greendale." I feel in love with the 'rebel' main character Sun Green. She was strong-minded and an activist. She loved her family, and she was very beautiful. Throughout the movie a chorus reoccurred "Be the Rain." The movie flashed between story scenes and live [...]

The graphic novel Greendale serves as a companion piece to the Neil Young album and movie of the same name. I was totally unfamiliar with both before reading the graphic novel, and, after a little bit of investigating, it seems you can enjoy the graphic novel with no knowledge of its sisters.That being said, Greendale is an interesting book in many respects, and disappointing in others.The story revolves around Sun Green, young woman who has inherited a mysterious connection to nature, as do all [...]

Reason for Reading: Long-winded reason follows. (LOL) When I heard that this graphic novel was based on an album I though that was so cool and I suddenly had imaginations of what could come next, the graphic versions of Pink Floyd's "The Wall", Queen's "News of the World", Meatloaf's "Bat Out of Hell". It is an awesome concept. Now I don't like Neil Young as a singer sorry and have never heard of this album but was so intrigued with the concept and thought "Neil Young is Canadian so the book w [...]

Why do supremely talented artists like Cliff Chiang so frequently attach themselves to other people's vanity projects like this utterly idiotic book? Turning a concept album into a graphic novel is a terrible idea, and unsurprisingly ends up as a bunch of strange, misshapen pieces disjointedly jammed together. Girls in a family have weird nature powers for some reason. A demon (or whoever the antagonist was supposed to be, it's never remotely explained) is lurking around being sinister. Iraq War [...]

I was actually close to giving this five stars but it is not for everyone. In the introduction, Neil Young himself states that he doesn't really know what the hell is going on in the story. For that reason I certainly didn't expect a nice tight conclusive narrative but I did feel like there were more stories behind the panels that could have been explored.I plan to check out the album it is based on to see if it will make more sense post-listen.I like Joshua Dysart's writing and have been a fan [...]

I have to admit, I've never listened to the Greendale album, but this graphic novel makes me curious to listen to it. Greendale covers a brief span in the life of Sun Green, starting with glimpses of her as a child. The meat of the of the book takes place over a few days, with Sun beginning to ask questions about her family's past. She's caught the notice of a mysterious & sinister man who seems to have some sort of supernatural powers. Sun has to figure out what exactly is going on as well [...]

I've always felt that Neil Young's Greendale was one of his most overlooked LP's and I must not be the only one because that disc has gone on to spawn a feature length film and now a graphic novel. Young Sun Green is a teenager coming of age in the small fictional town of Greendale, California in 2003 during the days leading up to the beginning of the Iraq War. She has growing feelings of anxiety about the futility of war and the environmental degradations she sees on television. As her politica [...]

A solid but somewhat slow-paced graphic novel set in the world of Greendale, first created in the concept rock & roll album by Neil Young. It is largely a portrait of the Green family, a family that helped establish the town of Greendale and has long, historical roots to the area. The main focus, though, is 18-year-old Sun Green. A senior in high school at the start of the book, she is in the early stages of leaving things like classes and cheerleading behind for a bigger, more important lif [...]

I have been exposed to a lot of Neil Young, but Greendale is not something to which I've payed much attention. Sure, the record sits on my shelf, but have I really listened to the lyrics?I came across this book in the graphic novel section of my library. I've read a lot of graphic novels lately - good and bad - and I feel as though I have an educated feel as to what makes a graphic novel good or bad. Greendale falls on the better side of good. The book has expressive, effective illustrations. Sc [...]

This story had a concept that sounds cool. A pretty blonde girl develops mysterious green powers, a trait shared by the other women in her family. The story has a beginning, middle, and end, but what happens is so unremarkable, you're liable to forget it in a day. The main girl is your typical granola girl, doesn't eat meat, loves the trees, hates the establishment, particularly the war in Iraq, which is a world away since the setting is small town California. Unfortunately, it's obvious that Ne [...]

While centered in a mostly realistic setting, the story has enough elements of fantasy to put it in that category. This graphic novel, based on the album and film by musical legend Neil Young, is a strange story about an even stranger family. The Greens, after whom Greendale is named, have a tendency to produce odd, magical women who wander in and out of reality. The central character, Sun Green [the family tends toward odd names:] has problems of her own, and seems largely unaware of her own ma [...]

This is a puzzling and disappointing piece of work. While the concept is intriguing, and there's no doubt that the artwork is gorgeous, however, the story is two-dimensional at best, and struggles to find its footing. Given that this was based on a concept album by Neil Young, there was always the chance that there was bound to some pieces of puzzle lost in translation - especially given the less then stellar introduction by the very man himself, who says hesitatingly "I mean I made it up and I [...]

This was two shakes away from being a great graphic novel. I was really into the main character Sun Green, loved the folktale-esque nature of the Green's family history (is the family cursed? blessed?), the inter-personal relationships of said family, the mystical nature of the Green women, and found the supporting cast to all be wonderful. Close Thibodeaux really stood out, with her reaction to her husband's death being really excellent. I want a slice of life comic of her exploits like yesterd [...]

While I enjoyed this book the story just came across as too hippydippy,light & fluffy,let's all live on beans & rice libralist(this is coming from a man who's as far left of the political spectrum as you'll get without being a hardcore communist)I prefer my politics with alot more bite than this.V for Venndetta is a perfect example but Saga of The Swampthing (Moore's six book run)would be a far better example of environmentalist writing without feeling like your being force fed an ideolo [...]

Hace relativamente poco me propuse no leer obras adaptadas (o ver, en el caso de películas o dibujitos) sin reparar antes en la versión original. Y en este caso, como ya hice cientos de veces en mi vida, rompí la regla para leerme esta adaptación (de una película, que a su vez está basada en un disco conceptual de Neil Young, de quien recuerdo haber escuchado poco y nada) porque el dibujo me resultaba muy bonito y el título llamativo. No estuvo mal, pero me quedó alguna sensación de "al [...]

I had a hard time taking this book seriously. Its hippy-dippy message isn't one I disagree with, per se, but Neil Young's technique, whether translated here or, I'm sure, in the various other incarnations this project has taken, just strikes me as antiquated, from the nature-inspired names (Sun, Sea, Luna, etc.) through to the "Sympathy for the Devil" villain. Still, the comic is a pretty easygoing read. The plot is well-handled by Josh Dysart, and the artwork by Cliff Chiang and Dave Stewart ne [...]