Art Ops: How to Start a Riot by Various Authors (2016)

Even though Reggie has lived with his mom his whole life, he has no idea who she is or what “work” she spends all day doing. The only plus side is that when his mom is gone, he gets the apartment (and his girlfriend) to himself, which is exactly how the night that changes his life. He’s sitting at home with his girlfriend and decides to go out to the back alley to meet some friends. In the process, a piece of graffiti attacks him, ripping of his arm and killing his girlfriend. That’s when his mom goes to his rescue, and all of a sudden doctors are pumping tubes of color in his arms, creating a new arm. His mom then explains what her job is: that she is the head of Art Ops, an undercover program to protect and control art, which is alive. Reggie let’s this piece of information sit with him for awhile, until his mom suddenly disappears and art start to get out of control. At the same time, Mona Lisa comes into his protection. Reggie isn’t sure of most things, but he’s positive that riots will happen.

To be honest, I was pretty discouraged at reading this. I am not the hugest fan of comic books, and it had a fairly low rating on GoodReads. However, I was very pleasantly surprised. I think a big part of it was that this book is extremely original, at least in my opinion. I’ve never read a book about art coming to life, and the fact that it was a comic book only helped. It was really cool not to only read about the art, but to actually see these historical art figures put in everyday life.

For the most part, the plot was understandable and just really fun. Throughout the story there was flashbacks, dating to Reggie’s younger life or even his mom’s younger life, which I felt were put into context nicely and appropriately. There were even little signs telling the time and location of each part of the story, which came in handy with both flashbacks and modern time. The only thing I didn’t like is there was maybe three action scenes that I had a hard time following, mainly because characters came from out of nowhere. Speaking of characters, there wasn’t really time spent developing the characters. Of course, with a comic book, it’s going to be harder for the author to communicate with the reader who the character really is because there is a limited amount of words. However, I never really felt connected to any character, especially Reggie. Yes, we all know that he was abandoned by his mom, and so that obviously shaped him, but I didn’t really know anything else about him. I didn’t really know anything about any character, except Mona Lisa, because everyone knows Mona Lisa. The other problem I had with the characters was that they weren’t introduced very well. They would just show up out of nowhere, and I almost never caught their name.

As I mentioned before, this book is pure fun. That being said, a reader shouldn’t expect to read this book and come out with some life changing message, because that’s not what’s going to happen. It was honestly refreshing reading a story that was just a story, nothing more. Overall, Art Ops: How to Start a Riot did have some flaws, but not enough to keep me from enjoying it.

3 STars