Classics Illustrated #11: The Devil's Dictionary

In this perfect pairing of classics and cartoon visuals, nineteenth-century works by the cynical and witty Bierce are adapted by Gahan, a longtime New Yorker contributor of ghoulish imagery. The sly and effective tour includes definitively arch views, such as Labor shown as a stickup, then moves into a bloody but still comical vision of the short stories The Boarded Window and The Imperfect Conflagration, in which a patri- and matricidal narrator is one-upped by an asbestos bookcase. Among the best of the revamped Classics Illustrated series to date and a proper, though not for the faint of heart, introduction to Bierce. Grades 8-12. --Francisca Goldsmith