Sticks and Stones

by Peter Kuper

In a barren landscape, an empire is about to rise and an epic struggle is about to unfold. Sticks and Stones illuminates this earth-shaking tale without a single word. It is as elemental as hieroglyphics, a timeless story for all ages.

In Sticks and Stones , Peter Kuper has created a picture story of epic proportions. It is an intricate tale of birth and death, war and peace, artfully told without a single word. Sticks and Stones chronicles the rise of an empire and the consequences of hubris. This is a timeless allegory and a coutionary tale for our present-day world.

"Given that Peter Kuper's work is usually wordless and silent, it is all the more extraordinary that he should be one of the strongest and truest radical voices to emerge from contemporary America. In Sticks and Stones , Kuper crafts a Bush-era parable so beautiful, simple, and lucid that it could be understood and enjoyed by anyone, regardless of nationality. This is a powerful, angry, and compassionate document, and in its perfectly measured silence there resides a profound human eloquence. Highly recommended." —Alan Moore, author of Watchmen and From Hell

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Fantasy, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Adventure, Young Adult

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Peter Kuper is an American alternative comics artist and illustrator, renowned for his politically charged, socially conscious, and often autobiographical work. He co-founded the influential anthology World War 3 Illustrated, and is best known for his long-running reinvention of Spy vs. Spy for Mad magazine from 1997 to 2022. Kuper has produced numerous graphic novels, including award-winning adaptations of Franz Kafka’s Give It Up! and The Metamorphosis, as well as autobiographical works like Stop Forgetting To Remember and Diario de Oaxaca, documenting life, travel, and social struggles. His illustration work has appeared on covers and in publications such as Time, Newsweek, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times. Kuper’s style often merges comics and illustration techniques, with both wordless narratives and text-driven storytelling, reflecting his belief that the two disciplines are inseparable. He has traveled extensively across Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Southeast Asia, often documenting these experiences in sketchbook journals. Kuper has taught courses on comics and illustration at the Parsons School of Design, the School of Visual Arts, and Harvard University’s first class on graphic novels. He has received numerous awards, including recognition from the Society of Newspaper Designers, the Society of Illustrators, and Eisner and NCS awards for his work. His comics combine sharp political commentary, personal observation, and inventive visual storytelling, establishing him as a prominent figure in contemporary alternative comics and illustration.

Reviews

[Matt Wilson]

Sticks and Stones by Peter Kuper is a wordless graphic novel. The theme of the story is about greed being in human nature, and how power can corrupt a person. In the story,a robot lands on earth and is all by himself. He searches and finds these little people, who work and build him a house. When the house is too small, the robot demands that they build it bigger. Eventually, the tiny people build him a castle, and instead of working to help him, he is now a dictator to them. They take all the resources from their land, so they need to find new ones. They find a village where everything is green and full of life, opposed to where they are where everything is sandy and gray. They enslave the people and take every last one of their resources. The story ends with a huge flood that washes away everything besides two of the small people, one from the original kingdom and one from the kingdom that was invaded. These two set off to start new life. I really liked this book because I think that it teaches an important lesson of what power can do when it goes to a person’s head. The art in this book was really cool. I liked the idea of the little people and how they used color and no color to show the contrasts between the two kingdoms. I really liked this book and I would recommend it to anyone.

[Daniel Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Darker than I expected from flipping through it at the library.

[Aurora · Rating 4 out of 5]

*This review contains spoilers!*
"Sticks and Stones" is a wordless graphic novel. The novel tells the story of a battle between "stick" and "stone" people. The story begins with a large stone person being born from a volcano. The large stone figure appears to be alone, but soon meets new, smaller stone figures. The smaller stones help the large stone construct a large castle for him and the others to live in. The stone people are happy that they have a place to live. However, the large stone figure becomes like a dictator and rules the smaller stones strictly. One day, a small stone figure reports to the large stone figure that there is a village of stick people nearby. The large stone figure orders his stones to attack the stick people. The stones are victorious in the battle and order the stick people to work for them. The stone leader throws anyone who opposes him into a wooden box. The next day, a flood destroys the stone castle and kills many of the stick and stone people, including the stone leader. Two prisoners, a stick and stone person who were trapped in the stone leader's box, survive the flood. The two float across the water and land on the shores near the volcano where the stone leader was born. The once barren land is now green with grass that grew from the water of the flood.
I really liked this graphic novel. As it is wordless, it requires a lot of inferring and interpreting to find hidden meanings. I found the art style helped convey the messages without words. For example, in the beginning of the novel, only black and white colors are used. I thought this figuratively represented a dull and lifeless word. Color only appeared with we met the stick people and their village. Color also appeared in the end where the two prisoners see the field of grass after the flood. I thought the use of color depicted life, birth, and harmony. I really liked how the life (grass) grew after such a devastating flood. I also admired how the stick and stone prisoner learned to accept one another and worked together to escape the flood. I think this graphic novel did a great job at depicting the opposing sides through the visuals. I don't think the novel would have been quite the same if it had words.
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to sit back and thoroughly take in a good book. You might think that reading a wordless graphic novel is easy...well...it's not. It really makes you think about what's going on in the story and why it's being presented to you in a particular art style. You might visually understand what's going on from the pictures. Without words, it's hard to find the messages the reader wants you to understand. This was my first time reading a wordless graphic novel. It definitely made me process the information differently than if I was reading a graphic novel with words and images. I think this relates to the "image-text relationship" we talked about in class.
I would highly recommend this book. I enjoyed it's visual, hidden message.

[Kai · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sticks and Stones is a simplistic story, yet hides a lot of meaning behind it. It begins with a giant stone man whom has just been born out of a volcano. He begins to then start crafting and creating things from rubble, but then it seems as if he cannot. Small rock creatures then come along and help him, and over time they become his slaves and build him a mighty castle, and he becomes the dictator ruler. They find another village, full of color and life, but then he wages war on it and destroys it. What i loved most about this part, was when they destroyed it and took all the lumber from the trees there, it became black and white like everything else. As if the very soul of that land had been sucked out. Time goes by and eventually a flood starts. The floor is so hectic that it floods the entire castle, killing everyone including the king, except 2 prisoners who rebelled against the tyrannical king and were placed into a treasure chest and put on the top of the castle as an example for the rest of the slaves (it was basically showing if you rebel as well then you get an equally severe punishment) When the flood comes, the 2 prisoners, one an ex worker the other a child of a mother whom was killed during the invasion of the other village, manage to survive the floor by staying afloat on top of the lid of the box, and eventually when the flood stops they reach a land full of now color. The color has now come since the evil king died, and the symbolism displayed when the dead kings head is in the ground, surrounded by such color and the large volcano behind (where the book begin, so essentially it ended in the same spot) The small child kicks the decapitated heads nose off, and they walk into the distance singing.

[Desiree Brunelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

sticks and stones is a wordless comic that was very short but has allot of symbolism about man and his journey though out life and mother natures impact of life as well. the book starts off as a man being born and trying to stand up, then he learns to walk. through out this process he tries to build a home for himself but he fails, then he meets little rock people that are very friendly and help him build his new home. these rock people are very helpful and the big rock man takes advantage of there kindness and takes over and controls them. later on the rock man has a second in command rock that is one of the little people, and he tells the giant about a village that's made of wood and the mean rock man wants what they have for him self so he demands to take over there village for there resources. thought out the rest of the book he is very mean uses all his new resources up and is very angry. he traps two little people, one rock and one stick because they stood up for themselves and there kind so he punished them by putting them in jail. in the end mother nature made a "cleans" of the evil and everyone died besides the two that were imprisoned and that were not evil or corrupted.

this book was very good, this whole book was very symbolic and has allot of symbolism in it which you can either love it or hate it. its a very good book that i would recommend to anyone who would like to read a wordless and that would like to figure out what this book is really talking about and the message it is trying to convey.

[Christophe Ang · Rating 3 out of 5]

Peter Kuper's graphic novel Sticks and Stones is interesting in that it tells a story without any words. It is the tale of a rock man born out of a volcano and then the rise of his empire. The story does well to provide enough pictures and details to help the reader understand. The story unfolds to become a more of a "what comes around goes around" kind of moral because of what the rock man becomes, a vicious dictator. I felt like the story was very well done and interesting. It kept me captivated throughout the whole novel. The use of grayscale and color really helped put more detail into the story, where the gray was used for the rock man and his empire, and the color used for the stick's people and their culture and what they represent. Though, I felt like the story could have lasted longer. I felt like the ending was a bit rushed because it just seemed quite quick how everything changed so fast instead of a build up to it, though I guess the quick end was another way of ending the tyranny of the rock man in the simplest form.

[Matt Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This wordless story takes right off, introducing how our main character(we'll call him Rock King) is born into the world. Immediately Rock King is helped by generous bystanders from another village, and given what he needs to live until he can sustain himself. Eventually, Rock King comes to realize that he is larger and more powerful than those smaller villagers that have given him everything he wants, and he decides to enslave them, soon the village and the Rock King's new kingdom are at a feud.

I feel "Sticks and Stones" was a really good analogy about the rise and fall of a kingdom. It shows how quick a leader can become corrupt, and greedy. The art style was really nice, it seemed like it was created with some kind of pastel, giving off a grainy feeling which really adds to the atmosphere. I would recommend Sticks and Stones to anyone who wants a nice short story that will keep them thinking about what the message is, because the moral can me interpreted in many different ways.

[Sam Kappler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sticks and Stones by Peter Kuper is a wordless graphic novel that depicts the rise and fall of a giant rock creature. A large amount of symbolism is used in this comic, as it characterizes human emotion and behavior through the actions of fictional creatures. This display of emotion is mostly seen in the protagonist, a nameless giant rock man. The rock man enters that story as a gentle giant who befriends a civilization of much smaller rock creatures. The smaller creatures build him a kingdom, but as the story goes on the rock mans desires become more and more insatiable. In turn, as the rock mans good heart becomes corrupted by greed, he becomes the antogist of the story.

I thoroughly enjoyed Sticks and Stones. I enjoyed the art syle, and display of emotion. Wordless comics tend to rely on exhibiting more emotion to relay the purpose of the story. If you are interested in wordless comics, or a story with a good moral Sticks and Stones is right for you.

[Mike Fiore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Peter Kuper's "Sticks and Stones" is a wordless graphic novel about a Stone Man and his life with the Stick People. The story told, or shown I guess, is of the rise and fall of an empire. The Stone Man enslaves the Stick People, sends them to war against other Stick People, and expands his empire using them as his stepping stones (pun partially intended). Call it fate, god, karma, nature, or whatever else you can think of, but a storm ravages the Stone Man's empire, flooding the world itself. When the flood recedes... Read it and find out. There's enough spoiler-y content in this already.

I personally didn't care for this G.N. all too much. I wouldn't put it at the top of my list for anything, but if you enjoy a take on life and death, karma, and justice being served, you could give this a try.

[Tony Cafiso · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sticks and stones is a wordless comic about a rock man who comes out of a volcano at the beginning. He then finds himself an army of smaller rock men who build him a castle and act as his servants. Two of these servants try to act against him and are locked away in a wooden cage and left at the top of one of the castle towers. At the end of the book there is a huge flood and all of the rock men drown, except for the two who were in the wooden cage. These two survive and walk off into the sunset.

Sticks and Stones was less complicated than the last wordless comic I read (the arrival), but still very interesting. It was a quick read but a lot still happened during it. I would recommend this to anyone who likes reading wordless comics.

[Wes Lisi]

This book is about a bigger rock man controlling smaller rock people like a king. He imprisons the people that defy him and praises his followers until it starts to rain and he sinks while his prisoners float on a wooden cage. Sort of like the story of Noah's ark.https://donnyanggoro.files.wordpress.... the art style of this book is very geometric compared to most. the characters are believable and are changed through the book. the king, for example, forces the smaller ones to build a castle for him instead of them doing it out of kindness which is what they were doing it before.

[Wonbo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this book was great. I loved how the author decided to change the color of the book to display the feeling he wanted do convey and the way he used no language in delivering his thoughts. I also liked the way he titled the book and told a couple of morals to the readers.

My favorite part of the book was the funny scenes. I especially enjoyed the scene where the servant of the evil emperor was knocked down from the chair. It showed that by just working in favor of an evil person does not make you the most important thing in the person's mind.

[Spencer Burchill · Rating 3 out of 5]

The wordless aspect of this graphic novel was interesting, but while I was reading the bulk of it I didn't think it worked well with the black and whiteness of it. The ending changed my mind, though, because it became apparent that the lack of color was meant to be symbolism for war. It was tricky to fully understand what was going on and who was who, but the message of the comic was very clear, especially after the book's ending.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sticks and Stones has a lot of meaning behind it. Basically this comic shows the uprising of a king, the king becomes corrupted by power, an uprising starts which leads to the kings downfall. The art in this comic was awesome and I feel that this comic gives meaning to the phrase a picture is worth a thousand words with some of the scenes it shows. I would recommend anyone read this comic.

[Austin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book a lot of people like it because it is easy to follow. Also people like it is wordless yes wordless there is no words in the book. It has a great storyline.
I gave it a 4 star rating because it is a great book and it hase a great story. There is nothing i dont loke about this book. I recomend this book to anybody who likes a good stort in a easy to fallow book.

[Nick Ragust · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very quick 10 minute scan through makes sadness easy to feel. A very seemingly troubled volcanic giant starts childlike and playful and somehow commands an army of smaller rock people to do his bidding. After building a kingdom, he goes to war with colorful tree people and demolishes their land. Really just sad. The ending was relieving and made for a small smirk of revenge.

[Rick Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

In a primordial landscape, a being made from rock emerges from a volcanic eruption. Fully sentient, this rock person begins the construction of a home which rapidly runs into a civilization populated with miniature versions of the rock person. As the demands for the growing civilization increase, neighboring lands are taken for resources. The rock being turns more authoritarian to the detriment of the society. Eventually things equilibrate after a natural disaster levels the playing field.

Peter Kuper examines various themes in this wordless graphic novel, such as the circle of life, the impacts of industrialization, and the corrupting nature of power. Given that Sticks and Stones is a wordless venture, the ability to convey the story without narration is admirable. Kuper's artwork is expressive and crisp, making for an easy read throughout. The story itself is rather simplistic, but that is the nature to most wordless comics. It perhaps is a little too on the nose on some of its thematic delivery, but nuance without some exposition would be rather impossible.

[Ademption · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars rounded up.

[Daniella Pozo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, I've never seen anything like this before. The visuals are simply amazing and the story is universal and heartbreaking

[Michael Indiano · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fairly quaint interesting little journey.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sticks and stones is about a small village of rock people that live under the power of a giant rock man. The leader isn't very nice and finds a village of tree people and doesn't like them very much. In the end he gets what we deserves. The art style is very basic and mostly black and white. I liked this book because it has a good story and has a good ending. The theme I think is you get what you deserve because the leader of the rock people bosses people around and try's to take over the tree people and in the end he gets destroyed. The author defiantly gets his message across. I would recommend this book because it has a good theme and teaches a lesson.

[Stephania · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simples, breve, sem diálogos mas incrivelmente expressivo!

[84-The_enlightment_of_Doctor_Grace_part5_Jesus · Rating 4 out of 5]

The volcano starts to smoke. A rock person gets thrown out of his home and can't make a new one. Little rock people help him build one. But the rock they put pity on turns into a very mean ruler. The rock ruler picks a favourite rock person to be like his right hand man. One day the ruler sends his right hand man to see what's over the cliff. Over the cliff is another colony that has wood and fire and water. The ruler wants to attack them and take over. One rock person revolts, but he is quickly arrested. One little rock is getting taught how to whistle when his mother is crushed in the attack. The ruler succeeds in his attack and makes everyone slaves. The little rock defies the ruler and is arrested with the other rock who defied the ruler. they become friends. The ruler uses up his firewood quicly and makes everyone cut down the rest of the trees. Soon, all the trees disappear and the river dries up. While everyone is working, everyone is to busy to notice rain clouds forming. There is a flash flood! everyone is swept away and drowns.The right hand man goes and warns the ruler. As the water rushes in the building, the right hand man falls off the ruler's shoulder. The ruler shuts the door before the right hand man can get through. He drowns. The ruler climbs to the top and looks around. Water everywhere! he begs and pleads with the sky to spare him, but he is swallowed up. The two who were captured are in a wooden box that saves them from drowning. They drift along fo awhile until they notice something. The once gray world is getting colour.The ruler's head is sticking up out of the ground, trapped forever in a yell for help.The little rock goes and kicks the ruler's nose off. Then the older rock whisltes, then they whistle together as they walk off into the sunset. As plants overgrow the ground , the volcano starts to smoke again. This is a story of a struggle of slavery and dictatorship that is very sad. It has a lesson that the only people who fought back were the only ones who survived. It also shows a person getting what they deserved in the end. There are no words what so ever in this story, but the pictures speak for themselves.

[Spectrum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sticks and Stones by Peter Kuper manages to weave an epic tale about life and death, government and power, and all of the follies of mankind without ever writing a single word. Kuper's story is about a rock giant that is spewed from a volcano and finds himself alone in a barren wasteland. Before long he encounters a group of people much smaller than him. This group of individuals are capable of many things that he cannot do so he uses his size to take control of them, forcing the group to construct his fortress. As time passes he continues to abuse his power as his greed for more land, riches, and servants increases. His every action is destructive and his treatment of his people/servants is deplorable.

Kuper's graphic novel is about so many things, making it difficult to pick just one topic to discuss. However, through the actions of his main character, Kuper's illustration of the consequences of greed and pride serve as an overreaching theme through the book. Kuper's message is universal and his approach could not be more appropriate. His stark, black and white art style is a perfect fit for the story and by relying on his images he guarantees that his tale can be understood by all that view it. His pictures and characters capture the spectrum of human emotions; joy, anger, love, fear, while telling a touching tale of the rise and fall of an empire. The fact that the novel is silent makes its reading seem all the more important. There is an eerie feeling one gets while reading this tale, like you are a spy viewing these scenes from a distance, relying only on the images you can see.
Peter Kuper reminds us that empires will come and empires will go and in the end it is our humanity and compassion that matters the most.

[Electromonkey52 · Rating 5 out of 5]

The name of this book is Sticks and Stones, by Peter Kuper. This book is a graphic novel which means no words. A lot of the details of this book are a bit hard to know such as the setting and tone. The main character doesn’t have a name but for this review let’s call him Rocky. Other characters include the little rock people. The basic bit of the story is that Rocky is made by this volcano and finds that he is alone. Rocky seems to have this thing that he wants to build and that leads to him meeting the little rock people. He then starts to be mean to his new found friends and becomes like a dictator. Then this rain comes and kills all but the two little rock people he was mean to and locked up in a cage.

The use of pictures in a story requires much more imagination and creativity, this author paints the picture perfectly using all of those pictures. The author’s main idea in the book is of betrayal and not remembering your friends. Rocky had friends in the beginning that wanted to help him along, but he abused their kindness and kind-of took over them. These little rock people were good and didn’t deserve what happened in the end because they all drowned because rocks don’t float. In the end what saved the people Rocky was mean to most was putting them in a cage that was made of wood and was floating when it started to rain. This book was great and doesn’t even require words because the author painted the picture perfectly.

[M♥I♥S♥S♥M♥I♥N♥I♥M♥E aNdeRSoN · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book Sticks and Stones, by Peter Kuper is a book about giant rock creature that was spit out upon the earth in the middle of nowhere. After a while he finds a group of people who are smaller than himself, and decides to take advantage of them. He finds that they can do many simple tasks that he is not capable of doing; therefore he takes them as captives making his wish their command. As the story goes on his greed increases to the point where he will do anything to maintain, and increases his current possessions. By this point he is very mean, and treats his slaves with little to no compassion.

In Sticks and Stones I think that Kuper is trying to tell a story of how greed can imprison us all. Close to the end of the book, the greediness of the rock creature really showed up. The stone creature discovered that a flood was taking place in his territory, and instead of helping his head slave he grabbed as many diamonds as he possibly could and tried to escape. His imprisonment to greed was shown after he had been drowned by the raging waters of the flood. The two small creatures that were left alive then went over to his face and kicked off where his nose used to be. I mean, it is one thing to want or desire something, but it is another when you have it and instead of sharing or being satisfied with what you have, you want more… not caring what it takes to get it/

[Johnpemberton83 · Rating 5 out of 5]

i read this book called sticks and stones. the book is about a rock man that is born from a volcanoe. he can barely walk and stand. later on he trys to build a house for himself but it collapses. other more little rock people watched him and helped him build an empire. one of the little rock men got special treatment with a hat. another got jealous. as his empire grew he wonderd what was behind the volcanoe. he sent the special rock man to investigate and found a civilization of sticks. he ordered some troops to conquer it. the jealous rock man tried to tell everyone that they didn't need to do what the big rock man said. he was put in prison. as they conquerd the stick civilization the found fire. they burned all of it and it caused a great flood that killed every one. except the jealous rock man and one stick boy. they both saw the remains and the big rock mans head and stick boy kicked of his nose.
This book is about how the misuse of power can destroy anything. it was inevitable, the outcome of this book. i think that this book also took place on mars because theres no more life there except for two and the rock face is there. maybe if the people in the book got along then maybe there would be life on mars...maybe.

[Lady Knight · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this was suppossed to be some sort of allegorical commentary on the Bush regime, I found the book much more enjoyable if you forget about the Bush theme and took it simply as a snapshot of what happens sometimes in life.

There isn't a single word in the book so everything is described solely in pictures: black and white when talking about Stones and in colour when talking about the Sticks. It starts out with a Big Stone Man being born and then trying and failing miserably to build himself a home. Soon Little Stone Men appear and build him a thronelike chair. Delighted, Big Stone thanks them and the Little Stones carry on with building a castle for them and him. Unfortunately Big Stone doesn't fit inside the castle, and in a fit of rage her demolishes it and forces the Little Stones to rebuild it to his liking.

Soon the Little Stones are working for Big Stone, but he is getting bored. Soon some of his scouts report back to him that there are a group of Sticks leaving a ways off, and they have something Stones don't ... Wood. A war party is soon raised and the Stones set off to conquer the peaceful Sticks. Big Stone continues on until his megalomania and greed finally kills him.

[Kira · Rating 4 out of 5]

A volcano erupts, a stone giant is created (It's Supposed to be Bush). He learns how to walk through trial and error. Then little people help him build an empire, which he destroys, and takes command after it was rebuilt. Of course, there is a protester, the little (in this case) black guy. We'll call him Bob. Bob gets mad at Mr. Stoney because they worked all day while he slept like nobody's business. Later Stoney tells his "adviser" to go investigate anonymous smoke. It's amazing and Stoney goes to see it too. It is a world of color and joy, and Bush gets jealous and destroys it. He steals, kills, and takes captives. However, since he is greedy, bad things happen. Good bye Bush!!!!!!

Although Sticks and Stones is a wordless story, it is far from silent. Based on a probable democrat's point of view, this book is crazy and pretty true. The moral of the story: Be the little skeptical Bob dude.

[60rd1$3_76 · Rating 5 out of 5]

i like this book even though it has no words i love because i can use my imagination and picture what is happening in the story it is kinda sad but is a cool children's book i recommend this book to people who like to use there imagination i have a great imagination! When i read this book i thought it was really cool!this stone guy tries to take over all the little stone people and he makes a little stone man his assistant and he tells everyone what to do.He told his assistant to go and find more stones so he can build his palace.As he set off the stone person find more stone people and goes and tells the master and he tells hi assistant to go capture the other stone people and that's when they discover fire. but at the end everyone loses and they end up dieing anyways this is a great book to read and if you get a chance to read it i hope you like it and it is really neat book!!