Review: Chock Full of Fun and Subtle Talent
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 25, 2014
I do belive Elias Zapple has the potential to be a force to be reckoned with in the Preteen Market, his assassin slugs taking out rivals notwithstanding.  I mean, even his name is fun to say:  Zapple!  DUKE & MICHEL is a promising series of preteen adventures filled from mullet to sneakers with Zapple's signature humor (although the shock factor is much lower than the previous two publications I have read,Jellybean the DragonandElias Zapple's Rhymes from the Cabbage Patch).DUKE & MICHEL is heavily dialogue driven with constant mutual verbal digs at each other, very lifelike in respect to your typical 12 year old conversations, and quite "modernly literate" when it comes to current terms used.  Now there is one aspect a preteen may not appreciate fully, but one that I relished greatly. Zapple has an uncanny knack of duplicating regional dialects, making them distinct, understandable, and quite a fun study in itself.  Mark Twain once said that mimicking the accent of "backwater yokels" was the hardest literary achievement he had ever attempted, and Zapple does it here quite a few times, even down to a bit of rostifarian and skater lingo.  Who would have thought such talent was lurking in a preteen book!  Perhaps the BBC should contract him to write the Hearing Impaired Captions for "Little Britain".One last aside, another rather chuckle-causing subtlety is the use of Tony Hawk's name as a skater divinity,  "Thank Tony!"  Hah!