The Left Bank Gang
by Jason
2007 Eisner Winner for Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Material
The Last Musketeer
by Jason
2009 Eisner Winner for Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Material
There are several reasons why I'm pairing these books together rather than giving them each a turn in the spotlight. They're both extremely short, they're both from the same creator, and they both have a similar style in storytelling. The art style is identical in both with their animal headed people and rigid panel structure. They're also both absolutely terrific.
My favorite of the two (and it's a close thing) is The Left Bank Gang. It depicts Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ezra Pound as struggling comic book artists in early 20th century Paris. Most of them are having money troubles when Hemingway comes up with a plan for a large heist. Zelda Fitzgerald gets wind of the plan and then things go badly.
The Last Musketeer is a pulp adventure romp where Athos is the last person to wear the uniform of the Musketeers four hundred years after the end of the novels. When Mars invades Paris he travels to the red planet to fight back even though he stands alone. Once there he finds a princess who is more capable than the men around her and willing to help stop the invasion, an emperor who is too bored for his own good, and an old enemy waiting for a showdown.
I'm going to start with The Last Musketeer since that's the one that I have the least to say about it. That's because while it is a charming mash up of Dumas and Flash Gordan there's nothing more to it than that. Athos confronts some Martians in the anachronistic way of a French gentleman, they fight, and then cut to an interlude before things repeat. This is appropriate for the homage Jason is creating but the impression I'm left with at the end is "Well that was fun."
The Last Musketeer also a funny book. Athos's mindset is stuck in the seventeenth century so his reaction to scifi tropes like an evil robot is amusing. The princess is set up in a traditional pulp role where she should be the clinging damsel who betrayed her father for the love of the hero; instead she's a no-nonsense, tough woman who has no time being kept in that role. And the villains seem to be just playing their their required part even though they're not really happy about it.
The Left Bank Gang, on the other hand, starts off in a straightforward method but then when the heist starts splits in over half a dozen viewpoints of the events where no one has the whole story. Suddenly there's seven interwoven narratives being told one at a time and each one reveals just a little bit more. They're all complete from their own perspectives but the they make up something greater when combined. Jason is masterful in his use of this technique and it made the last half of The Left Bank Gang extremely engaging.
I also had a lot of fun with the reimagining of early twentieth century authors into comic book artists. The humorous parts of the book tie into that theme. If you have a broad familiarity with their lives then it adds an extra layer to the story.
The best word I can describe the art with is rigid. Every character is stiff as a board with limited movement. Every page is a nine panel grid. Everything is hard edged. These are not beautiful looking books but the artwork serves its purpose.
One of the things that I like the most about my hobby is that every so often I find some writer who is so intriguing that I want to read more from them. I had never read anything by Jason before these books and now I want to read a lot more of his books. They're entertaining and charming and that's more than enough reason for me to recommend them.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Review - Black Hole
Black Hole
by Charles Burns
2006 Eisner Winner for Best Graphic Album - Reprint
There are some very heavy handed metaphors in Black Hole at its center (or singularity if I want to go for my own heavy handed metaphor). Burns is trying to tie some big ideas together and it had potential to be interesting since he does a fine job at capturing the self-destructive youth culture. Unfortunately it never gelled for me; it felt like Burns never got around to actually making any of the points that he was groping toward.
Black Hole is set in a 1970's where a sexually transmitted disease is running rampant through the youth. The disease transforms those infected in different ways; one boy gains an extra mouth on his chest, another sheds her skin each night, and another woman has grown a tail. The premise itself has quite a bit of potential. A condition that marks sexually active teens can be used in a lot of different ways. And Burns doesn't use it beyond the basic level of a metaphor. The visibly marked children are out of sight and go to live in the woods away from society.
There's a girl who loses her virginity to an infected boy and she wants to hide her condition from her parents. She runs away from home and tries to sort out her feelings for the boy. Another boy has a crush on her and finds his feelings confused when he starts lusting after a college going woman who is also infected.
Black Hole is completely in the mold of the standard indy comic. It's about teenagers who happen to live in the same place and at the same time when the author was a teenager. It's a story of sexual discovery and coming of age. It also features it's fair share of hallucinatory dream sequences. The major plot elements that set it apart wind up being completely downplayed.
This isn't to say that Burns does a bad job with Black Hole. He does capture the perspective of lost and confused teenagers well. While I didn't like any of his characters with one exception I understood them. They were kids groping with responsibility and running from it. Their petty snipes at each other are part of their childishness. I didn't like them or even was particularly interested in them but that was not the fault of Burns's characterization.
Not coincidentally the character I liked was the woman with a tail who was really the only adult in the story; there are other characters over eighteen but she's the only one that I would call an adult. She came across as a lost and confused woman stuck in a bad situation. Unfortunately Burns wound up giving her the worst character development possible for a woman both in how pathetically cliche it's become in comics and how it reduces a character. It was unnecessary since she was a strong character without being given this motivation.
The artwork in Black Hole never excited me. It isn't that it's bad; it's perfectly reasonable. The best portions are the dream sequences where Burns's artwork has a liquid style that just blends images into one another. Otherwise his heavy lines and forms just didn't catch my interest.
While I may not have liked Black Hole I could definitely understand where it found its audience. If you like those coming of age stories then I have read a lot worse than this (some of which I've reviewed for this blog). On the other hand if you're as tired of these subjects as I am then it's not for you. Burns could have explored what happens to teens when the signs of sexual activity are obvious but wound up abandoning that concept for a fairly standard story.
by Charles Burns
2006 Eisner Winner for Best Graphic Album - Reprint
There are some very heavy handed metaphors in Black Hole at its center (or singularity if I want to go for my own heavy handed metaphor). Burns is trying to tie some big ideas together and it had potential to be interesting since he does a fine job at capturing the self-destructive youth culture. Unfortunately it never gelled for me; it felt like Burns never got around to actually making any of the points that he was groping toward.
Black Hole is set in a 1970's where a sexually transmitted disease is running rampant through the youth. The disease transforms those infected in different ways; one boy gains an extra mouth on his chest, another sheds her skin each night, and another woman has grown a tail. The premise itself has quite a bit of potential. A condition that marks sexually active teens can be used in a lot of different ways. And Burns doesn't use it beyond the basic level of a metaphor. The visibly marked children are out of sight and go to live in the woods away from society.
There's a girl who loses her virginity to an infected boy and she wants to hide her condition from her parents. She runs away from home and tries to sort out her feelings for the boy. Another boy has a crush on her and finds his feelings confused when he starts lusting after a college going woman who is also infected.
Black Hole is completely in the mold of the standard indy comic. It's about teenagers who happen to live in the same place and at the same time when the author was a teenager. It's a story of sexual discovery and coming of age. It also features it's fair share of hallucinatory dream sequences. The major plot elements that set it apart wind up being completely downplayed.
This isn't to say that Burns does a bad job with Black Hole. He does capture the perspective of lost and confused teenagers well. While I didn't like any of his characters with one exception I understood them. They were kids groping with responsibility and running from it. Their petty snipes at each other are part of their childishness. I didn't like them or even was particularly interested in them but that was not the fault of Burns's characterization.
Not coincidentally the character I liked was the woman with a tail who was really the only adult in the story; there are other characters over eighteen but she's the only one that I would call an adult. She came across as a lost and confused woman stuck in a bad situation. Unfortunately Burns wound up giving her the worst character development possible for a woman both in how pathetically cliche it's become in comics and how it reduces a character. It was unnecessary since she was a strong character without being given this motivation.
The artwork in Black Hole never excited me. It isn't that it's bad; it's perfectly reasonable. The best portions are the dream sequences where Burns's artwork has a liquid style that just blends images into one another. Otherwise his heavy lines and forms just didn't catch my interest.
While I may not have liked Black Hole I could definitely understand where it found its audience. If you like those coming of age stories then I have read a lot worse than this (some of which I've reviewed for this blog). On the other hand if you're as tired of these subjects as I am then it's not for you. Burns could have explored what happens to teens when the signs of sexual activity are obvious but wound up abandoning that concept for a fairly standard story.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Review - One! Hundred! Demons!
One! Hundred! Demons!
by Lynda Barry
2003 Eisner Winner Best New Graphic Album
Here's three quick facts about Lynda Barry and the kind of book One! Hundred! Demons! is for you:
1. It's a book where the author felt the need to include three exclamation points in the title. It's obviously there but it's the kind of thing that might come across as just an oddity outside of context.
2. She coins the word "autobifictionalography", possibly without irony. The word itself is bad enough but splitting a root as part of her portmanteau makes my eye twitch.
3. She randomly switches between cursive and block lettering. And I mean randomly. It's not for emphasis, structure, or clarity. At some points she switches midword. And one time switches back and forth twice in the same word.
These are microscopic nitpicks but they speak a lot to the tone of the book. It's all about the author trying to be cute and clever and coming across as annoying. One! Hundred! Demons! is a collection of strips about Barry's early life where she imparts trite life lessons into the anecdotes and tells us things like, "What's infinity minus all the songs in the world? The ones you listened to, the ones she listened to, the ones you sang together that day. Do you believe in magic? Yes or no?" Each image contains a caption that long and often that incoherent. It took me almost a week to get through the book because my eyes kept glazing over.
One! Hundred! Demons! is a collection of webcomics originally published at Salon.com so there isn't any storyline. There are just about twenty strips (not One! Hundred!) that run around eight pages each. And each page is a simple two square panels where most of that is taken up by the caption. The closest thing to a theme is that most of them deal with Barry's childhood and teenage years.
As you might guess from that sample above Barry's writing is painful. The stories she chooses to tell about herself aren't any better. There's the time she took LSD in order to impress a guy she had a crush on. Or the time she left a friend behind to hang out with the cool crowd. These are the exact same stories that everyone tells about their youth and Barry tells these stories poorly.
Adding a final insult the art is essentially doodles. Don't expect any storytelling in the art since there isn't a single instance of panels flowing together. There are interstitial blocks that look like someone practiced pressing craft stores into their scrapbook. This is an ugly book on a design level and with the drawings.
Needless to say I hated One! Hundred! Demons! with a passion. It's an unreadable, hideous mess. It was painful to read and no matter what I looked at it didn't make things better. I cannot find a single positive thing to say about it.
by Lynda Barry
2003 Eisner Winner Best New Graphic Album
Here's three quick facts about Lynda Barry and the kind of book One! Hundred! Demons! is for you:
1. It's a book where the author felt the need to include three exclamation points in the title. It's obviously there but it's the kind of thing that might come across as just an oddity outside of context.
2. She coins the word "autobifictionalography", possibly without irony. The word itself is bad enough but splitting a root as part of her portmanteau makes my eye twitch.
3. She randomly switches between cursive and block lettering. And I mean randomly. It's not for emphasis, structure, or clarity. At some points she switches midword. And one time switches back and forth twice in the same word.
These are microscopic nitpicks but they speak a lot to the tone of the book. It's all about the author trying to be cute and clever and coming across as annoying. One! Hundred! Demons! is a collection of strips about Barry's early life where she imparts trite life lessons into the anecdotes and tells us things like, "What's infinity minus all the songs in the world? The ones you listened to, the ones she listened to, the ones you sang together that day. Do you believe in magic? Yes or no?" Each image contains a caption that long and often that incoherent. It took me almost a week to get through the book because my eyes kept glazing over.
One! Hundred! Demons! is a collection of webcomics originally published at Salon.com so there isn't any storyline. There are just about twenty strips (not One! Hundred!) that run around eight pages each. And each page is a simple two square panels where most of that is taken up by the caption. The closest thing to a theme is that most of them deal with Barry's childhood and teenage years.
As you might guess from that sample above Barry's writing is painful. The stories she chooses to tell about herself aren't any better. There's the time she took LSD in order to impress a guy she had a crush on. Or the time she left a friend behind to hang out with the cool crowd. These are the exact same stories that everyone tells about their youth and Barry tells these stories poorly.
Adding a final insult the art is essentially doodles. Don't expect any storytelling in the art since there isn't a single instance of panels flowing together. There are interstitial blocks that look like someone practiced pressing craft stores into their scrapbook. This is an ugly book on a design level and with the drawings.
Needless to say I hated One! Hundred! Demons! with a passion. It's an unreadable, hideous mess. It was painful to read and no matter what I looked at it didn't make things better. I cannot find a single positive thing to say about it.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Review - Tekkonkinkreet: Black and White
Tekkonkinkreet: Black and White
by Taiyo Matsumoto
2008 Eisner Winner for Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Material (Japan)
Tekkonkinkreet: Black and White made a bad first impression on me. It opens with a long and completely disjointed sequence that flickers back and forth between several scenes and times which never seem to connect properly. Thirty pages in and I wasn't sure I could make it through the rest. Then things changed: Matsumoto found a plot, his artistic style became anchored by it, and I could start developing an appreciation for the characters. By the time it reached it's strange conclusion I had thoroughly enjoyed the trip.
Black and White are a pair of orphan children who live in what I can only think of as the platonic ideal of the metropolis. The idealized city of Treasure Town is their playground but the city has been changing. Plans are in motion to transform the lively but grimy city into a gentrified but soulless place. Black and White themselves are tied to the city in a spiritual way and as it changes they change as well.
Adding another layer of complication Black and White aren't simply names; it is also their nature. They are polar opposites. White is innocent and good hearted while Black is on the verge of giving in completely to rage. Black lashes out at those he sees as threatening White and White is his own lost way tries to keep Black from going too far.
That's the tension that really drives Tekkonkinkreet and makes it worth reading. Black is a child who is on the verge of becoming a monster. He's already a violent thug but he's pushing the edge of being much worse. White a pure soul and also his anchor that keeps Black's motives pure. There are physical threats from the gangsters and other forces that come against them but the core of the story is a child about to lose his soul.
Superficially it's a gangster story with a bit of children's adventure. Black and White run around their city getting into scraps and helping their friends while mobsters do their dealings behind the scene. The spiritual themes grow more and more pronounced until they are out right stated at the climax. It's a bit blunt and it results in a trippy conclusion that manga has a bad reputation for but in this case since the themes were so strongly worked into the fabric of the story I think Matsumoto made it work.
The other big theme in the story is how the world changes and Matsumoto does this both in the changing landscape of the city and the shifting characters. Black and White are changing but so are the gangs who control much of the city and police who challenge them. No one is untouched by the shifts in the city and characters who were established as antagonists do not remain so (or at least not the same antagonists they were initially). The only ones whose character isn't fully explored are the agents of change themselves.
Do not expect a lot of explanation out of Tekkonkinkreet. The further in you get the stranger things become and none them are ever addressed. The strangeness of the characters and city are part of the theme; for the story the mysteries don't matter. If you need everything explained then you will be greatly disappointed at the end of the book.
His artwork is a bit of a shock to the system. Matsumoto isn't one for the usual manga conventions. His artwork is jagged instead of sleek and his use of perspective is almost cubist. His cityscapes have a style that is distinctive; they're not bleak but they are harsh. I wound up appreciating the art as part of the style of the book but it's not going to be for everyone.
So there are some rough edges to Tekkonkinkreet butI think those are rough edges worth dealing with. This is a story very much in the urban fantasy mold but its fantastic elements are so low key that when they do bubble to the surface it's a shock since we've nearly forgotten them. I wound up liking it a lot and I would have enjoyed a longer story exploring these characters and their city.
by Taiyo Matsumoto
2008 Eisner Winner for Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Material (Japan)
Tekkonkinkreet: Black and White made a bad first impression on me. It opens with a long and completely disjointed sequence that flickers back and forth between several scenes and times which never seem to connect properly. Thirty pages in and I wasn't sure I could make it through the rest. Then things changed: Matsumoto found a plot, his artistic style became anchored by it, and I could start developing an appreciation for the characters. By the time it reached it's strange conclusion I had thoroughly enjoyed the trip.
Black and White are a pair of orphan children who live in what I can only think of as the platonic ideal of the metropolis. The idealized city of Treasure Town is their playground but the city has been changing. Plans are in motion to transform the lively but grimy city into a gentrified but soulless place. Black and White themselves are tied to the city in a spiritual way and as it changes they change as well.
Adding another layer of complication Black and White aren't simply names; it is also their nature. They are polar opposites. White is innocent and good hearted while Black is on the verge of giving in completely to rage. Black lashes out at those he sees as threatening White and White is his own lost way tries to keep Black from going too far.
That's the tension that really drives Tekkonkinkreet and makes it worth reading. Black is a child who is on the verge of becoming a monster. He's already a violent thug but he's pushing the edge of being much worse. White a pure soul and also his anchor that keeps Black's motives pure. There are physical threats from the gangsters and other forces that come against them but the core of the story is a child about to lose his soul.
Superficially it's a gangster story with a bit of children's adventure. Black and White run around their city getting into scraps and helping their friends while mobsters do their dealings behind the scene. The spiritual themes grow more and more pronounced until they are out right stated at the climax. It's a bit blunt and it results in a trippy conclusion that manga has a bad reputation for but in this case since the themes were so strongly worked into the fabric of the story I think Matsumoto made it work.
The other big theme in the story is how the world changes and Matsumoto does this both in the changing landscape of the city and the shifting characters. Black and White are changing but so are the gangs who control much of the city and police who challenge them. No one is untouched by the shifts in the city and characters who were established as antagonists do not remain so (or at least not the same antagonists they were initially). The only ones whose character isn't fully explored are the agents of change themselves.
Do not expect a lot of explanation out of Tekkonkinkreet. The further in you get the stranger things become and none them are ever addressed. The strangeness of the characters and city are part of the theme; for the story the mysteries don't matter. If you need everything explained then you will be greatly disappointed at the end of the book.
His artwork is a bit of a shock to the system. Matsumoto isn't one for the usual manga conventions. His artwork is jagged instead of sleek and his use of perspective is almost cubist. His cityscapes have a style that is distinctive; they're not bleak but they are harsh. I wound up appreciating the art as part of the style of the book but it's not going to be for everyone.
So there are some rough edges to Tekkonkinkreet butI think those are rough edges worth dealing with. This is a story very much in the urban fantasy mold but its fantastic elements are so low key that when they do bubble to the surface it's a shock since we've nearly forgotten them. I wound up liking it a lot and I would have enjoyed a longer story exploring these characters and their city.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Review - The Books of Magic
The Books of Magic
Written by Neil Gaiman; Art by John Bolton, Scott Hampton, Charles Vess, and Paul Johnson
1992 Eisner Winner for Best Writer
Due to the way that the Eisners work every so often you get a real oddity in the list. There are several categories that are for a person instead of a specific work which means that while someone may win for their work on a particular project (like Sandman to use an arbitrary example) and other lesser things they did that year get to come along for the ride (such as The Books of Magic to use another completely arbitrary example). Despite some terrific painted art by four exceptional artists The Books of Magic is not Gaiman's best work. He's limited by his format and while flashes of his skill occasionally shine through it just isn't enough to justify it.
The nominal plot is that Harry Potter... er... Timothy Hunter is a boy with potential to be the greatest wizard in the world. In an attempt to channel his abilities for good four wizards confront him and lead Tim on a hero's journey of a guided tour of all magic. What that tour ammounts to, and what the vast majority of the book comes down to, are quick introductions to the supernatural characters and concepts in DC comics.
(The similarities between Tim Hunter and Harry Potter has caused some people to claim that J.K. Rowling "stole" the idea from Gaiman but I think it's clear to most people that they both were inspired by the similar things.)
There are four chapters to The Books of Magic each featuring a different facet of magic: it's history, the current practitioners, the supernatural realms, and it's future. Each chapter is painted by a different artist which is a striking visual effect. Unfortunately these explorations are comprised of one or two page executive summaries of the concept. Here's a page on Egyptian magic. There's a page about the Dreaming. Or a quick flash of 64th century techno-magic. It's glimpses of bigger concepts and Gaiman doesn't do justice to any of them by flickering past them.
When The Books of Magic follows the story of people trying to take advantage of Tim then it is a decent read. It's still a bit simplistic since Gaiman is firmly attached to the traditional hero's journey arc and he doesn't apply it with a lot of style. But Tim is a likable enough character who keeps a lighter tone going in the more serious moments. That makes the dryer parts of the book much more bearable.
The most coherent portions of the plot are the middle. The second chapter is built around a chase as some wizards seek to kill Tim before he can make a difference and they seek sanctuary. It is also the only chapter where the introductions to the concept fit into a narrative framework.
The artists really add a lot to the book. Each of them render beautiful magical landscapes. In particular Charles Vess and Paul Johnson do some exceptional work. Vess is given the task of illustrating the fairy realms which is something that he's well suited to. Johnson's illustrations are a chaotic jumble that dramatically depicts the entropy at the end of time. None of the art is less than terrific though.
The Books of Magic is a vacation slide show of one comic book company's view of magic. And much like a vacation slide show actually going on the adventures you see would be a lot more fun than seeing the snap shots afterward. I'd still say it's worth checking out for the artwork since Gaiman's story isn't actually bad, just don't expect the same quality of storytelling that Gaiman was doing elsewhere at this same time.
Written by Neil Gaiman; Art by John Bolton, Scott Hampton, Charles Vess, and Paul Johnson
1992 Eisner Winner for Best Writer
Due to the way that the Eisners work every so often you get a real oddity in the list. There are several categories that are for a person instead of a specific work which means that while someone may win for their work on a particular project (like Sandman to use an arbitrary example) and other lesser things they did that year get to come along for the ride (such as The Books of Magic to use another completely arbitrary example). Despite some terrific painted art by four exceptional artists The Books of Magic is not Gaiman's best work. He's limited by his format and while flashes of his skill occasionally shine through it just isn't enough to justify it.
The nominal plot is that Harry Potter... er... Timothy Hunter is a boy with potential to be the greatest wizard in the world. In an attempt to channel his abilities for good four wizards confront him and lead Tim on a hero's journey of a guided tour of all magic. What that tour ammounts to, and what the vast majority of the book comes down to, are quick introductions to the supernatural characters and concepts in DC comics.
(The similarities between Tim Hunter and Harry Potter has caused some people to claim that J.K. Rowling "stole" the idea from Gaiman but I think it's clear to most people that they both were inspired by the similar things.)
There are four chapters to The Books of Magic each featuring a different facet of magic: it's history, the current practitioners, the supernatural realms, and it's future. Each chapter is painted by a different artist which is a striking visual effect. Unfortunately these explorations are comprised of one or two page executive summaries of the concept. Here's a page on Egyptian magic. There's a page about the Dreaming. Or a quick flash of 64th century techno-magic. It's glimpses of bigger concepts and Gaiman doesn't do justice to any of them by flickering past them.
When The Books of Magic follows the story of people trying to take advantage of Tim then it is a decent read. It's still a bit simplistic since Gaiman is firmly attached to the traditional hero's journey arc and he doesn't apply it with a lot of style. But Tim is a likable enough character who keeps a lighter tone going in the more serious moments. That makes the dryer parts of the book much more bearable.
The most coherent portions of the plot are the middle. The second chapter is built around a chase as some wizards seek to kill Tim before he can make a difference and they seek sanctuary. It is also the only chapter where the introductions to the concept fit into a narrative framework.
The artists really add a lot to the book. Each of them render beautiful magical landscapes. In particular Charles Vess and Paul Johnson do some exceptional work. Vess is given the task of illustrating the fairy realms which is something that he's well suited to. Johnson's illustrations are a chaotic jumble that dramatically depicts the entropy at the end of time. None of the art is less than terrific though.
The Books of Magic is a vacation slide show of one comic book company's view of magic. And much like a vacation slide show actually going on the adventures you see would be a lot more fun than seeing the snap shots afterward. I'd still say it's worth checking out for the artwork since Gaiman's story isn't actually bad, just don't expect the same quality of storytelling that Gaiman was doing elsewhere at this same time.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Review - Safe Area Gorazde
Safe Area Gorazde
by Joe Sacco
2001 Eisner Winner for Best New Graphic Album
When I was reading Fax From Sarajevo I couldn't think of another comic that dealt with the Bosnian war. Somehow I had overlooked Safe Area Gorazde that dealt with a lesser known aspect of the war. At the height of the conflict there were three large enclaves of Bosnians were completely cut off in Serbian territory. The largest of these was Gorazde and while the other two eventually fell Gorazde remained a besieged outpost for the entire length of the conflict.
So what I anticipated going into Safe Area Gorazde were the human stories of a trapped people. And I got that. Eventually and in tiny doses. What Safe Area Gorazde is actually about is Joe Sacco himself and that left a bad taste in my mouth. Sacco spends about the same amount of time in the book on himself and his experiences in Gorazde as he does on everyone else there put together. The early parts of the book are especially heavy in this and even when it gets to a few pages detailing the harshness of a supply run or the harrowing escape from one of the other collapsing enclaves it's a few pages of that and then back to how the story affected Sacco.
I understand that Sacco it attempting to work himself in as the view point character; as the guy outsiders are supposed to identify and view the story through. This is completely unnecessary though. There is a saying that the reporter should not be the story and that is what Sacco has done in Safe Area Gorazde. He's the center of attention instead of the people who the story should be about.
In addition Sacco is not a compelling storyteller. He has a tendency to throw out these dry blocks of text. Most of these are put in quotes which makes me suspect that they're translated from the original stories and if that's the case then the translator is a poor one. (There's no credit or thanks given to them and given the story context I am assuming it's Sacco himself.) The character's voices are all the same and do not change as the characters do. It makes defending their homes against former neighbors who have turned against them as interesting as a walk to the store for a loaf of bread.
In addition the narrative is the book is badly fragmented. If you don't like what's happening in those two pages give it another page since it will jump topics by then. Sacco can't keep focus on anything for more than a few pages at a time and I got whiplash from the way topics would suddenly swerve.
There was one aspect to the art that I found disturbing. Sacco portrays all of the Bosnians with cat like slit pupils. Since a major aspect of the war was the attempted genocide the decision to portray the victims of that campaign with inhuman features is a bad idea. In complete fairness he seems to do this to everyone but there's very few characters in the book other than Bosnians and himself (and he is always drawn with featureless glasses covering his eyes). It rubbed me the wrong way to have people whose murders were justified through dehumanization being dehumanized.
For all the faults in Safe Area Gorazde there is one thing it does: it gives the story of a little known aspect of a war that was forgotten by most of the world almost as soon as it was over. Just having a unique subject is not enough to make me recommend it. This was not a compelling way of telling the stories.
by Joe Sacco
2001 Eisner Winner for Best New Graphic Album
When I was reading Fax From Sarajevo I couldn't think of another comic that dealt with the Bosnian war. Somehow I had overlooked Safe Area Gorazde that dealt with a lesser known aspect of the war. At the height of the conflict there were three large enclaves of Bosnians were completely cut off in Serbian territory. The largest of these was Gorazde and while the other two eventually fell Gorazde remained a besieged outpost for the entire length of the conflict.
So what I anticipated going into Safe Area Gorazde were the human stories of a trapped people. And I got that. Eventually and in tiny doses. What Safe Area Gorazde is actually about is Joe Sacco himself and that left a bad taste in my mouth. Sacco spends about the same amount of time in the book on himself and his experiences in Gorazde as he does on everyone else there put together. The early parts of the book are especially heavy in this and even when it gets to a few pages detailing the harshness of a supply run or the harrowing escape from one of the other collapsing enclaves it's a few pages of that and then back to how the story affected Sacco.
I understand that Sacco it attempting to work himself in as the view point character; as the guy outsiders are supposed to identify and view the story through. This is completely unnecessary though. There is a saying that the reporter should not be the story and that is what Sacco has done in Safe Area Gorazde. He's the center of attention instead of the people who the story should be about.
In addition Sacco is not a compelling storyteller. He has a tendency to throw out these dry blocks of text. Most of these are put in quotes which makes me suspect that they're translated from the original stories and if that's the case then the translator is a poor one. (There's no credit or thanks given to them and given the story context I am assuming it's Sacco himself.) The character's voices are all the same and do not change as the characters do. It makes defending their homes against former neighbors who have turned against them as interesting as a walk to the store for a loaf of bread.
In addition the narrative is the book is badly fragmented. If you don't like what's happening in those two pages give it another page since it will jump topics by then. Sacco can't keep focus on anything for more than a few pages at a time and I got whiplash from the way topics would suddenly swerve.
There was one aspect to the art that I found disturbing. Sacco portrays all of the Bosnians with cat like slit pupils. Since a major aspect of the war was the attempted genocide the decision to portray the victims of that campaign with inhuman features is a bad idea. In complete fairness he seems to do this to everyone but there's very few characters in the book other than Bosnians and himself (and he is always drawn with featureless glasses covering his eyes). It rubbed me the wrong way to have people whose murders were justified through dehumanization being dehumanized.
For all the faults in Safe Area Gorazde there is one thing it does: it gives the story of a little known aspect of a war that was forgotten by most of the world almost as soon as it was over. Just having a unique subject is not enough to make me recommend it. This was not a compelling way of telling the stories.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Review - Absolute Promethea
Absolute Promethea Volume 1Written by Alan Moore; Art by J.H. Williams III and Mick Gray
2000, 2001 Eisner Winner for Best Writer
2001 Eisner Winner for Best Single Issue (#10)
I've rarely been as conflicted about a series as much as I am about Promethea. There's a fine line between using beliefs in a story and proselytizing. Moore not only falls on the wrong of it often, he's completely off the deep end. He'll tell an engrossing story for several issues worth of material and then slam it to a halt with thirty pages of psuedo-philosophical babel. It goes from interesting to frustrating in the a blink of an eye.
Promethea is a goddess of imagination who manifests through a woman associated with those inspired by her. She's different in each incarnation and her most recent ones have been superheroes. Sophie is a college student researching the chain of fictional Promethea and the real-world sightings when she becomes the newest incarnation. Evil magic is set against her and she is determined to learn magic to fight back.
When Moore sticks to an actual narrative thread then Promethea is brilliant. Moore uses the same larger-than-life world he used in Tom Strong and Top 10 which is at the end of the twenty century, but it's an end of the twentieth century as envisioned in the science fiction of the 1930's. While Tom Strong gets lost in that setting and Top 10 uses it to play with homages Promethea has it as a contrast to its mysticism and history. The story jumps back and forth between previous incarnations of Promethea and each of them inevitably has a tragic story that needs to be told.
A lot of time is spent in this volume trying to define who the new Promethea is. As a superhero she's ambiguous and does whatever is necessary to move the story along. On the other hand this is used as part of being tied directly to the imagination. So instead of focusing on a character who can do anything and lacks a solid personality Moore plays up the human part and explores what Promethea could be. That made me interested in what she would become.
The problems start when the lectures begin. Moore is a devotee of a new age belief system and he often uses Promethea as a platform for his beliefs. Initially these are awkwardly bolted onto the story but later he spends whole issues on just preaching at the reader. It's not simply a lesson in what the characters believe; that's something that could be summed up in a few word balloons with having no impact on the story. This is a full assault by a new age guru. As someone who can easily spot the logical fallacies and arbitrary nature of the statements it was incredibly unpleasant to read.
Issue ten was one of those issues that I hated. Beside my annoyance with the magic lessons Moore brings in one of my least favorite concept in SF: sexual liberation resulting in hot women throwing themselves at dumpy men. In this case it's a full issue of sex between Promethea and a magician who is roughly Alan Moore's age. And while they're having sex they're explaining the metaphysical implications of screwing while the visuals are taking an LSD trip. It's a throw back to the worst parts of SF from the 70's. Instead of just getting a full issue of new age magick lessons (you've got to spell it with a "k" or you're not being obnoxious enough) you also get Moore's sexual fantasies.
In my complaints about Promethea J. H. Williams III is faultless. He was given the task of illustrating hallucinogenic playgrounds of the mind and tackles with gusto. This is a visually lush book with some of the most exotic visuals I can recall and Williams does a terrific job with it.
While I'm interested in where the story in Promethea goes from this point my tolerance for new age babel was worn away a long time ago. So I have no intention of going any further with the series. On the other hand if you have a higher tolerance for that kind of thing then there is a lot to like in Promethea.
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