Monday, July 16, 2007
FABLES: 1001 Nights of Snowfall
When Snow White travels to
FABLES: 1001 Nights of Snowfall is a special edition of Brad Willingham’s FABLES comics. Fabletown is an underground colony in
A different artist illustrates each story and the full-color illustrations are stunning. Artists include Charles Vees, Mark Wheatley, Mark Buckingham and James Jean.
If you’re worried because you haven’t read other books in this series, don’t. 1001 Nights of Snowfall is completely understandable even to those without a FABLES background. But be warned: this book is so wonderful you just may find yourself seeking out all of the other books in the series!
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Poor Sailor
S.A. Harkham's graphic novel Poor Sailor is a moving and evocative work. This is a work in true graphic form, with minimal dialogue and spare green, black, and white images. Each page contains a single panel taking up most of the 5"x5" space. The book itself is tiny and beautifully bound.
Poor Sailor is inspired by the classic work 'At Sea' by Guy de Maupassant, and tells the story of Thom, who lives happily with his wife Rachel in a thatched cottage. Their peaceful pastoral life is forever altered when Thom's brother Jacob returns from his latest sea-voyage and invites Thom to sail with him again, "like old times." Rachel, learning of this news, says no and reminds him of their little house, and their life together. But the seeds of adventure are planted in Thom, and he leaves Rachel sleeping in their bed one night and heads off to the sea with his brother. After many adventures, injuries, and tragedy, Thom returns back to his thatched cottage only to find his love buried outside the front door in a simple grave. Though the story is short and simple, it has the power to evoke strong emotions from the reader. The love and unity between Thom and Rachel is so sweet and powerful, and his decision to leave so painful, that the reader can't help but feel for the doomed lovers. Though Harkham shows them in simple everyday activities - building their house, having a quiet dinner, holding each other in bed - it is clear from the start that their bond is unusually strong. When Jacob arrives to pull his brother back to sea, the fragmentation of Thom and Rachel's marriage is heartbreaking. This is an excellent example of a book that, though seemingly simple, is powerful and forces the reader to question what is going on behind each panel. How strong is their union? Why does Rachel die, and how? What is Thom's motivation to finish building their little hut? Readers interested in the ways in which graphic artists communicate complex emotional scenes through single-panel art would do well to explore this wonderful little book.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Abandon the Old in Tokyo
Yoshihiro Tatsumi has been called the "grandfather of Japanese alternative comics," and Abandon the Old in Tokyo (given starred reviews by both Publishers Weekly and Booklist) is a masterpiece of gekiga, the term used to describe a more realistic form of the popular Japanese manga. In its most simplified form, gekiga is manga for adults, though this collection of stories is so much more than their comic form.
Each story follows an adult male narrator as he goes about his daily life. Daily life for these men is nothing if not prosaic, though routine is punctuated by moments of absurdity, revelation, and desperation. The overriding theme is human frailty, failure, and isolation in urban Tokyo. Each of the men struggles for a place of his own, both literally in the overcrowded city, and figuratively. Most of the male protagonists look very similar, and Tatsumi intends for them to "represent [his] view [about] the discrimination and inequality
rampant in. . .society."
Abandon the Old in Tokyo is clearly most suitable for adult readers, and while some scenes can be downright shocking, the overall impression that the book leaves is one of great depth and power. There is an immediacy and rawness to these stories that will stay with the reader long after the last page is read. "Beloved Monkey" and "Eels" are especially powerful and will force the reader to consider whether or not the lives of the protagonists are much different from the lives of the titular animals. Very highly recommended.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
Time Magazine named Alison Bechdel's Fun Home one of the Ten Best Books of 2006 and wrote that "the unlikeliest literary success of 2006 is a stunning memoir about a girl growing up in a small town with her cryptic, perfectionist dad. . . Oh, and it's a comic book". Time's decision to award a top spot on the "best of" list to a"comic book" may go a long ways towards giving graphic novels the respect they deserve. Certainly if any graphic novel of 2006 deserved the honor, it is Bechdel's gripping, engaging, immensely intelligent and sympathetic memoir of her childhood and coming of age.
Fun Home takes its name from the funeral home that Bechdel's father inherited and ran as a family business. The book chronicles life with her perfectionist father, a man who is more concerned with restoring their beautiful old house and collecting antiques than with raising his three children. As the book progresses, Bechdel details this love of things beautiful and desire to create aesthetic perfection. Her father goes to great lengths to create the perfect family life, including dressing up his daughter in dresses and ribbons, even while Alison rebels and the family slowly begins to lead separate lives inside their beautiful house. This obsession with image masks the inner secret of her father - that he is gay and perhaps in trouble for pursuing young men. Alison herself is a lesbian, and while she is critical of her father, and struggles with the way in which she and her brothers were brought up, she nonetheless is extraordinarily sympathetic to him.
The book is smart, even erudite, and the various references to literature and philosophy and Greek myth inform the text and lend it a richness of depth. Bechdel explores the often fraught relationship between fathers and daughters with tenderness, refusing to gloss over the many faults of her father while at the same time acknowledging their connection.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
The Squirrel Mother: Stories
"Do you ever wonder if life's not real? Maybe your life is only someone else's dream." In The Squirrel Mother: Stories, by Megan Kelso, you'll find a collection of stories that depict real life without the rose-colored glasses. Kelso digs deep and gets to the heart of what people may really think and feel, but might never say out loud. In"The Pickle Fork," we meet a museum worker who wants an old woman to die, so that she can obtain her silver collection for the museum. In another story, about the military, we see a raw and honest depiction of the government's and society's treatment of the troops.
Kelso tells it like it is. Her characters and stories don't wear band-aids; all the bumps, bruises and imperfections of the human condition are put out there for all to read. In some ways, this GN can be a tough read, but in others it's refreshing. Kelso's straight-up tales pack a punch. They are effective, well-told and memorable as much for their art as for the mesages they convey.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Pride of Baghdad
Following the bombing of Baghdad in 2003, a small pride of four lions escaped from the ruined Baghdad Zoo and wandered about the city until they were shot by U.S. soldiers. This slim graphic novel, told from the lions' point of view, details what those days may have been like for Zill, his two female companions, Safa and Noor, and Noor's young cub, Ali. Richly illustrated in warm browns, yellows and reds, The Pride of Baghdad is the collaborative effort of Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon and begins just before the bombs land on the Zoo. Noor, vibrant and lithe, lies plotting her escape from the Zoo, determined to live in freedom. Freedom, it turns out, is more than the pride had bargained for. As the bombs fall, Vaughan and Henrichon depict the terror and chaos of the animals as they flee their ruined homes. The lions take to the streets of Baghdad, discovering the ruined and deserted palaces of the "keepers". The text can seem stilted in parts, but that is more than made up for in the illustration, which is remarkable and heartfelt.The Pride of Baghdad is more than anthropomorphosized storytelling, though. At the heart of the book is a debate between Noor, who is in her prime, and Safa, who is older, crippled, and jaded. The lionesses argue about the merits of freedom: is it better to be caged, but well fed and looked after, or free and starving in a ruined city? The debate is clearly adaptable to the human residents of Baghdad, and as the pride meets other residents of the bombed-out city, it is clear that to be kept has its own perils. Though the authors give these kinds of debates to the two lionesses, the text refrains from being heavy-handed, preachy, or trite. There are no easy answers - for the lions or the reader. In the end, the lions' sad deaths are simply collateral damage in the aftermath of the invasion, reminding the reader that war causes many losses, both great and small.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Blankets
A story of first love, family and growing up, Craig Thompson's Blankets is about as good as a graphic novel can get. At 581 pages, this GN is truly a novel, but don't let the length deter you. Once you pick up Blankets, I guarantee you won't be able to put it down. Thompson's story is honest and gripping, a fusion of words and art that will not fail to touch your heart. It's a realistic story about a boy who confronts faith, love and family and ultimately discovers that art is his means of not just escape, but of understanding the adult world. Blankets is beautifully written and not to be missed. In the words of Thompson, "How satisfying it is to leave a mark on a blank surface, to make a map of my movement -- no matter how temporary." Let's hope Thompson makes many more marks to bring us many more stories in the future!
