DC's Vertigo imprint has brought us numerous titles of extreme literary quality over the years, including Alan Moore's Watchmen, Neil Gaiman's Sandman, Garth Ennis' Preacher and a host of others. They still continue to publish works of an extraordinarily high caliber as is evidenced in the release this month of Luna Park.

Luna Park is the graphic novel debut of New York Times best-selling author Kevin Baker (Dreamland) and tells the story of Alik Strelnikov, a Russian immigrant living in New York and his historic struggle with violence, the mob and a nasty habit of history repeating itself. The book is wonderfully rendered by Danijel Zezelj and has a dream-like quality that suits the story in a way that sneaks up on you. The coloring by Hellboy regular Dave Stewart makes this a book that you want to pore over every frame for hours.

The title refers to a neon section of the now-closed Coney Island park, and is painted in such a way that seems both inviting and frightening at the same time. Between Zezelj's pencils and Stewart's colors, it's truly breathtaking. The story weaves tales from present- day New York and World War I Russia and culminates them into 1963 crescendo, and does so in a way that offers a kick in the gut when you finish reading. It comes together so well and is wrapped up so cleanly, that you're left wanting more in all the right ways and are left to do a lot of thinking. I'm still mulling over the story. It really stuck with me.

I quite enjoyed this book and hope that others looking to read a great novel in comic form would pick this up and give it a try.

-- Bryan Young, Editor, Big Shiny Robot, bigshinyrobot.com