Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Some time before a felt frog named Kermit became his creative voice, the late, beloved Henson was an experimental filmmaker, exploring themes of identity and the existential quest. One of his unfilmed screenplays has now been lavishly produced in comic form, hinting at the latent artistic promise of one of the great imaginations of the last century. An unnamed man is sent into the desert with a map that he is admonished not to trust. He encounters a number of surreal situations humorous and disturbing by turns as he runs from a sword-wielding Arab and a football player who speaks in playbook Xs and Os, and finally into a showdown with the aristocratic, goateed man who might be behind all of his troubles. The whole story is visualized by the vastly talented Perez, who composes clean-lined figures and environments set in staccato panel formations, employs a shifting single-toned color scheme, and plays with long stretches of silence and exaggerated sound effects. While he honors Henson and creative partner Juhl's vision by bringing such a sense of experimental cinema to the page, Perez has also subverted many expectations of sequential art to remind us how the format remains vibrant and ripe with possibility.--Karp, Jesse Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
It's not a new observation that life is simply an endless struggle with A) death and B) oneself, but here it is realized with graphic brilliance. A man named Mac enjoys an ebullient welcome from the populace of a small desert town until the sheriff sends him away with a knapsack, map, ten minutes' lead time, and two recommendations: if he can get to Eagle Mountain, he'll be safe; and don't trust the map. Clearly, Mac shouldn't trust anything else, either, since an avalanche of surrealistic, often comic near-disasters follows, e.g., knife-wielding Arabs, a football team, a lion, and explosions aplenty, all seemingly masterminded by a mysterious eye-patched fellow and his chilly blond friend. This adaptation of an unproduced screenplay by the late Henson and his writing parter Juhl (who died in 2005), combined with Perez's realistic art, entrains the eye with a beautiful, nearly wordless collage of colorful panels. Indeed, the trip is so fascinating that the destination may surprise, though it might be obvious in retrospect. VERDICT This startling glimpse into Henson's psyche draws on themes from his films (The Cube; Timepiece; Labyrinth) for a dramatic and existential reading experience. Recommended for adult and sophisticated teen fans of literary black humor.-M.C. (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
