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Urban Legendz

Nick Bruno,

Paul Downs

Michael Yates (Illustrations)

3.47 · Rating details · 34 ratings · 10 reviews

After his mother's death, teen Dwayne is forced to uproot himself and move into the home where his mother grew up: a shabby apartment in Brooklyn. Overshadowed by his socially salient older brother, and pressured by his policeman father, Dwayne often feels out of place, a sentiment that is only intensified in these unfamiliar surroundings. Before too long, however, his ...more

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Hardcover, 112 pages

Published June 11th 2019 by Big

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Average rating 3.47 ·

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· 34 ratings · 10 reviews

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Jul 17, 2019 Astrid Galactic rated it really liked it

Tales of the big city involving flying gargoyles, giant rats, monster bed bugs, toilet alligators, territorial gangs, urban renewal and political intrigue is the stuff that urban legends are made of in a new kids comic book entitled Urban Legendz. Paul Downs,Nick Bruno and Michael Yates have joined forces to create a an urban story about a group of good, yet troubled, kids in Brooklyn, New York who join forces to fight off an array of monsters destroying people within their community.

Our story Tales of the big city involving flying gargoyles, giant rats, monster bed bugs, toilet alligators, territorial gangs, urban renewal and political intrigue is the stuff that urban legends are made of in a new kids comic book entitled Urban Legendz. Paul Downs,Nick Bruno and Michael Yates have joined forces to create a an urban story about a group of good, yet troubled, kids in Brooklyn, New York who join forces to fight off an array of monsters destroying people within their community.

Our story starts when young Dwayne (D for short), his teenage brother Curtis and his police officer father move from their home in Indiana to live with their Grandma Ri who is the mother of their recently departed mother. The plan is to live with her in her apartment in Brooklyn, New York until they are able to get themselves situated in their new city. This is not an easy move for the family, especially for Dwayne who is still very much grieving over the loss of his mother as well as having to be uprooted from his home in Middle America.

Despite his unhappiness about the move, Dwayne manages to quickly become friends with a small group of kids his age who each have their own personal troubled lives to deal with. Together, they provide comradery, safety and support for each other as they then team up to tackle the monsters of urban legend fame which are now terrorizing their hometown.

Urban Legendz is a beautifully hardcover bound comic book with nice colorful thick pages meant to delight its readers and withstand lots of usage for many reads in its lifetime. You could say that it's kid proof and should hold up well in a school or public library. Or just a sturdy book that would be a nice addition for a family library.

The illustrations are highly professional and fitting for the story. In fact, the book itself, to me, felt like I was reading a refined storyboard for an animation feature film that the publishers are using to promote a future movie release or hoping to drum up enough excitement to get funding in order to do so.

My only real issues with the book involves the story itself. Though a great idea that starts out well enough, ultimately, I felt like it started out well, moved along okay, but then left a lot off the table once we got towards the end. It came off to me as all set up with very little substance once the monsters were defeated and various town issues were supposedly resolved. In fact, I never felt like the town issues were resolved at all. Nothing but a little spin that affected some family issues only slightly while the real housing developers too easily moved along, as in, business as usual. Regarding the book, the last third felt like a rush job just to get to the end before they ran out of paper. It wasn't a major flaw and I doubt a child would notice, but it left me feeling like some important details were missing.

The book is rated as being for ages 12-18 and for grade levels 7 and up. Personally, I'm leaning towards thinking that's a bit high. Depending on the maturity of the child, reading skills and personal fear factors, I would think that it would be more 8-14 and from grade 3 and up. It's fairly easy reading with a storyline that is moderately developed. A younger child would need some help with some of the words but the illustrations would have them excited enough to want to go through the book over and over so that they would easily enough learn those words that are newer to them. Unless the reader has a love of comic books, I would think that it's much too juvenile for one 15 and older.

This would make for a nice gift for a young reader especially if they have an interest in urban lifestyles, monsters or a fascination with comic books. Probably more appealing to boys but don't assume that the girls wouldn't take to it just as easily.

As with any book you are planning to give to a young person, give it a good skim through before you decide to make sure it might interest them as well as it suiting your standards for what you feel is acceptable exposure. ...more

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Sep 14, 2019 Alyssa rated it really liked it

Shelves: graphic-novels, rimsba-2021

URBAN LEGENDZ is the start of what promises to be an awesome new graphic novel series. I love how Bruno is able to weave together grief, gentrification, father-son relationships, homelessness, and found family, in addition to giant alligators and sentient evil gargoyles. At its core this book is about Dwayne finding his people and reclaiming his life after losing his mother, and the friendship between him, Cashew, Mya, and Worm. I also LOVED how Bruno perfectly orchestrated the prep montage in ...more

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Nov 23, 2019 Kathleen rated it liked it

Shelves: giveaways

I enjoyed this graphic novel and I’m looking forward to the next installment. I think it was a good start to the series and I am eager to see what happens to the different characters. I would have liked to have learned more about each of the kids as well as Riff Raff in this book but I have a feeling the authors deliberately left a lot to explore as the series develops. If there had been more about the individuals or a slightly deeper focus on any one character I would have rated the book ...more

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Jul 08, 2019 Willa rated it it was ok

I learned to read from comic books when I was a kid. I'm afraid I wasn't really impressed by this. And I thought, perhaps it's just my age showing. I gave it to my teenage granddaughter and unfortunately she wasn't impressed either. She's more into Manga. We both agreed that it was better suited for maybe 13-15 year old boys.

There were a couple of places where it seemed hard to follow.

Redeeming Value: Shows friendships, cooperation with others. At the end it gave a little review of each ...more

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Sep 23, 2019 Ransom rated it it was ok

I won this in a Goodreads Giveaway. Although the concept was interesting, overall felt more like an early storyboard for a movie than a completed, cohesive graphic novel. I had trouble following some of the panels and there were some pretty significant plot holes than a young kid might be able to overlook, but some of images might be too scary for a kid that young. As a result, it's hard to know who exactly the target audience is.

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Aug 07, 2019 Jen rated it really liked it

Shelves: graphic-novels

The story is a little underdeveloped but it's still a good book for middle grade/teens. My affection for it on a personal level also runs pretty deep. And, maybe because the authors have a background in film animation, there are particular panels with really interesting ways of exploring depth of field the way that a camera would to emphasize dramatic effect/character emotions. <3

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Sep 03, 2019 Beth rated it liked it

Shelves: graphic-novels, children-s, read-in-2019

I liked the use of the urban legends- although it probably can get a little graphic for younger and more sensitive children (there's a lot of death and people getting eaten). Pretty entertaining, though, and I can see it being very popular.

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