Everest Climb Comic

A mountain climbing enthusiast has worked with an illustrator to create a comic book detailing his 1999 climb up the north face of Mt. Everest. It is a comic adaptation of his story book about the climb, called "The Highest Solitude." It isn't available commercially. 2000 copies were made and given away at an area city hall.

I thought the art looked pretty good from the few pages available on the site. (You can click on the panel on the right to enlarge it a little bit.) It sounds like the climb was quite excruciating. The writer/climber Joao Garcia experienced hallucinations and severe frostbite and one of his climbing partners fell to his death. It's unfortunate he didn't make this more widely available because I think it sounds interesting and wouldn't have minded reading a copy.

The only thing I didn't like about his comments was that he said the comic book is good for kids who are too lazy to read. Comics aren't only for lazy people, or lazy kids. Comics are good for kids who are threatened by reading, or children who are learning to read. Comics are good for people of any and all ages who want to experience visual stimuli in picture form while reading words. Sure, it reads fast, but that doesn't make it something that only the lazy enjoy. I don't think he meant it to sound quite so negative--I think he was trying to say that it might appeal to kids, even kids who don't like to read books.