This crime comic is fantastic in terms of representation. I LOVED the fact that not only was ASL fully integrated throughout the images (even to some extent giving non=ASL speakers some idea of how to sign particular phrases or words) but it was really carefully thought through, especially the scribbles showing people speaking verbally to help you imagine the world these kids inhabit a little more. I also liked the LGBTQ+ representation, with Kestrel's non-binary identity so smoothly integrated into the narrative.

However, I did not like the fact that the story itself seemed like a pastiche. It starts off with some kids dealing with quiet heavy issues and then immediately veers into surrealism as they suddenly become master hackers, burglars and murderers. It felt like it started off with a serious plot before becoming a sort of parody of X-Men, Heist films and moody Bildungsroman. The ending especially seemed rather facile and somewhat callous. In terms of the illustrations they were all enjoyable aside from the strange fact that all of the main characters seemed to have exactly the same nose...

Would recommend as a way of seeing how LGBTQ+ and Sign can be successfully integrated into a narrative.

I thought this was gripping because it was so different. This is the first graphic novel that I have read which incorporates American Sign Language and focuses on a group of main characters who are deaf.

Haley and her brother Max, are sent to a boarding school for the death when their mother dies. They make friends, but when one of their group needs money, they plan and execute a robbery. The group find this thrilling and decide to carry out further robberies. It is thrilling until they rob the home of a local crime lord and everything goes downhill from there. Suddenly what seemed like fun is scary and the group have to find a way to free themselves from the crime lord's malignant pressure.

It is an interesting story because the young people are anti-heroes. It is easy to cheer them on even as they commit crimes and at the same time try to escape the clutch of the crime lord. They have immense skills and abilities, but are drawn further and further into a trap. The thrilling part of this is how they manage to escape, how they change as individuals and how they move forward, or not.

Of course some of this felt a bit far fetched but it was well drawn and both gripping and entertaining. I do wonder if there will be another book because it is the quite of story that needs one.

Coy provided by Mad Cave Studios/Diamond Book Distributors via Netgalley.

A really intriguing graphic novel about a group of kids with varying levels of hearing abilities who all use American Sign Language. No lines of spoken dialogue are represented; instead, other characters' speech bubbles contain scribbles, and the kids who can hear "translate." The kids become friends and turn to a life of crime for different reasons--some for the money, some for the adrenaline rush--but are caught on their first outing and blackmailed into working for a dangerous man. I'm definitely keeping an eye on this publisher.

It was a short graphic novel about five deaf young friends who were robbing together and defeating a mob boss. It was a great read, it was fun, I have liked the characters and the relationships, and there were some very interesting solutions. For example when the people were talking it was shown as gibberish so we knew when something is being signed. It was a good heist story as well, with a great plot twist at the end.

I'm feeling a little conflicted about this novel, there were quite a few things I enjoyed and some things I had issues with.

To get some context, this is a crime novel in which teenagers going to a private boarding school for students with disabilities- in this particular case deaf and hard of hearing & mute individuals. They decide to start stealing and soon try for bigger things and get rolled up with a crime boss who gets the teenagers to steal for him. Soon the kids are in deep and struggle their way out only for them to get messed up in it again years later after things have paid off quite well for them.

I really appreciated that the author chose teenagers with disabilities, it's not something that is represented often enough in books, especially in the manner in which this is presented- they are just teenagers and students going to school, except they choose to spend their spare time robbing people. The ASL is integrated into the story quite well, I just enjoyed seeing other disabled humans doing what humans do. I also felt that to my knowledge the disabilities were portrayed in an accurate manner.

And I also enjoyed the story as a whole, it was super engaging, very well thought out, and crafted. I felt like I was at the edge of my seat the entire time, while also yelling at these kids and hoping they would smarten up and stop stealing, which leads me to why I’m conflicted.

I get that the story needed an interesting element- it is a crime novel after all. I'm not going to pretend that morally I am perfect, but once these teenagers got into deep doo-doo with the crime boss dude and managed to escape without being killed or arrested, I'd figure they’d realize that what they were doing is risky and dangerous, and not that they would turn to it again. The ending seems a little far fetched, and I ended up really disliking the main female character who was obviously the ‘mastermind’- I get that she was supposed to be morally grey and she was doing a hell of a lot of self-preservation, I just think she took it too far, but I guess that wouldn’t have made for a good story now would it?

Overall, I really enjoyed this one, but because of the ending will only be giving it 4 stars.
I highly recommend this for the disability rep and great storytelling.

**ARC provided by Mad Cave Studios via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Gorgeous artwork and lovely storytelling make up this epic journey of friends who meet at a boarding school and start their own heist group.

A super quick and fun read that I think so many people will enjoy. I also love the diversity found here. And, honestly, the ending leaves just enough open-ended that it might just haunt you for a long time after finishing. Like any good book should.

The only downside is that you really do have to have a suspension of disbelief. This is in no way a realistic story and if you don't go into it with that in mind, it's very hard to enjoy at times.

The selling points for Pantomime are the representation of the Deaf community, along with packed panels and attractive spreads. The story itself works well enough and really leans on the art for maximum effect.

I suppose it's partly because I'm simply not much of a crime comics fan, but I can't help looking with a certain scepticism at the recent trend for heist yarns which just switch the demographics of the heisters around a little and consider that job done. They don't always rest there - 4 Kids Walk Into A Bank had all sorts of clever formal tricks to back up the elevator pitch of a heist by children. Here, though: the heist crew are deaf and/or mute teens. They're diverse along other axes too. That aside, I'm not convinced the bulk of the story has got anything new. Does it even count as a spoiler to say that after their first proper job, the heistee tracks them down and now they have to heist some more to pay off the debt incurred? I'm not sure it does, given what an entirely basic heist complication that one is. Even little details like the depiction of sign language, which could have salvaged some interest, don't quite come off; somewhere in the interaction between the lines and the colours, what should have been hands in motion have often ended up looking more like the character signing has acquired extra, entirely solid extremities. There are attempts at thematic resonance which sort of work, pointing up the ways in which both as deaf people and criminals, the protagonists are looking at a world that's not designed to make it easy for them. And around midway there's a too-brief glimpse of a comic that would have interested me much more, meshing the crime stuff with a story of that last bittersweet summer before schoolfriends go their separate ways. Otherwise, I'm sure the representation will be enough that some people will enjoy this, but for me it felt like a well-meaning misfire.

(Netgalley ARC)

I absolutely love seeing the deaf community represented in a graphic novel! Even though this is a typical teenage heist story, I feel like it really worked and was quite enjoyable to read. ASL is the primary language, while anyone speaking auditorily was represented with squiggles in their dialogue bubbles (unless it was being translated). The artist did a really great job capturing the hand motions used in sign language, as well as originating the dialogue bubbles from the hands.

The only thing I didn't like was the pacing. The beginning of the graphic novel felt very rushed. I would have liked for there to have been a bit more backstory for the characters before jumping right into the heists. But we all know teenagers do things a mile a minute, so I guess it makes sense in it's own way!

Love a good graphic novel. The addition of sign language and real life events into this story was really cool and different. I appreciate the inclusion

I received an eARC copy of this title in return for an honest review.

This was a really good read! I enjoyed the story line and how non-ASL speakers did not have actual lines unless they were interpreted. I found it a great way to show what it feels like to be in the deaf community.

I was also glad it had more involved in the story with interesting family dynamics and what it is like to have a found family.

All in all, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes heist thrillers. There were twists that I did not see coming which made it all the more interesting.

I found this in the Read Now section of Netgalley. The concept looked interesting, deaf/mute teenage thieves taking on a violent criminal. I was also interested to see how a graphic novel would illustrate ASL.
The art wasn't my favorite style, but it was consistent and suited the tone. I'm not sure how to explain it, but Pantomime was definitely a YA, and the art hammered that home.
The story was fast-paced and carefully plotted, but the twist at the end... here's the thing. Throughout the story there was this creeping sense of dread, a suspicion that things weren't what they seemed. I expected a big, shocking reveal that never quite materialized. It was left intentionally vague and only partly explained, which, on the one hand, made it that much more sinister and unnerving, but on the other... I felt kind of cheated. For the first 4/5th of the book, we get no indication of the deep-seated resentments and motivations of one character that the twist in the final act hinges on. It came out of nowhere, and because of that, it didn't really /work/.
That said, it was a interesting little crime caper, and the ASL element really worked well.

A graphic novel with disability and LGBTQA+ representation? Yes please!!
Max and Haley are all each other has after the death of their mother. They are sent off to Wayfair Academy, a school for children with special needs. Haley is deaf and Max is mute. They find their own little family at the academy, and decide to break into a campus building to retrieve some confiscated items. When their petty crime goes off without a hitch, they decide they want more.
This is such a cool graphic novel. I enjoyed the ASL throughout the book. Also, the graphics were very good!
I also enjoyed having an unreliable narrator - it’s always fun when you’re not sure who you can trust!

Pantomime will be released July 20, 2021.

I received an advanced review copy of this book via NetGalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I really enjoyed the diverse set of characters in this book - they're all deaf/mute and mostly queer and I liked the mystery/crime aspect, plus the art style was great. This was an enjoyable read and an author to keep an eye out for!

For all its flaws, this remains an intriguing book. First, all the main characters are teens in a boarding school for excluded children, and all sign to each other using ASL. And I don't know how other comics have handled visually portraying signing, if at all, but I really liked the way the artwork put multiple poses for the hands on the same image, and especially how the speech bubbles originated at the hand. It feels such an obvious thing to do, yet still a surprising one, and it actually makes it even clearer than some bad lettering efforts elsewhere just who is saying what. The characters that use vocal communication either get unintelligible mumbles with lettering by drunken ants, or get a grey block of text superimposed on their speech bubbles to show the interpretation and translation involved in lip-reading.

But enough of the visual and technical language of the piece, what of the plot? Our children find community in their gang the likes of which they've never previously known, and when a teacher confiscates some tech they rally round for each other, break in to his office and steal it back. When the family of one of them has a deadline to get a lot of money or the kid is sent home, they decide to break into a sleaze-ball's house and raise the funds that way. But... the sleaze-ball is far too astute to be robbed, however unlikely the people doing the thieving, and blackmails them all into being little Artful Dodgers, Oliver Twists and the like, doing crime after crime after crime...

And so they do. But this is about character as well as how an unlikely criminal empire gets formed, frustrated and broken up. The people on these pages have problems outside of their enforced career as well as because of it, and so we get their arc as well as that of the gang. Now a fair bit of the crime story is far-fetched, but on the whole succeeds in entertaining, even to the point of surprising, thus making this a really fresh-seeming genre piece, with heart. I'll never thank anyone for thrusting a character with a "they" pronoun down my throat, for it's so bloody annoying and confusing, and eagerly await the days we can get the proper use of our language back. That aside, this was thoroughly readable, and does at least one thing, if not more, you'll probably not have seen before in your comics.

Unique. Beautiful. Fun.

This was an incredibly fun romp, with incredibly interesting and diverse characters. The plot is fairly standard for a heist piece, but was fun none the less.

It was unique in the fact that the Language canonically spoken was Sign-Language. Spoken Language being depicted as what equivalents to static. Which really helped to immerse the reader into the story they are reading.