Long and Short of It

Long Story Short: 100 Classic Books in Three Panels
​ by Lisa Brown

Literature is long. Comics are short.

Long ago, somewhere between the age when dinosaurs roamed the earth and the advent of Walkman cassettes, I discovered Richard Armour’s The Classics Reclassified. Armour's tongue-in-cheek synopsis of literary standards such as The Iliad, Julius Caesar, and Ivanhoe are awash with witty observations, puns, and a plentiful side of silliness. An example is this title and subtitle "The Scarlet Letter: An A for effort."
​I enjoyed that slim volume and would carry it around, quoting it to anyone who would listen.

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​Long Story Short has gone one better. Actually, it's one hundred better with pithy summaries of classic  literature ranging from Dante's The Inferno and Beowulf to contemporary classics such as Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Hinton's The Outsiders, a groundbreaking YA novel for young adults. Lisa Brown also skewers beloved children's books: Harriet the Spy, Charlotte's Web, and *gasp* Harry Potter. 
Here's what stands out: Brown condenses the larger works into a comic format, with about three jaw-dropping panels for each title.  Think newspaper comic strip/Cliffs Notes mash-ups. It's amazing.

The abridged comics are organized into thematic sections: "Big Thoughts," "Epic," "Female Trouble," "War is Hell," "(Un)Happy Families," "The Horror," "Jeepers! Creepers!" "Friends and Frenemies," "Love,"  "Sex," and "Death." 
​Back matter includes a one-page guide on How to Write Your Own Three-Panel Book, Index by Title and Index by Subject.

This is a book for those with a literary bent. Readers familiar with these titles will appreciate Brown's wit and her remarkable ability to distill a magnum opus into a few cleverly drawn panels. Well drawn. Well done.

Uncorrected copy provided by publisher.

​Pub date: April 7, 2020  Publisher: Algonquin Books  ISBN: 978-1616205034