I liked the comprehensive look at Chaplin's life, motivations, and legacy, but there were a few misses. First, there was too much convenient exposition in the dialog, making the characters come off as unnatural. Second, the comic just presents two of Chaplin's major flaws (his anger with collaboration and worse his tendency for statutory rape) as normal (or the filtered through Chaplin's point of view) and therefore seems to diminish them.

This biography of Charlin Chaplin was so interesting! I didn't know much about him, just the TV shows I've watched as a kid and the fact that he was funny
It came as a surprise that he was a human being. I know, shocker
But he was su h a genius and his life was so interesting. Written in a comic book like this one, I felt it emphasized his character and his personality so well!

The history of Charlie Chaplin was a good mini read the flow was good and was easy to follow.
Thank you netfalley for a chance to read this book

Oh my! I can't stop reading this, and finished the comics in one go. What a life!

Being as funny as Charlie Chaplin, I never knew how genius he is, or how he builds his dreams. All I know is some funny guy who played mute black and white films. But his life is so interesting, written in the form of a comic book like such.

Born in a family of entertainer, but leading a hard life, made Chaplin strive more. With a need to give his mom a better life, Charlie never stopped acting and creating. Combined with his ideas, this genius practically never stops, sacrificing his love life.

I'm slightly late to post my review for this, since I read it a few weeks ago - but work has been crazy.

However, I still think that this was a great biographical graphic novel. The graphics, text and colours were stunning and I 100% learnt more about Charlie Chaplin that I knew from 30 years of hearing about him in passing and watching reruns of some of his later works. It's easy to see why his work was so adored, though I was sad to hear that his life was turned upside down from such a young age.

Personally, I'd love to see more biography style graphic novels as they are such a vivid and interesting way to learn about prominent figures of the past.

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. Graphic novels about famous people are a great way to learn and enjoy the story at the same time. I learned a lot about Chaplin and his life, though kids might not know who he is.

I thought this was such an interesting take on the life of the movie legend Charlie Chaplin and his rise and fall in fame. How he grew up in England and needed to help his mother when he got older all the way to Hollywood and his Tramp days. I love the art style of this story.

I don't think I'd ever heard much about Charlie Chaplin other than that he was a silent film star. And I'd never really wondered about his history. His life story is far more tragic than I'd have guessed. His mother's illness, their poverty, repeated abandonment. Honestly, it's surprising that he went into acting, especially comedy, with such a history. One would expect it to have warped him. But he seemed to come through it a better person, strong and independent. And it was that independence that drove him to fight for his rights as an actor and to start his own company. The highly cartoony style is sometimes at odds with the dark, serious tone of the events but that actually works in its favor. A solid, compelling read.

What caught my interest about this graphic novel was the main character: Charlie Chaplin. I already knew some bits of his personal history and loved some of his films and was, therefore, extremely eager to know more.

I also loved the use of comics as a medium for a biography, especially when the events narrated took place several decades ago. The art just makes it easier to fully picture life in the early 1900s.

However, I think the authors did not do a great job in telling this story. The idea was interesting, but the performance was poor. The life of Charlie Chaplin was so peculiar, full, complicated as only the life of a genius can be, and it surely could not all be contained in 88 pages.

Instead, it looks like the authors wanted, indeed, to put every single episode of Chaplin’s life in their novel. The result was a mixture of episodes without a strict connection between them, as if we were forwarding a movie and only catch a glimpse of only certain parts.

As I said, the art was great and the idea behind this project was great, but, in my opinion, the result was not that great.

I want to thank Europe Comics and NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I had a hard time putting this graphic novel down. This graphic novel did a great job bringing all the good and bad times of this actor to life. We see them grow up, have kids and try to do new things as they get older. Yet through it all they continue to make people around the world laugh. As this graphic novel comes to a close, we see this actor get a wonderful honor. Fans of this comedian will want to check this graphic novel out.

Biographical comics can only be a good as the life they are telling, and there is at least one advantage in doing Chaplin that it is a long life full of incident. The problem is that the incident is often quite disparate, and has little narrative cohesion. The book here is split pretty clearly into three thirds, childhood (misery and discovering talent), The early Tramp years (interesting but Chaplin slowly becoming increasingly dislikable), and the rest of his life - lots of philandering, marrying young girls and his political problems in the USA. The book takes as read that he was a genius so therefore has to try and tiptoe around "Bad Charlie", Paulette Goddard in particular is given short shrift, But hey, this is a French project translated into English - there is a sniff of "Thank Heavens For Little Girls" across the work.

In plain terms it succeeds in telling the broad strokes of Chaplin's life, and as a visual medium manages to get across some of the appeal of the Tramp. The likenesses are sketchy though, there is a certain European art style (small noses - serious) where most of the faces are pretty similar within their age range - luckily once the Tramp moustache goes on Charlie is easy to identify. But it needs a lot of expository work to note Gloria Swanson, Douglas Fairbanks or Mary Pickford - all of whom look a lot more generic than their famous faces would demand. There is also no real attempt to capture much of the dynamism of the characters, there are panels where they talk about Kid Auto Races, but never show it properly, and there are very few signature Chaplin visuals captured here (the only obvious one is the shoe eating from the Gold Rush). Showing the giant cogs to illustrate the cost of the the production of Modern Times is fine, but why wouldn't you also show the shot they were built for., The expository dialogue is pretty non-stop too - the opening panel is someone reading out loud "Today, April 16th 1889, the wife of Mr Charles Chaplin gave birth to a handsome baby boy!" - and continues very much in that vein. It ends up a bit like a less funny Horrible Histories, name dropping and fact dropping through the piece.

Its an interesting project, but despite decent art and hitting all of the notes, it cannot really explain why Chaplin became such a huge star (this is not a problem restricted to this book, it is a broader issue as we move away from his moment of global celebrity). This 80 page graphic biography will be useful as a primer to his life, and I doubt there is anything factually wrong here. But I am not quite sure who it is for, and if you will learn more reading this than a scan of the Chaplin Wikipedia page.

[NetGalley ARC]

The Stars of History: Charlie Chaplin is a great graphic novel following the famous actor.

I think this is a great way to introduce some famous people to those who haven't heard of them before. Charlie Chaplin's life is truly interesting to follow. The man grew up in poverty and became one of the most famous actors of all time. He's a legend, and this book shows some truly hilarious scenes in its illustrations to show you how amazing he is.

I wish there was more of his life. His life is very tumultuous and he wasn't always the nicest person. I felt like this story went into the good more than the bad. I also feel like not everything in the book was exampled in the best possible way. I wasn't sure who some of the people were, which made reading it a little annoying. But then some of this book explained too much what was going on when you literally have pictures showing you... It was odd.

I do think it's great to use graphic novels to share non-fiction tales though. Biographies being graphic novels is one of my new favourites!

Two out of five stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Europe Comics for providing me a free copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.

4 our of 5 stars - If you ask me, I'll tell you to read it.

I learned a lot about Charlie Chaplin that I never knew while reading this graphic novel. It was clear that Charlie started out with a hard life, but he was able to pull himself up and become the star he is now known to be. I also had no idea about how he was treated through the trials of McCarthyism.

I really enjoyed learning more, and perhaps I will look into the autobiography that is mentioned!

Thanks to NetGalley and Europe Comics for a copy of this book!

Perfect story to learn about one famous man! I liked how the story was told and the pictures were very pleasing to look at. Whether you are a Charlie Chapman fanatic or just someone looking to learn more about him, this graphic novel is for you!

"I received a complimentary copy of this book through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."
I love the use of graphic novels to draw in younger readers and engage them in topics that they might not normally pursue. This was well done.

I learned a ton about Charlie Chaplin that I didn’t know - the good (how successfully he worked his way up), the bad (how incredibly in poverty he was as a child), and the ugly (HOW many underage women was he gonna get pregnant, marry, and messy divorce with…?). This was so interesting and in many ways entertaining.

However, the pacing was absolutely awful. The story went through the life of Chaplin in 88 pages which meant that there were times when 2 years worth of content happened in the span of 2 panels. Or, people would awkwardly deliver lines explaining what happened in summary of the last 5 years. There was just something that didn’t work about the story in whole. Also, this book is not appropriate for my age group of students. I would say this is definitely an older high school level book with curse words and mentions of sex that should be considered.

All that said, I’m still very glad that I read this and I’m interested in reading even more about Chaplin.

I've always been interested in learning more about Chaplin's life.
In this great comic, I managed to get an overview of his childhood, his family relationships, his early career and I was even more curious to read some books about this character so iconic in our Lives.

Thank You NetGalley!

Swysen Bernard uses the graphic novel format to provide a relatable biography of Charlie Chaplin, the British movie star and director who used his character of The Little Tramp in so may ways. Bernard does not shy away from looking at the warts of the actor's legacy along with his triumphs and legacy. A nice concise biography.

I received an ARC digital version of this book from the publishers. This was a very detailed depiction of Charlie Chaplin’s life in the form of a graphic novel/ comic. It was an interesting and easy read. I finished it in one sitting, not wanting to stop reading.

The comic illustrations suited showing his life in a biographical style. However, I found the character illustrations hard sometimes to tell who was who when the time period jumped forwards and the characters aged. This made it a little confusing at times. The time periods could have been made clearer.

I didn’t know much about him before reading. I wasn’t aware of how problematic he was, or about his personal relationships and underage wives.
I liked that the book didn’t shy away from these problematic elements of Chaplin’s life and showed his flaws as well as his career triumphs.

This book has made me interested to learn more about Chaplin, as I only was aware of his silent films.

Thank you to NetGalley and Europe Comics for my copy of The Stars of History: Charlie Chaplin by Script by Bernard Swysen & art by Bruno Bazile, in exchange for an honest review. It published July 15, 2020.
I requested this book thinking that it would be a good read for my eight year old. However, I found it was more geared toward an older reader. I found the illustrations to be very well-done and the story to be very informative.
I think this would be a great gift for a little older than an eight year old, especially if they're interested in history!

I received an ARC through NetGalley from Europe Comics. This graphic novel memoir illustrates the life of Charlie Chaplin from childhood through death. The art was well done, but the text was heavy.. Charlie lived a long and ambitious life that I've always found quite interesting. This memoir was like reading the CliffNotes for his life and it left a lot of questions unanswered. We did get to see a loveable child evolve into a bit of a pretentious artist, but I would have preferred in this format if the author chose to focus on a specific time period with more respect for the format. Overall, it was ok for those wanting to learn about Charlie and be boosted to read more about him. Fine for a young adult audience, as they kindly glossed over his indiscretions in love.