SOURCE: A review of The Cartoon History of the Universe II, in Publishers Weekly, Vol. 241, No. 38, September 19, 1994, p. 64.

[The following is a positive appraisal of The Cartoon History of the Universe II.]

[In The Cartoon History of the Universe II Larry] Gonick has done it again with a diffuse but deep excavation into early civilizations from ancient China to the Germanic tribes. In some ways, Gonick asks a lot of American readership's occidental training by detailing every dynastic hotshot from the Orient. This also being a fertile time for the development of religious cults, Gonick spends much time on Christ (whom he insists on calling "Jeshua ben Joseph"), Confucius, (not, one might note, Lao Tsu or K'ung futsze), Buddha and the like. Gonick's main focus is not to outline the contributions that allowed their teachings to survive the centuries, but rather to humanize them, and some come across...