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.

I did not know much about Charlie Chaplin prior to reading this, so starting out I found his story very intriguing and sad. It's not exactly a fault of the book, but I don't think I'm really a fan of the man after finishing this book. Honestly, I struggled a little to finish this mostly because I found Chaplon to be unlikable... As for the book itself, I really like the idea of graphic biographies, so that alone had my interest. The artwork is great, but sometimes the script felt clunky, things were explained in awkward ways as opposed to relying on the graphics to tell the story.

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.

I’ve watched the motion picture Chaplin many times. This graphic novelization of Charlie Chaplin’s life provided details that were neither in the movie nor known by me. Maybe they both played with his historical life. While this is in graphic form, many of the details of Chaplin’s life would not be appropriate for young school-aged children. Older high-school students MAY be able to appreciate his accomplishments, without focusing on the more “sordid” aspects of his life.

This is a very thorough and informative biography of Charlie Chaplin. I had no idea how hard his life was before he became famous.

The graphic novel format provided an interesting backdrop to show some of the hardships and triumphs that Chaplin faced in his life. .

I love the films starring The Tramp, but looking at Charlie Chaplin's life story I can't help but cringe. Somehow his pedophile behaviours were overshadowed by his genius, and he was hailed as a great person. Also he was a tyrant filmmaker, and he undermined other artists' creativity.

As for the graphic novel itself, all I can say is that the illustrations were great.

I already knew the story of Charlie Chaplin and his life; I was blessed to have a teacher in High School that loved all things movies and music and radio and in one his classes, we had a three week block of nothing but Chaplin. We watched his movies, talked about his life and then we each wrote a paper on him [this was just one of many "stars" we studied. I loved this class]. It was a very enlightening time as we also learned about "McCarthyism" and just how pervasive that was and how absolutely damaging it was to so many people.

This graphic novel was a wonderful refresher course for me and for anyone who wishes to learn about the great man, this is a stellar introduction to him and his life and films. The artwork by Bruno Bazile is top notch, as is the translation by Dan Christensen. I was thoroughly captivated throughout the whole read and would absolutely pass this on to any new [or old] film buff. I can only hope that this trio works together again as they really accomplished something wonderful here.

Thank you to NetGalley and Europe Comics for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have long been a fan of Chaplin so loved that this was published. The panel layout, colouring and story flow is really good. the graphics are superb.
The story takes us from the slums of London to Chaplins rise to fame in Hollywood, through his exile from the USA and his triumphant return.
This is a great graphic novel for fans of Chaplin and those that are unaware of his story. Hope there are more in the series

Of course I knew who Charlie Chaplin was - via his films and iconic imagery - particularly that of 'the tramp'. But I had no clue about his own personal story.
I found this book completely heartwarming, and heartbreaking. It's amazing that a graphic novel can make you feel so much! That's when you know it's special! (I've read so many books that don't grab me as emotionally as this graphic novel did!!)

Whether you're a fan of Chaplin or not, I think any film lover would enjoy this - and learn a lot too!

I can see this graphic novel staying with me for a long time!

The superstar Charlie Chaplin is favourite of each soul who loves comedy. And many of us do know about his struggle from his birth to being a superstar of the silent-film era. I too have read his biography earlier but I still chose to read this book as this was the first to have it in a comic form.

The Stars of History: Charlie Chaplin.
This is a graphic novel which illustrates the biography of the Legend, Charlie Chaplin. This book is a part of a series of biographies of some famous people being published by Europe Comics.

The book is a nice bound of the dialogues and illustrations. Each artwork perfectly fits the plot of the script. The language is kept simple and easy to understand. But yes as each character doesn't have a unique description it gets confusing at times. Other than that the book is nice. And I will try some other from this series.

Thank you Netgalley and Europe Comics for the Review Copy.

I received an e-copy of this graphic novel memoir from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

As the last page says, "Charlie Chaplin is no more, but the tramp will live on forever, crossing generations like he crossed continents, with over eighty films to his credit". Charlie Chaplin is a legend even in 2020. Throughout my life, I have seen his films and many people my age would also only have to hear his name to know he created silent films. While I didn't realise the character was called the tramp, his easy to bring to mind.

Seeing Chaplin's story from birth to death was interesting. He didn't have it easy, at all! His father was a drunk who didn't care, his mother was penniless trying everything she could to bring money in to house and feed her sons, Sydney and Charles, and eventually was hospitalised as she began to 'lose her mind'. Charlie's career seemed to properly start when he joined Fred Karno's troupe. Karno's troupe took him to America and Chaplin began to direct his own films. From there the tramp that we all know and love really grew. Charlie was a hardworking man who challenged society through his films, which caused a lot of backlash. Regardless, he continued and grew even more successful. Charlie Chaplin is legendary and this graphic novel was great.

For fans of Charlie Chaplin who want to know more about his life and how the tramp came to be, this graphic novel is perfect. I really enjoyed this and I'm so glad I've had the opportunity to read it.

There are certainly problems with this biography. For one, it spends the largest part of the narrative on Chaplin's childhood, and once he really gets into the film making years it jumps and jumps forward in time at breakneck speed, so that the second half if more like little vignettes than a continuous narrative.
Also, the dialogue in the second half is incredibly clunky, with the author having the characters say the names of famous folks out loud as the only way to identify them ("Get out of here Truman Capote" etc.). Most egregiously of all, it completely glosses over the fact that Chaplin was an absolutely awful person. Yes, you get a small glimpse of his more negative characteristics when he acts like a tyrant on sets, but deliberately rushes past the fact that Chaplin was a pedophile who got two VERY young girls pregnant, and was often accused of being abusive to the women in his life. As an intro to Chaplin the book is fine, but it barely scratches the surface of who he really was.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this graphic novel, I only knew of the basics about Chaplins life and didn't realise how much he struggled growing up. This novel was informative and kept at a good length. I've never read a nonfiction book in such a format nor have I seen one, but I am glad to say this was my first one. I also loved the Illustrations in this graphic novel, the pictures were a great companion to the story. The only thing I disliked about this was the formatting of the speech bubbles, some of them were too close together at times making it hard to read. Overall I'd recommend this graphic novel for anyone interested in learning about Chaplins life and what he had to do in order to become who he was.

"The music shouldn't compete with the image, but instead must be a counterpoint of grace and charm."

I'm beginning to realize that biographical graphic novels can be a really hard sell when it comes down to it. As much as I adore Chaplin and as excited as I was to read this, <em>The Stars of History: Charlie Chaplin</em> wasn't great. Author Bernard Swysen and illustrator Bruno Bazile really did their best, of course. But, at the end of the day, this book had a lot of issues, some more difficult to solve than others.

<b>A Biography as a Graphic Novel</b>

Part of the problem with this book ties directly into the fact that it's a graphic novel in the first place. With each new book that I read in this format, I find myself realizing that it's incredibly difficult to tell someone's life story in this way. There are a lot of things you have to account for and adapt and if you don't do it the right way, it all kind of falls apart.

<em>Charlie Chaplin</em>, unfortunately, suffers in a similar way that the one I read about Albert Einstein did.

<b>Too Much in One Novel</b>

Something I've noticed with biographical graphic novels is the ones that try to tell an <em>entire</em> life story usually fail. In my experience, if this is the type of story you're looking to tell you really need to split it up into several books and focus more-so on the really important aspects of their life. In a similar vein to Einstein, this Chaplin has the misfortune of following Chaplin from birth to death.

And there's just far too much in a lifetime, especially one as full as Chaplin's to fit into a single volume. As a result, we get a lot of time spent with Charlie as he is growing up--which is great, mind--but it all ends up tapering off as he is an adult. The author had to rush through many moments of his life in order to fit in all the events that he wanted. And the book suffers for this. it would have been infinitely better if this had been split into multiple volumes and followed a similar pattern to that of <em>Irena</em>.

Namely, Swysen should have chosen big and important events from various stages in Chaplin's life and focused singular volumes around those moments.

<b>Show, Don't Tell</b>

I never thought I'd have to say this about a graphic novel, but <em>damn</em> did this book have an exposition problem. It's deeply ironic to me that this happened because the whole purpose of a graphic novel is to have the visuals there for you. You don't <em>need</em> to tell the reader things because you have one of the best tools for showing them possible. And yet, for some <em>insane</em> reason, Swysen thought was necessary to have this overlaying commentary telling the readers everything that was happening.

This honestly just kind of blew my mind and I'm still a little baffled by it. There were far too many instances of this and it just got so ridiculous after a while.

That said, the show part of this graphic novel was pretty fantastic. I loved Bazile's artwork. Not only was it excellent, but the continuity over time and the subtle differences that you saw in Chaplin as he aged was exceptional. I had a lot of fun with the visuals and getting to know the characters this way. In fact, this was probably the best part of it all.

<b>So, There You Have It</b>

And that's really what it comes down to. Biographical graphic novels are incredibly difficult and should probably be split into parts. This one, in particular, really needed to cut back on all those moments of exposition in which shoving information into the readers' faces somehow seemed necessary. There are a lot of different ways that Swysen could have given us that information without being very tell-y about it.

In the end, I wanted to love this, but I can't help feeling disappointed.

<em>I was provided a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.</em>

This review will go live on the Reader Fox blog on September 30, 2020.

From the cover to the final cell, this “The Stars of History” issue exudes the comic pathos of Charlie Chaplin’s life and work. Bruno Bazile’s artwork draws the eye from scene to scene with fluidity and passion. Swysen’s text, while perhaps a bit dense in spots, gives a legitimate biography in comic book form. I was only a couple pages in when I relaxed and settled into the nostalgia of losing myself in a good comic book. There were a handful of moments in which the magic faltered; however, considering the tall order of not only conveying the long and eventful life of Chaplin in text and image, but also achieving the desired effect in translation (the work of Dan Christensen), it’s safe to say that this collaboration is a real success.

Thank you to Europe Comics and NetGalley for an Advance Review Copy in exchange for an honest review.

A non-fiction bio-graphical, with a lot more of the young Charlie Chaplin's life than I expected, but major flaws. These early scenes, and the almost ligne claire style, made me think this was for a younger audience, but when we get deeper into music hall history and how Chaplin (and his brother Sydney) built up their careers it probably is for an adult. Whatever age you are, the script is quite horrid to read at times, with copious pages bursting with exposition, of the worst "listen son while your mother tells you what you undoubtedly know – it's just the author doesn't know a better way of getting the information about you across" kind. I think the most sinful example of many is when Charlie tells his mother's corpse which month she's just died in – I nearly did myself.

Less false at least is the biographical detail here – I didn't know anything about the workhouse, seamstress-for-a-mother, broken home, poverty and everything else Chaplin experienced as a youth. I didn't know any of the minutiae about who produced which film and where and who for, either, and it's debatable whether we need such completist, forensic detail in a populist book like this. But still, it is what it is, and it was certainly readable (apart from oddly unseparated speech bubbles), and definitely educational. That style, though – two and a half stars maximum.

Like every successful person, Chaplin was a failure too at the beginning, but those failed attempts never stopped him achieving the longest standing ovation in history. He had grasped every chance which was given to him. From starting his career with a broken family to delivering one of the greatest films, 'The Great Dictator' he survived a long way. You will definitely love this comic. I can give all the stars and my love to the illustrator for those brilliant illustrations.

Thank you Netgalley and publishers for providing me ths e-ARCs in exchange for these honest review.

This is a very informative biography of Charlie Chaplain in graphic novel form. I had no idea how hard his life was before stardom. Of course, I also only had a small idea of how problematic he was as a person when it came to his relationships. Yet, he did a lot of good work. He was a paradox and now I want to learn more.