Fallout: J. Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, and the Political Science of the Atomic Bomb - Softcover

Ottaviani's nonfiction graphic novel about the two most famous "dissident" creators of the atom bomb meets and in sophistication exceeds the standards set by Art Spiegelman's Maus (1991-92), Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner's Our Cancer Year (1994), and Rick Geary's series of nineteenth-century true-crime stories. Like Pekar and Brabner, Ottaviani writes the text and plans the layout of his books; the artwork he assigns to several hands, which results in a visual variety that adds complexity and interest. This practice well suits the entwined stories of Hungarian emigre physicist Szilard, who was politically concerned well before the Manhattan Project, and American physicist Oppenheimer, who became concerned primarily afterward, when his colleagues, especially Edward Teller, pushed development of the H-bomb. Some chapters are the primary work of one artist but contain insertions by another; for example, Jeff Parker draws "Work," about the final preparations and the test explosion at the site called Trinity, in a loose-lined style much like that of the movie storyboards he does for a living, but Janine Johnston's painterly, photographic style illustrates with chilling effectiveness the explosion and Oppenheimer's famous quotation of the Bhagavad Gita, "I am become death, destroyer of worlds." More daringly, in the chapter on Oppenheimer's hearing before he was denied security clearance in 1954 and dismissed from the Atomic Energy Commission, Ottaviani runs edited texts of letters between Oppenheimer and the hearing board and of the hearing's transcript and conclusions in columns parallel to Steve Lieber's panels, in which emotional tone is altered by simply changing the backdrop from white to black. Ottaviani's notes on his sources and his deviations from them and an annotated list of references round off this immensely impressive "comic book." Ray Olson
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Immensely impressive. (starred review) -- Booklist, January 2002