Originally published March 30, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
Jade Bolton reviews Norman…
Norman is a typical eight-year-old, living in a little old house with his zombie uncle. A fan of horror movies, he seeks to recreate his favourite scenes starring his heroes: Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. As his next victims, Norman chooses his classmates, the new boy, Jeremy, and the local rich girl, Grace. As they join the ranks of the local missing children, Norman has to work hard to avoid discovery…
Stan Silas, the writer of ‘Murder in three lessons‘, has come up with a very funny and deeply chilling graphic novel with Norman.
From the first look at the cover, you might think this is a graphic novel for children but it is most definitely not. After finding out the story was going to be about an eight year old serial killer who kills his classmates, I was surprised and was preparing myself for something messed up maybe along the lines of Boys. I was pleasantly surprised that the further I read, it didn’t just get more gruesome but also became funnier and funnier.
When you first meet Norman he is stalking a poor defenceless child through the woods and you start to discover his love for recreating his favourite scenes from classic horror films, starring his heroes; Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. Norman also has a funny side-kick in the form of a little purple devil, which floats above his shoulder and tells him who to kill and how. As well as giving Norman advice he also likes to make him paranoid, causing him to think he’s going to get caught at every turn.
Delving deeper into the darkness of the comic you meet his alcoholic and psychotic teacher, who is constantly recovering from a hangover. She is either shouting at the children, physically abusing them or forcing the kids to do horribly embarrassing tasks. The comedy comes from the unusual bunch of children in the class, from the ‘rich, beautiful and smart’ to the ‘poor people’, which brings many laughs. The pages are full of great one liners too, such as “do poor people have birthdays?” being one of my favourites.
The way the novel is drawn really helps to highlight the comical parts; drawn to look like anime characters, Stan Silas really over exaggerates the expressions on the characters which makes it hilarious to read. Norman is a great graphic novel for people who are fans of horror films, there are references all throughout the novel from Scream to Friday the 13th.
If you are looking for a dark but comical read then Norman is for you!
Jade Bolton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ONsp_bmDYXc&list=PL18yMRIfoszFLSgML6ddazw180SXMvMz5
