Tian Veasna's brilliant and powerful book...is extremely nimble, making easy work of complex political history. But it’s also exquisitely spare. Sometimes, there is nothing to be said; no words are adequate. In these moments, Veasna lets his brush do the talking. Like a bird, he soars above the country where he was born, gazing down on its gutted cities, on its workers slaving in the fields. The documentary precision of his landscapes seems to do the work of a thousand written pages ... an account of terror and unimaginable loss. But it’s not only this. I felt slightly guilty that I found it so exciting—and it was an education, too.

This page-turner plunges us from the start into the chaos without the mooring—and the editorializing—of an overarching narrator (Veasna forgoes the first person entirely) ... Year of the Rabbit uses the hybridity of word and image to dramatic and ironic effect, frequently allowing the propaganda blaring from speakers to be contradicted by the drawings that unfurl on the page ... Veasna’s line is loose and modest, particularly in his stripped-down rendering of faces. While printed on a white page, his panels are bordered in black and separated by black gutters, a technique that lends the book a dark tone and suggests the suffocating omnipresence of the Khmer Rouge. The book offers an eerie, muted palette of mostly secondary colors. Pages can feel waterlogged, drained of vibrancy; a queasy light green is a frequent backdrop ... Year of the Rabbit evokes, even if it can’t replicate, a taste of the relentlessness its central players and millions like them endured.

Veasna’s energetic, loose lines are perfectly suited to capturing the nuances of the chaos and confusion. His art has the quality of a snapshot sketch, pinning a moment to the page: wide, frightened eyes; mud sliding under rubber sandals; the drip of rice gruel from a spoon. Although Year of the Rabbit primarily follows Khim and Lina (Veasna’s parents), there are multiple overlapping storylines; Veasna’s clear, characterful style makes it easy for the reader to follow the various threads ... Year of the Rabbit movingly depicts the rising terror of the Khmer Rouge years ... beautiful and jarring.

Graphic in format, graphic in content, it is a story of resilience and hope, a profound testimony to one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century ... The graphic novel format was a judicious choice. It explores the rendering of difficult landscapes, narrative and scenes in a compelling way, reminding me of Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle in its mastery to tackle dystopian worlds, through visual artistry. It provides accessibility to a topic which may otherwise be perceived as intimidating. The aesthetic feels accurate to the atmosphere, the muted colour palette immediately evoked the washed-out walls of colonial mansions which can still be found in Phnom Penh. The researched details convey drama, fear, hopelessness, and love ... His book is gripping but never gruesome, it is a page-turner ... a timely and crucial contribution, to keep the past alive, to understand what it can teach us today, for tomorrow.

... a stunning and comprehensive graphic novel ... The graphic novel takes full advantage of...visual techniques to offer a glimpse into the paranoia and panoptical fear invoked by daily life under the Khmer Rouge ... The book's almost 400 pages are necessary to do justice to this horrific tale; anything shorter would have done the narrative a terrible disservice. Yet it's a fast-paced read. Dialogue is sparse (words, after all, could be used against you) and the small panels lend themselves well to an even more effective visual storytelling. The loosely stylized, broadly realistic and schematic bande dessinée art makes the book easily accessible to readers, even if the content itself is harrowing ... Footnotes and the explanatory prefaces to each chapter also contribute to the book's accessibility, ensuring it's possible to follow without the use of supplemental reference aids ... Year of the Rabbit is as much a vital moral lesson as it is a superb historical graphic narrative.

The author and cartoonist should be commended for undertaking something as complex as Year of the Rabbit, with such apparent ease. One of the most interesting aspects of the book are the inserts at the beginning of each chapter, such as the maps of the family’s route out of Cambodia, which help to better situate the reader ... The cartoonist’s panels lack a certain depth, which is part of Veasna’s style. In addition to beautiful tropical-colored illustrations, the cartoonist serves up highly detailed art. In fact, there are so many details that readers might enjoy reading this book a second time just to make sure they haven’t missed anything ... the author’s attempt at telling the stories of such a large cast is unwieldy at times, which results in some confusion as to the fate of some characters. But confusion has a place in this story, as it also typifies the highly chaotic reign of the Khmer Rouge ... a heartrending, detailed story for future generations.

Tian Veasna’s swiftly paced, overwhelming graphic memoir of the Cambodian genocide begins and ends with a family tree ... Veasna grapples with the horrors of the Khmer regime in a bracingly direct fashion that avoids sentimentality or violence voyeurism ... The uncertainty, dread and scarred triumphs that thrum through Veasna’s book would affect readers at any time. But its depiction of a suddenly upended people grabbing supplies and response to an omnipresent and evolving threat on the fly will feel chillingly familiar to today’s pandemic-rattled audience.

First published in France, Veasna’s debut is notably graphic—yes, because he’s a visual artist but also because words alone couldn’t capture the magnitude of this (in)human tragic history. Prodigious Francophone translator Dascher enables English-language reading; award-winning filmmaker Rithy Panh provides introductory context.

... an accessible document detailing the experience of the Cambodian people during that time. Veasna achieves something unusual by putting faces on the figures of history who typically go without identity, while also providing the general historical context to the events that led to genocide, in a masterful balance that begs you to keep turning the page ... Veasna’s strength is in putting this sprawling story down in terms that don’t funnel the oppression onto the reader. Part of that is through the artwork, which never overpowers even the grimmest moments and turns them into something overwhelming, but keeps its cool ... Amidst the engulfing dark cloud, on a person-to-person basis, there is hope, and Veasna keeps his reader’s interest by never forgetting that aspect.

[A] new graphic novel from writer/artist Tian Veasna, based on a harrowing true story he lived through as a child ... it reads as a tense and harrowing story of escape, dotted with devastating-yet-important notes from a history largely unknown to many in the United States ... It’s a lot, and it’s a heavy story throughout. Heavy yet compelling ... These infographics are brief and occasional, yet they so thoroughly enhance the experience of reading Year of the Rabbit, adding such a fascinating and informative layer to the book. The tense narrative (a family must survive) pulls readers through like rope thrown as a lifeline ... Skillfully told and masterfully depicted, Year of the Rabbit will entertain and inform all at once ... vital.

Graphic in format, graphic in content, it is a story of resilience and hope, and a profound testimony to one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century ... The graphic novel format is a judicious choice, as it makes accessible a topic that might otherwise be seen as intimidating ... The book’s muted colour palette evokes the faded walls of colonial mansions still to be found in Phnom Penh. The detailed drawings convey drama, fear, hopelessness, and love ... How could mere words, situations, and characters express the unthinkable, without falling in the trap of caricature? Tian Veasna pulls it off brilliantly ... gripping but never gruesome.

Year of the Rabbit...presents an especially poignant view of the Khmer Rouge ... While showing the struggles of surviving, Veasna takes care to paint a thorough picture of the day-to-day tyranny ... Year of the Rabbit serves as a good reminder of humanity during such turmoil.

[A] cautionary tale that likely couldn’t come at a more appropriate time given the radical authoritarian leanings of prominent world leaders in Brazil, the Philippines, the UK and, most infamously, right here in the US ... Year of the Rabbit can also, in absolute fairness, be a bit of a confusing story. Historical fealty is important here, even crucial, but the sheer scope of the slaughter that went on is so staggering that it can be tough to keep track of who was who when we start learning about characters we’ve met, largely in passing, ending up dead, or at least rumored to be so ... I’m somewhat less enamored with certain aspects of Veasna’s skills as an illustrator, although, when one considers the art in general, it’s still the case that there’s far more good than there is bad. His muted pastel color choices are pitch-perfect when it comes to setting the tone of vibrant lives slowly being drained of that very vibrancy, and I find his simple figure drawings both instantly appealing and communicative ... Honestly, though, it’s such an accomplished work on the whole that I feel like a little bit of a jerk for even bringing this quibble up, but nevertheless, it’s not only a recurring issue, it’s one that’s pretty damn hard to miss ... Still, Veasna makes up for this small flaw with some really innovative little touches that add power and personality to the project such as the introductory pages for each chapter showing some sort of illustrated 'artifact' of the times ... [A] deeply harrowing, deeply human, and deeply important recounting of the story of their lives.

Repeated images of speakers blaring the party line—an end to corruption and inequality, the glorious beginning of a new society—as workers toil near starvation, terrified that any infraction or implied criticism of the regime might lead to their execution, emphasize the disorientation and dread that permeate their lives. They also make even more astonishing several scenes in which people take incredible risks to help one another ... A powerful portrayal of one of the most sorrowful events of the 20th century.

Charts of things such as the barter value of various goods (rice, aspirin, cigarettes), coupled with impressionistic drawings of the villages where exiled city folk are forced to farm rice, serve as a reminder that daily life marches on. Although Veasna’s epic could have benefited from a family tree, he does an admirable job of keeping a clear narrative within the chaos. This memorable memoir is a stirring depiction of how both trauma and healing take place over the course of generations.