I thought I had previously submitted this review. I remember the tv show of the same name and was always sitting in front of the tv to watch it. I loved the bizarre, interesting facts they provided. This book brought back many memories. I truly enjoyed this book and was glad to have the opportunity to read it. Highly recommend. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the arc of this message in return for this review. Receiving the book in this manner had no bearing on my review.

This was a fun and light book to read. The framing sequences draw the reader into the stories. The stories expand on the facts Ripley presented. They build and imagine how the story took place, context, so on. The stories range from the curious to the macabre. The stories' art style varies as various artists contribute to the series, and the art overall suits the stories well.

Overall, this is a charming and fun comics series. If you like Ripley's Believe It Or Not!, you'll probably enjoy this comic very much. If you are not familiar with the series, these comics may encourage you to read and learn more. The stories are good and entertaining, and the art is well done and full color. I really liked this one. This is one I would recommend to libraries with graphic novel collections. It is one I would order for our library.

Young Audience
This book is designed for early readers - kids to tweens - who appreciate eerie stories and creepy facts.

Bite-sized stories.
Feels like you’re visiting the Ripley’s Odditorium and reading the plaques next to the creepy displays. Each story is succinct and can be read like bedtime stories. Although based on true stories they are a bit embellished.

Graphic novel style.
I enjoyed the illustration style, very reminiscent of youth-targeted comic books. Any budding comic book fan would appreciate the quality of artwork in Ripley’s Believe it or Not.

This is an interesting book. You'll learn a lot and the illustrations and photos are great. It is set up like a graphic novel, which is another interesting element to this book. There are a few different stories of believe it or not stories within with details creating a nice book. If you enjoy this kind of information then you'll like this set up.

A great introduction to Ripley's Believe It or Not... especially for kids in the tween years.

I am almost certain there was a version of this comic around when I was a kid (in the 1970s), I seem to remember reading all the amazing facts with great pictures and whatnot. In those pre-internet days it was like having an illustrated encyclopedia of odd facts. This volume continues that tradition in great style.

'Ripley's Believe It or Not' by Tony Isabella and Ben Meares is a graphic novel that immediately took me back to when I was a kid and had the Ripley's cartoon books to thumb through.

Using a framing story of people visiting the Ripley's Odditorium's, this collection features some famous stories that have been featured by Ripley's Believe It or Not. A railroad worker is impaled by a spike and lives, but his personality changes for the worse (who can blame him?). A cat in a nursing home seems to know when people will die. A superstitious woman builds an odd house to try to confuse the ghosts that haunt it.

I loved reading these stories as a kid and this graphic novel brought all the weird, ghoulish times right back again. The art is decent enough. The framing story just feels like it gets in the way, but the short stories included are just fun.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Zenescope, Diamond Book Distributors, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

‘A 96-page anthology of some of the most astonishing oddities in the Ripley's Believe It or Not! collection, written and illustrated by an equally mind-blowing mix of comic book legends and rising stars. A collection of 8-page stories and fun facts in the inimitable Ripley style! You'll have to see it to believe it!’

Ripley's Believe It or Not, by Tony Isabella & Ben Meares, turned out to be a graphic novel! I was expecting a text collection of fascinating facts and interesting stories, though I'm not sure why I had that idea. I loved the artwork! And, of course, the stories are true. These are accounts of real people. Each story itself is based on a true account, but it varies as to how embellished the retelling is. At the end, there's a short explanation of the true facts the tale covers, along with a factor about Ripley himself, such as he collected shrunken heads. Whaaa..?

One of my favourite stories of psychological interest is that of Phineas Gage, who survived an iron rod driven through his skull. I was quite tickled that this was the second of the stories in this collection. The death cat, frozen girl, and the Winchester House were other familiar stories. I liked most of the artwork. Often the style fit the story. Winchester had a sepia tone. The Egyptian tale is done in warm watercolour hues, with lots of peachy oranges and pale lemon yellows, rose and salmon. Early morning colours for a story set at the dawn of civilisation. (I'm probably reading too much there, but hey, I have a Poet's soul. However, the drawings of Riply himself freaked me out. He has a creepy ass grin that reminds me of Dick Roman in Supernatural.

***Many thanks to Netgalley & Diamond Books/ Zenescope for providing an ecopy in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I received an ARC from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I read this graphic novel on a flight and I really, really enjoyed it. I loved the concept. The believe it or not stories were very cool. The artwork, for the most part, was amazing. I have so many favourite stories from here...well I basically liked all of them with one exception where I thought the story and the artwork was just not up to snuff.

I really enjoyed it and I was highly entertained for an hour. I would definitely recommend and I'd read another again for sure.

I've read many of the Ripleys Believe it or not editions and enjoyed them all. This version focused on some very strange and unusual events that I probably would not have believed if it were not in one of the Ripley books. The book generated some great conversations at our last family gathering. Now everyone wants their own copy.

Good fun to read. Mixture of interesting facts and the history of Ripley's told mainly in comic strip style.
I was given this book by Netgalley and the publisher. This is my voluntary review.

My 9-year old niece would love this. She's currently obsessed with weird facts. I found it a bit "meh". The book follows the structure of a 10 page or so dramatization of an event followed by a 1 page synopsis of the actual event. The stories here were either WAY too long for the subject matter or ones I already knew about like the Winchester Mystery House.

Like a lot of collections of this genre, this is a mixed bag of medical oddities, conspiracy theories, and tales of the supposed supernatural. Each chapter takes on an individual tale. Fans of the weird are likely to be familiar with most if not all of these tales (Phineas Gage, the WInchester Mystery House, the Yosemite Super Volcano, etc). Well represented in a visual medium.

I remember Ripley’s Believe It or Not really blossoming when I was younger. It has been around much longer than I have been, but I recall books and a tv show when I was growing it. Since then, it had pretty much fallen off my radar. When I saw Zenescope, famed for their combination of fairy tales and unrealistic female bodies, was releasing a collection of their two-issue series, I was curious enough to check it out.
Two very limited framing stories (one from each issue) open and close this anthology of short stories. Overall, they are a bit difficult to classify. They are all based on true events (believe it or not…hardy har har), so they aren’t fiction. They aren’t really horror, although the cover gives off a bit of that vibe. IT is mostly short vignettes about historical quirks, followed up by one-page illustrated fact sheets.
I had pretty middling feelings about this volume. It wasn’t terrible by any means. However, it wasn’t particularly exciting or dynamic, either. If you are a big fan of odd little historical stories a la Ripley’s, then see if you can snag this on discount or at a library. Otherwise, I don’t believe this one is worth the money.

Review will be available at provided link on 2/28/19

10 fully illustrated tales/background stories for 8 different 'Ripley's Believe It or Not' datum. Each story written by a different author... each story illustrated by a different artist. Some authors and artists were used more than once.

This is standard 'Ripley's Believe It or Not' fare, that we have come to love and enjoy. The artwork was great and the stories well told. Some of the stories were fictional, as some of the facts being explored had to be imagined.

I do have a couple favorites, such as volume 2's "Frozen Girl", "Egyptian Cats" and "Stingy Jack". All right, I will admit, I liked all the tales on both volumes except one, which I choose not to share here.

Buy the book, enjoy it, put it on your shelves, read it to the kids. Mostly just enjoy it.

I hadn’t heard a lot of Ripley’s stories, some of them I learned about during my bachelors since they were medical miracles. Most of them were still new to me, at least, the story behind them was.

While it was fun to learn more about Phinneas Gage and the tallest man, even about Beauty and the Beast, it all just feels a bit immature. Which isn’t bad, but since the only things I’ve heard about Ripley’s stories was that they were gory and unbelievable and astonishing, I guess I had expected something more.. gory maybe? And more astonishing?

I am a sucker for happy endings though and I’m glad some of the stories ended on a good note. I have no idea if it’s actually true, if they actually ended this way.. but at least I didn’t feel sad for all the people in the stories.

Another thing I liked was the sort of fact sheet at the end of every story. It contained a bit more backstory, or told the reader what happened after the story. It was great for people who came across these stories for the first time!


All in all the stories didn’t make me want to look up more after I finished it. I liked the stories but they weren’t all ‘unbelievable’. Maybe back in the day when so many things weren’t medically proven yet. I think I would have liked it more if this contained some more condensed versions of the stories and then more stories in general, aswell as more gore. It’s probably better if you’ve known more about Ripley’s before and wanted to read them again, or maybe for kids that want to know more about the stories. What I’m trying to say is that it just wasn’t for me.

If your childhood family vacations were like mine, they occasionally included a stop at a Ripley's Believe Or Not museum. They have dozens of attractions all over the world. This Ripley's Believe It or Not! graphic novel brings Ripley's back to its roots. The Ripley's phenomenon began as a newspaper feature drawn by Robert Ripley. His stories of the weird and hard-to-explain expanded into the museums and other media.



This graphic novel is a compilation of the first two issues of recent Ripley's comic books. They are composed of weird stories and other topics that are familiar to Ripley's world. Stories include the real-life story behind Beauty and the Beast, a description of the Winchester Mansion (and its haunting), and other historical, medical, and scientific oddities. It's all a reminder that Ripley didn't just make up a bunch of junk; he took obscure stories from history or oddities in nature and presented them in a dramatic fashion. These enjoyable comics preserve that tradition.





Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

I thought this was intriguing. The book takes us to visit 'Ripely"s believe it or not.' We are told about some of the exhibitions that make up Ripley's display and we are told about the facts and figures behind each story. The book uses graphic artwork to convey and explain what has happened.

I though the artwork was good and it is a great introduction to the World of Ripelys and an enjoyable comic.

Copy provided by publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

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I love Ripley's Believe it or Not. I have been to some of the museums with different collections. This is a graphic novel which I really liked. These stories are of real people who have to live with whatever problem or deformity they have. Mostly short stories with some happy endings. I recommend it. I received this book from Net Galley and Diamond Book Distributors. The opinions expressed are my own

This is a collection of bizarre, weird, and amazing stories presented in a graphic novel format. It turned out to be just an ok read for me. While the stories are intriguing - Petrus Gonsalvus of Canary Islands was the first recorded case of hypertrichosis; Phineas Gage was the man who survived an iron rod driven into his skull, etc - but I did not enjoy the illustrations, as it was too cartoonish for me. Felt like I am reading a fiction. In the end I still prefer reading the usual standard format of Ripley's Believe It Or Not! But if you want something different, this may work for you.

***I received a complimentary digital copy of this book from Diamond Book Distributors through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All views expressed in this review are my own and was not influenced by the author, publisher or any third party.***

An interesting way to read about and see some of Ripley’s most famous oddities! I’ve always been fascinated by Believe it or Not so this was a fun read!