Must we know why the Wild Things are wild?

The illustrator Ward Sutton has a superb monthly column in the Barnes and Noble Review called "Drawn to Read," in which he reviews books via the medium of graphic art (though I don't think he minds being called a cartoonist). And could a writer-illustrator-reviewer have a better subject than Dave Eggers's novelization of the Maurice Sendak classic "Where the Wild Things Are?" (Eggers also co-wrote the screenplay for the new film, directed by Spike Jonze, so you might also consider the Eggers book to be a novelization of the screenplay.)

Sutton's main complaint has to do with the introduction of that creaky Hollywood device the "back story." In Sendak's book, we don't know anything about Max except that he's acted up and been sent to his room, which soon, of course, sprouts with trees and adventure. But Eggers re-imagines Max as the product of a broken home, and, what's more, as a boy whose close bond with an older sister is sadly eroding as she enters her teenage years.

In the review's best panel, Sutton shows Max--Sendak's Max, emphatically--lamenting to a therapist that he really doesn't have any of the baggage Eggers has saddled him with. In the room with him, actively therapizing, are Darth Vader and the Grinch, characters to whom Hollywood screenwriters have also given tedious back stories. (Hey, isn't the lure of power and pure evil good enough anymore?)

(H/t: Josh Glenn)

PS Here's another Sutton review, of a more conventional book: a history of stand-up comedy. Also excellent.