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25th out of 334 books
—
319 voters
Meanwhile
by
Jason Shiga
Chocolate or Vanilla? This simple choice is all it takes to get started with Meanwhile, the wildly inventive creation of comics mastermind Jason Shiga, of whom Scott McCloud said �Crazy + Genius = Shiga.” Jimmy, whose every move is under your control, finds himself in a mad scientist’s lab, where he’s given a choice between three amazing objects: a mind-reading device, a t...more
Hardcover, 80 pages
Published
March 1st 2010
by Harry N. Abrams
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What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream, chocolate or vanilla? This book addresses this age old question. Meanwhile by Jason Shiga is unlike any other book, and is not afraid to address questions that are not easy to answer. In this choose-your-own-adventure story, you are a boy faced with the puzzling question of chocolate or vanilla ice cream. After you get a stomachache from the ice cream, you meet a scientist and ask to use his bathroom. It turns out that the scientist has three inventions...more
From my blog at: http://brensbookstoread.blogspot.com/
Jimmy has a simple choice: chocolate or vanilla ice cream? But this one small choice leads to another, which leads to another. Before you know it, the entire world is at stake!
You, the reader, get to decide which path Jimmy takes, which machine he tries to use, how far back in time to go. With over 3000 possibilities, can you find a happy ending?
So, if you remember the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books for a while ago, this is exactly like t...more
Jimmy has a simple choice: chocolate or vanilla ice cream? But this one small choice leads to another, which leads to another. Before you know it, the entire world is at stake!
You, the reader, get to decide which path Jimmy takes, which machine he tries to use, how far back in time to go. With over 3000 possibilities, can you find a happy ending?
So, if you remember the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books for a while ago, this is exactly like t...more
Why did I read it?
It was suggested to me at a reader's advisory workshop last year, and I happened to see it on the shelf yesterday.
What happened?
Jimmy walks into an ice cream shop and has the choice of vanilla or chocolate ice cream. Sounds like the beginning of a normal book, right? Wrong! Have you ever read a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure novel? Well, this one is just like that...just on steroids and in graphic novel form.
Shiga pretty much gives you complete control of what happens in this novel...more
It was suggested to me at a reader's advisory workshop last year, and I happened to see it on the shelf yesterday.
What happened?
Jimmy walks into an ice cream shop and has the choice of vanilla or chocolate ice cream. Sounds like the beginning of a normal book, right? Wrong! Have you ever read a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure novel? Well, this one is just like that...just on steroids and in graphic novel form.
Shiga pretty much gives you complete control of what happens in this novel...more
When I first glanced at this in the library, I had a nerd-attack at the sheer genius of it. I mean, choose your own adventure COMIC?!?! However, after the first maybe, five endings, I got bored. I'm sorry! The thing about this book is that it's actually quite tricky to read the panels and follow the order of the story, and once you do get the hang of it, you have to start from page one to start over because virtually every single time because, unlike Choose Your Own Adventure books, the page tab...more
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This book is incredibly trippy - in a good way. It's kind of a Choose Your Own Adventure in graphic novel format featuring time travel, entropy, quantam physics, and a doomsday device. It starts out innocently enough - do you want chocolate or vanilla ice cream? Choose which path you want to take and follow the tubes to the correct tab, which takes you to another page where the story continues. Various other choices along the way cause the story to split yet again, revealing a story that grows s...more
Man I was so excited when I saw this book. I have been wanting to make a choose-you-own-adventure graphic novel for years. Meanwhile, Jason Shiga was out doing it. One-upmanship aside, this is a pretty interesting book. I would have doe it a little differently, but for a groundbreaking genre, it's quite fun. There are some weird twists, strange characters, it even gets a little meta (and we all love that, don't we?) I'll admit it, I cheated, but I got through all the endings. I stops making sens...more
Reason for Reading: This is a Cybils '10 nominee and required reading for me as a graphic novels panelist.
Well, this *is* a book but a very unique one. You've never seen anything like this before: plastic pages with tabs all along the edges and tubes that run up, down, right, left and all over the place. In fact, this is more like playing a game than reading a book. You start out with the choice of chocolate or vanilla ice cream and from there on every choice you make changes the story and the p...more
Well, this *is* a book but a very unique one. You've never seen anything like this before: plastic pages with tabs all along the edges and tubes that run up, down, right, left and all over the place. In fact, this is more like playing a game than reading a book. You start out with the choice of chocolate or vanilla ice cream and from there on every choice you make changes the story and the p...more
Fun interactive Choose-Your-Own-Adventure type book that was made possible with a computer. Some options led you to mind-blowing story developments. It took me a couple of hours to go through every option and real all the panels and get the story straight. Highly recommended.
Interesting information from the edition notice:
Meanwhile began as a series of seven increasingly complex flowcharts. Because of asymmetries in the branching, a special notation had to be invented for the final three chart...more
THIS IS THE CRAZIEST CHOOSE-YOUR-OWN-WHATEVER YOU WILL EVER READ.
Jason Shiga is a genius and a madman. Branching-plot comics have been done before from time to time, but never to any great success and with no real innovation. Here, the innovation is in the reading experience itself: Instead of reading one page, then turning to a different page - as in most CYOA-type books - it's the comics panels themselves that twist and turn, with the reader's direction of flow guided by a series of pipes. Whe...more
Jason Shiga is a genius and a madman. Branching-plot comics have been done before from time to time, but never to any great success and with no real innovation. Here, the innovation is in the reading experience itself: Instead of reading one page, then turning to a different page - as in most CYOA-type books - it's the comics panels themselves that twist and turn, with the reader's direction of flow guided by a series of pipes. Whe...more
OK, so I didn't read it all. But give this visual Choose Your Own Adventure to anyone who loves math, mazes, and/or comics. The choice between chocolate and vanilla spins out into 3,856 story possibilities, many of which end in doom. This will keep you occupied for a while.
I don't even understand this note in the front: "Once the outline of the story was structured, a computer algorithm was written to determine the most efficient method to transfer it to book form. However, the problem proved t...more
I don't even understand this note in the front: "Once the outline of the story was structured, a computer algorithm was written to determine the most efficient method to transfer it to book form. However, the problem proved t...more
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Quantum physics, parallel worlds, probability, entropy. Yes it's all in a day's work for your average everyday choose your own adventure book. Now just substitute the words "average" and "everyday" in that previous sentence for "extraordinary" and "twisted" and you've got yourself a pretty good description of Jason Shiga's graphic title Meanwhile. Simple enough in its concept and art that a ten-year-old would feel confident picking it up, yet jam packed with an insane degree of whimsy and darkne...more
Combine a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book with a graphic novel and you have this book. Open the book and you are immediately stopped and the format is explained. Follow the tubes, they move in all directions, and you get the chance to make all sorts of choices. The first choice you have is ice cream: chocolate or vanilla. That small decision sets you off on an adventure that could involve a time machine, entropy or even immortality. The choice is yours. Chocolate or vanilla?
Shiga has taken the be...more
Shiga has taken the be...more
About the Book: It all starts with a simple question-what flavor of ice cream, chocolate or vanilla? From there Jimmy is sent on the adventure of the reader's choice. Follow the paths and see where they lead.
GreenBeanTeenQueen Says: I have been excited to read this one since I saw a starred review in Booklist. The premise intrigued me-a choose your own adventure comic? I had to check it out.
Meanwhile is the most inventive and creative book I have come across in a long time. I don't know how Ja...more
GreenBeanTeenQueen Says: I have been excited to read this one since I saw a starred review in Booklist. The premise intrigued me-a choose your own adventure comic? I had to check it out.
Meanwhile is the most inventive and creative book I have come across in a long time. I don't know how Ja...more
My experience with Meanwhile was sort of an inverted parabola. I entered into it with a great deal of excitement (having been swept to great heights by FLEEP and Bookhunter. So what is that? A parabola that starts high on the Y axis? Screw it, we'll just leave that analogy behind all together). Anyway, I was excited. Then I entered and beheld the lay out--the ingenious pipe system that not only defied all comic layout background knowledge but also utilized a tab system that doesn't allow you to...more
My friend Anne picked this book up one day at Comic Con, and I was so enchanted by it, I had to go get one for myself! And we lucked out, because the day we went back to the booth to get me one was the day Jason Shiga was there, signed his books and chatting. He is a cool, friendly guy, with a crazy-smart brain in his head. He has my new favorite collection - vintage choose-your-own-adventure books! This collection was clearly his inspiration for this book, which just so happens to be coolest ch...more
Plot Summary:
So the book "Meanwhile" is a graphic novel that is a form of choose your own adventure. I can only explain the story I chose! So a young kid goes to the ice cream store and picks chocolate ice cream to eat. He gets sick on his way home and has to stop to use the restroom. He stops at a science lab of an old inventer that has a doomsday device, a memory reader, and a time travel device. I read the professors memory, then chose not to time travel because he would only let the little b...more
So the book "Meanwhile" is a graphic novel that is a form of choose your own adventure. I can only explain the story I chose! So a young kid goes to the ice cream store and picks chocolate ice cream to eat. He gets sick on his way home and has to stop to use the restroom. He stops at a science lab of an old inventer that has a doomsday device, a memory reader, and a time travel device. I read the professors memory, then chose not to time travel because he would only let the little b...more
It is very rare that a book comes along with a completely different way of telling a story. This book does that and does so largely successfully. The linear nature of time is cleverly looped back on itself, as is time's potentially branching nature. And, the story is hard to imagine being told in any other way than the way it is (by following a maze of lines through cells of comic book art).
I also greatly enjoyed the stories exploration of entropy and the "best of all possible worlds paradox" (...more
I also greatly enjoyed the stories exploration of entropy and the "best of all possible worlds paradox" (...more
Jason Shiga is a UC Berkeley grad. His degree? Pure mathematics. That should give you an indication of what sort of craziness is in store for you, for, lo, this is a Choose Your Own Adventure comic book.
You go get some ice cream. Your first decision? Chocolate or vanilla. Follow the path for boring old vanilla, and your story ends in boringness. Choose chocolate, however, and you find yourself at the home of a mad scientist with a time machine, a memory-reading machine, and, uh, the Killitron 20...more
You go get some ice cream. Your first decision? Chocolate or vanilla. Follow the path for boring old vanilla, and your story ends in boringness. Choose chocolate, however, and you find yourself at the home of a mad scientist with a time machine, a memory-reading machine, and, uh, the Killitron 20...more
Shiga deserves a gold star for having the brain power to conceptualise this book. Who would have thought that the old-hat choose your own adventure could receive such a wonderful face lift?!
This book is fun to the max. The very nature of it makes you run your finger along the page to find where you're going and the panels are all paced well so that every time you turn a page, the anticipation of how your choices have guided the story is compelling and exciting.
There's something very active abou...more
This book is fun to the max. The very nature of it makes you run your finger along the page to find where you're going and the panels are all paced well so that every time you turn a page, the anticipation of how your choices have guided the story is compelling and exciting.
There's something very active abou...more
A quirky, fun graphic novel that works much like the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series except with illustrations. The story starts out with young Jimmy picking out an ice-cream cone: vanilla or chocolate. Most threads take him to an experimental laboratory, in which you get to pick what crazy invention Jimmy plays with and how. Each invention leads to a different set of options----some like the time machine loop you around and bring you back while others take you on very different pathways. Som...more
If you liked (or still like) Choose Your Own Adventure books, you have to check this one out. It's a choose your own adventure in graphic novel form, and I couldn't put it down until I had made it through to every ending.
It starts off with a simple choice, vanilla or chocolate ice cream but then branches off into wild directions when you meet a scientist with a time machine, a psychic helmet, and a machine that ends all life on the planet. Each choice branches you off onto a different path, some...more
It starts off with a simple choice, vanilla or chocolate ice cream but then branches off into wild directions when you meet a scientist with a time machine, a psychic helmet, and a machine that ends all life on the planet. Each choice branches you off onto a different path, some...more
Moms shouldn't choose their son's books, and this is why. While flipping through this book made me a bit dizzy and confused, my son devoured it in one day, and has read it over and over again.
It's a choose-your-own adventure comic book - and even cooler than it sounds, if such a thing is possible.
I have to admit, if I saw Meanwhile in the bookstore, I would have picked it up, not understood it, and walked out without buying it...and my son would have missed out on this great reading experience....more
It's a choose-your-own adventure comic book - and even cooler than it sounds, if such a thing is possible.
I have to admit, if I saw Meanwhile in the bookstore, I would have picked it up, not understood it, and walked out without buying it...and my son would have missed out on this great reading experience....more
1.This book belongs to the graphic novel genre for junior books.
2.This choose your own adventure comic book allows the reader to take the main character, Jimmy, through any given adventure. Jimmy ends up in a mad scientist’s lab where the reader has the choice to send him on an adventure with a Killtron, a time machine, or a memory exchanger. The adventures in the story are truly limitless with over 3,865 possible stories!
3. Critique:
A) The choose your own story aspect of this graphic novel is...more
MEANWHILE is a graphic novel involving a time machine and some other dangerous inventions. The book is interactive -- the reader chooses the path of the story by following tubes from page to tabbed page. The mechanism is ingenious, mind-blowing, and hard to describe. Here's a video in which a fan demonstrates how the book works.
The book's structure alone makes it worth reading, but it also has an engaging story, or rather, a multitude of stories. Little Jimmy happens upon an inventor's lab and i...more
The book's structure alone makes it worth reading, but it also has an engaging story, or rather, a multitude of stories. Little Jimmy happens upon an inventor's lab and i...more
This book is kind of maddening, but in a good way. It's basically a choose-your-adventure, which means you'll be going back again and again to see the different paths, repeating yourself again... and again... and again. Because of the design of this book, it's not as easy as remembering that you've already "turned to page 96," so you may and will repeat paths a lot, and it will become frustrating. Eventually I "cheated" and located all the paths I had not seen (which was not a lot, at least), ba...more
Holy awesome. I always felt kind of meh about choose your own adventure books (there are only so many storylines that end in certain death and still keep me interested), but this is way. way. cooler. Ever read a choose your own adventure comic book? Especially one with 3,856 possible path possibilities? With multiple storylines that run on the same page and secret hidden pages that can only be accessed with a code? In fact, I feel kind of weird saying that I've "read" this book, seeing as I prob...more
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Un OVNI dans ma collection, voici ce qu'est Vanille ou Chocolat. A première vue, il s'agit d'une simple bande dessinée dont vous êtes le héros. Oui, mais non.
On pourrait presque lui trouver des allures d'expérience scientifico-informatique. Pourquoi ? Par la multitude des choix proposés, par son propos, qui flirte avec les mondes parallèles, les paradoxes temporelles, la physique quantique, et par sa forme, aussi originale qu'ingénieuse.
On se perd parfois dans l'histoire, on doit recommencer, et...more
On pourrait presque lui trouver des allures d'expérience scientifico-informatique. Pourquoi ? Par la multitude des choix proposés, par son propos, qui flirte avec les mondes parallèles, les paradoxes temporelles, la physique quantique, et par sa forme, aussi originale qu'ingénieuse.
On se perd parfois dans l'histoire, on doit recommencer, et...more
Meanwhile by Jason Shiga is an amazing graphic novel that allows you to chose your own adventure and create the story as you go. There are 3,856 possibilities that range from a normal day, time travel, and even the complete annihilation of the human race. All of this starts with the simple choice between chocolate or vanilla ice cream. You choose your fate through a series of tabs and lines that direct you through different pictures and pages. This creative book is a short read and is great for...more
I can't really say that I finished it, because I wanted to discover even more paths before I returned it to the library. This book starts out as a simple choice: vanilla or chocolate? Pick either one (view spoiler), and your adventure begins! I would suggest this book to anyone who wants a zany adventure. I would also suggest this to be a summer book, since there are literally so many possibilities. Sometimes you'll find yourself going in circles, but overal...more
This was neat! I've never read a "choose your own ending" style graphic novel!
I don't think I read all of it by any means (I get impatient when it comes to all the different paths you can choose because I get sick of re-reading all the things I've already read 2834793742838 times trying to pick all the other options :-p haha) but it was fun following the paths throughout the book. Some paths led to the same storyline and others didn't. It was fun to flip around the book. This book was creative i...more
I don't think I read all of it by any means (I get impatient when it comes to all the different paths you can choose because I get sick of re-reading all the things I've already read 2834793742838 times trying to pick all the other options :-p haha) but it was fun following the paths throughout the book. Some paths led to the same storyline and others didn't. It was fun to flip around the book. This book was creative i...more
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Jason Shiga is an award-winning Asian American cartoonist from Oakland, California. Mr. Shiga's comics are known for their intricate, often "interactive" plots and occasionally random, unexpected violence. A mathematics major from the University of California at Berkeley, Mr. Shiga shares his love of logic and problem solving with his readers through puzzles, mysteries and unconventional narrative...more
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