Review: The Green Living Guy by Seth Leitman

A timely graphic novel about the need for living sustainably to preserve the future, The Green Living Guy by Seth Leitman is an accessible introduction to protecting the planet.

Supported by a team of eco-warriors around the world, the Green Living Guy helps communities and individuals understand the impacts and opportunities of sustainable living. From making shifts in your individual life and purchasing sustainable products to the large-scale changes in energy generation and international attitudes towards the environment, this is a quick, colorful, and broad review of what we need for a greener planet.

Reminiscent of Captain Planet and his team of youthful sidekicks, the titular hero shares his love for the natural world and teaches about sustainable choices wherever he goes, while combating the evil influence of the Ozone Boys, who love pollution, plastic, and poisoning our planet. Armed with knowledge, technology, and hope for the future, the GLG and his crew of educators and activists aim to change the world one mind at a time.

The clear and critical message of shifting society’s behaviors and choices towards sustainable alternatives is essential, but the execution of this graphic novel could use improvement. While writing for a younger audience does require more simplistic language and broad-brush explanations of complex topics, there is room for significantly more depth on certain subjects, such as wind energy and electric vehicles. Traditional comic books do not necessarily have the limited prose and dialogue as exhibited here, so the writing feels at times like a collection of slogans than a true exploration of these vital topics. Certainly, this approach can get through to easily distracted children, but the information is often more spare than necessary.

The text is also somewhat disorganized, jumping back and forth between wind power, solar panels, reforestation efforts, and other pollution issues. Alternating between the narrative perspective of the Ozone Brothers and The Green Living Guy without clear distinction can confuse the messaging as well – the bad guys talk about pollution and unsustainable choices as good things, while the GLG talks about them as bad things, but the line gets blurry more than once. Additionally, there are stray editorial issues, such as the description of air pollution as “making it harder to breathe” being used twice in quick succession.

Visually, the book is professionally done, with the GLG feeling like an authentic superhero, and the Ozone Boys seeming like well-established villains. There is something of a copy/paste approach, where characters’ facial expressions and body positions are repeated on different pages, but the characters themselves harken back to classic comic book illustrations. However, the coloring book feature, which occupies the entire second half of the text, is an uncolored version of the comic, and feels somewhat limiting, as some of the story’s frames have small details that could be quite difficult for a child to color. Enlarging specifically chosen frames for full-page coloring activities would be a better offering for young readers.

While some editorial improvements would make this graphic novel more impactful, the essential message is noble, enlightening, and deserves to be heard.