Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel
Posted: June 25, 2012 Filed under: Books, Comic, Documentary | Tags: Alison Bechdel, Books, Donald Winnicott, English, Virginia Woolf 1 Comment
Alison Bechdel just had a new autobio comic book out, a follow up to her immensely successful Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic masterpiece, probably one of a dozen most critically acclaimed comic books of all time.
Fun Home, which I read around 3 or 4 years ago (and loved it!), revolves above Bechdel’s realization that she is a lesbian, her subsequent and dificult coming out, especially to her family, her slow understanding that her father is also gay – and different events in her life leading to her father’s suicide – all seen through the prism of a number of major literary works. At least, that’s the way I remember it – and I tend to forget things easily.
In Are You My Mother?, the style is heavily repeated – not an easy book to flip through, it is a non-linear maze of sorts – but here the key theme is psychoanalysis. It is structured as deconstruction of seven Alison’s dreams, the discussion of these with a number of analysts/shrinks she goes to, her relations with her mother in light of Fun Home publication – all seen thorough her reading of Freud, Jung and, most importantly, Donald Winnicott, a paediatrician and psychoanalyst she seem to hold in most esteem. Plus, not unexpectedly, Mrs. Virginia Woolf – to my shame, haven’t read a single book of hers – after this one, I know where to start at least. To the Lighthouse.
A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge by Josh Neufeld
Posted: March 11, 2012 Filed under: Books, Comic | Tags: Books, English, Josh Neufeld Leave a comment
A short non-fiction graphic novel on the US Katrina disaster, A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge is a one hour long read, tops. Nice work, but has its deficiencies – while brilliantly drawn, it lacks the unique tension of a kind that makes your jaws clutch, like, say, Joe Sacco’s Safe Area Gorazde does.
From pure documentary standpoint, it definitely loses out to Spike Lee’s deeply moving TV classic When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, a meticulous look into Katrina disaster and its aftermath.
Here, the Katrina events are more circumstantial as they relate to the five families Josh picked as his subjects. Some of them are actual Katrina survivors – some are its refugees, evacuated before the wind and the subsequent floods – and the story follows them in a patchy manner, starting from the week preceding the storm and later in the week that followed – plus a glance at how they are coping a couple of years down the road.
The only moving moment in the book, imho, is the depiction of armed looters and thugs by one of the survivors, Denise, taking refuge in the Convention Center. As opposed to the mainstream image, where non-Caucasian thugs looted and raped the weak and the meek, here they are presented as a people’s militia of sorts, restoring order in the abandoned center and administering food and water rations. Well, each coin has two sides, I guess.
Swallowing the Earth by Osamu Tezuka
Posted: March 10, 2012 Filed under: Books, Comic | Tags: Books, English, Osamu Tezuka Leave a comment
Swallowing the Earth turned out to be the most difficult Tezuka book to lay my hands upon. First, I was waiting for it in Amazon, not falling for pre-order option. Then the book, produced not by Vertical, the usual Tezuka publisher in the US, but rather by DMP, a comic book company I never heard about, went out of stock in a matter of a few days, as quite few copies were published. All you could buy was a lousy used copy at least 5x the cover price. Hm, not for me.
A couple of years later Amazon advertised a kickstarter project by DMP, who were raising money to put out a new edition out – and, not unexpectedly, I subscribed to this funding initiative to get my new copy. Never tried kickstarter before – and, frankly, the idea is nice but I am sure at least half the projects are dead in water after funding. Oddly enough, the guys didn’t lie, and in half a year or so, the book finally came, along with half a dozen of lower quality manga I got hold of as well thanks to my (was it?) $60 funding.
Now, the book is Tezuka’s first serialized graphic novel, written and drawn in 1968, before Ode to Kirihito, MW, Adolf and the rest of his perennial classics. A strange story of women’s revenge against civilization – focused on destruction of money, law and love – and not too much of a happy ending. To my mind, the book lacks clear storyline – it goes away from the main character and back far too easy. Lotsa dead bodies, as usual – sex and violence reign. All in all, too bold and not too well baked for my taste – you can see the master’s touch, but it ain’t a mona-friggin-lisa story-wise. Oh well.
P.S. I realized I missed DMP’s second project for Tezuka’s Barbara. Dang.
Bat Boy: The Complete Weekly World News Comic Strips by Peter Bagge
Posted: December 18, 2011 Filed under: Books, Comic | Tags: Books, English, Peter Bagge Leave a comment
Bat Boy is a blast. Peter Bagge’s comic strip from ’04/’05 rocks hell by the amount of sheer fun, madness and stupidity.
Bat Boy, a 12-year-old mutant kid, also Osama Bin Laden’s slayer, becomes the president of the US, Beyoncé becomes his first lady (winning this honor over Lindsay Lohan and Hillary Duff), Dick Chaney gets his arm bitten off, and the new independent state of Freakstown is declared within the borders of Oklahoma! Bat Boy, Bad Boy, oh boy, whatever.
Apocalypse Nerd by Peter Bagge
Posted: December 17, 2011 Filed under: Books, Comic | Tags: Books, English, Peter Bagge Leave a comment
Seattle nuked by North Korea, and Peter Bagge goes nuts. An office clerk learning to survive in the woods, after the blast and the fallout.
Surprised Peter didn’t go for cannibalism. Burning and looting, yes, going crazy and trigger/knife-happy, yes, killing all, including small babies, yes, well, all sorts of things. Overall, strange book – should’ve been funny, but not funny enough.
This is no Nakazawa’s Barefoot Gen, I assure you.
The Book of Human Insects by Osamu Tezuka
Posted: December 12, 2011 Filed under: Books, Comic | Tags: Books, English, Osamu Tezuka Leave a comment
The Insects book, newly translated into English, despite its promising name, is okay but not more. Yes, like most Tezuka’s adult novels, it has abundant violence, sex, murders – this one, even a hostile takeover shareholder meeting (vow, this is 16 years before Gekko!) – and most people are not nice at all – yet it lacks strong and gripping storyline Tezuka’s most prominent books like Adolf, Kirihito or Ayako can surely boast. I guess, sometimes, when you serialize a novel, like Jap manga usually goes out, it can hurt your story.
Written in the 70s, it is a tale of a sick and wicked girl – but other than that, little to add. I wonder whether Swallowing the Earth I backed on kickstarter.com will be of similar disappointment, ’cause for my $75-worth, I will get 10 non-Tezuka books on top of it.
Big Baby by Charles Burns
Posted: November 28, 2011 Filed under: Books, Comic | Tags: Books, Charles Burns, English Leave a comment
Finally got my hands on Big Baby, a recollection of Charles Burns‘ horror stories from late 80s – early 90s. Man, how I like Burns and how I liked this book.
First, it’s like childhood coming back – campfire horror stories mixed with the good old “Alfred Hitchcock presents…” and Tales from the Crypt in one bottle. Dunno about you, but I was totally hooked on monsters, vampires, the undead, all that stuff. Kind of, still am.
Second, his drawings are impeccable and his art is a work of genius, sick minded one, but still. I don’t know how he sleeps at night if these monsters still haunt him – but judging by this very book, little Charlie might’ve had some difficulty with that back in his childhood days.
Third, the Teen Plague story looks like a direct predecessor to Burns’ most respected and awed graphic novel called the Black Hole – which is sooo tense and gripping that it beats a good lot of decent Holly horror flicks. Erotic as well – what else would you expect from a book on an unknown decease that hits teenagers, which is transmitted only via intercourse and that starts an irreversible body mutation process. Grow a tail.
Fourth – black and white. Black and white. People like Burns should fire colorists and always push back on publishers if they propose colored. B&W always.
All in all, one two-pager story and three thirty page ones, barely an hour read – but so much fun. Didn’t really enjoyed as much his recent X’ed Out part 1 – but we’ll see how that turns out.
Spent by Joe Matt
Posted: November 26, 2011 Filed under: Books, Comic | Tags: Books, Chester Brown, English, Joe Matt, Seth 1 Comment
And yet again, I had no idea what I was buying. I only knew that Joe Matt is one of the three prominent comic book artists who stayed friends and put each other in their books while they lived and worked in Canada (for those not too familiar with the scene, that’s Chester Brown, Seth and Joe himself) – but just like with Chet’s last book, oh well, who knew.
They all have addictions of a sort. Chester, as I recently found out, is hooked on paid sex, Seth – on collecting comic book strips from early 20th century – and Joe – just to cut it short – this book is about Joe’s addiction to porn and masturbation – and how that drives his life. Too low on self-respect, too deep in self-dissection, too busy with porn collection, too tired from you-know-what. Quite on par with Chester’s very frank book already mentioned above on his dedication and love for the red light industry – but our friend Joe is living in a pre-www world and is focusing on his big VHS porn collection instead, which he even edits! Poor soul, a few more years and it all would come to him in all shapes and colors on the net.
All in all, Joe is funny, he is smart and he is ruthless to himself – no doubt, I need to read more of his.
Buddha vol.3: Devadatta by Osamu Tezuka
Posted: November 16, 2011 Filed under: Books, Comic | Tags: Books, Buddha, English, Osamu Tezuka Leave a comment
By the time I moved into Buddha volume 3 territory, I already got quite used to the story – it seemed just like watching, I dunno, the Walking Dead, Friends or, as some strange people do, House M.D. on the telly. A chewing gum of sorts, of mixed Hindu and Japanese flavors.
The book is divided into two, really – a half is devoted to Siddhartha’s travel to Magadha kingdom, whose king for the first time calls the young monk “Buddha” – and the second half is devoted to Devadatta, an child exiled by people and raised by the wolves – not that much of that story gets confirmed by wiki, but still, this Rudyard Kipling bit is quite amusing.
Oh well, it was for me.
The Other Lives by Peter Bagge
Posted: November 13, 2011 Filed under: Books, Comic | Tags: Books, English, Peter Bagge Leave a comment
Now, this was fun. Expected, I should say. Just to explain – Peter Bagge is one of the guys who got me hooked up on comic books in the first place. Quite a few years ago, I don’t remember for what reason, but Ira got me a copy of Buddy Does Seattle, a paperback collection of the first 3 black and white books (actually, 15 issues) of the Buddy Bradley saga – and I read it while lying under the effect of painkillers in CITO hospital bed after they had taken this bloody screw out of my ankle. The book was hilarious. So cynical and funny, I started to like comic books big time. Bought the rest of the Bradley’s stuff – the three books comprising a later published Buddy Does Jersey collection and the Bradleys book – and it all was all fun, but probably not as fun as the original Seattle Bradley hate saga.
This new book is a page turner as well – a 100+ page story about 4 misfits/losers/whatever-is-the-term who got hooked up on virtual reality games far too much. Acid-spitting and entertaining. The stuff that surprised me, though, was the ending – which was quite on par with the ending of The Valley of Pain performance by Vladimir Epifantsev we attended yesterday, with blam-blam-blam and blood-blood-blood. Now that was unexpected, huh?
Anyways, well done Peter – and we wait for more!
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