As someone who reviews graphic novels, I saw my fair share of Steve Jobs biographies get churned out when the Apple co-founder passed away and Walter Isaacson’s book about Jobs hit the best-seller list. This one — Steve Jobs: Genius by Design — by Campfire Books (which puts out a lot of interesting graphic novels based on popular and obscure myths and stories) is nicely done, and could easily pique the interest of students who know a bit about Jobs but not enough to understand him as an innovator who suffered lots of failure before success.
The book follows Isaacson’s story closely, it seems to me, and the publishers are right to start out with a lengthy disclaimer, acknowledging that they were piecing together the story of Jobs’ life through multiple sources in a hopes “to celebrate his legacy.” And the book nicely balances the pros (Jobs’ much celebrated ability to see technology through the lens of design and use his gut instinct for development of ideas and products) and the cons (his early abandonment of his daughter and harsh treatments of employees and friends). As with other pieces, this book shows the complicated person Jobs was to the public (and probably even more complicated to those he was close to in private).
Campfire also has posted a preview of the book, which is handy for teachers when considering the purchase.
Peace (in the graphic novel),
Kevin
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