Author: Courtney Taylor-Taylor and Jim Rugg

2012, Titan

Filed Under: Graphic Novels, Historical

It’s not difficult to understand why the Red Army Faction, a leftist revolutionary sect that was founded in Germany in 1970 and existed in various forms for nearly 30 years, has inspired so many books, films, plays, songs, paintings, and other works of art. Young, politically minded people banding together under charismatic leadership, the journalist who puts her ideals into practice and co-founds the group, the campaign of violence, prison break, subsequent arrest and final fate of the leaders – the story is an a la carte menu for any kind of statement you’d want to make. And largely because of that appeal, it’s also easy to romanticize the group, and gloss over the consequences of the violent acts attributed to the them, which include 34 deaths. Even Uli Edel’s 2008 film The Baader-Meinhoff Complex, which effectively charts the group’s violent pathology, can’t resist a bit of mythologizing.

Courtney Taylor-Taylor and Jim Rugg’s graphic novel One Model Nation, originally published by Image Comics in 2009 and now republished by Titan Books, attempts a corrective to that dynamic, presenting the RAF as a frustration in the lives of four musicians who are trying to progress to the next stage of their career. But none of the criticism levied against the RAF, and Andreas Baader in particular, by the main characters amounts to anything more than insults like “assholes” and “turd.” They seem more concerned that their young fans’ sympathy with the gang has ruined some of their gigs and attracted unwanted police attention than with the RAF’s ideology, or the bombings and killings they commit. As an indictment of violent political action Taylor-Taylor’s story is toothless; it doesn’t fare much better as an account of a mythical band’s glory days.

One Model Nation begins with a framing sequence set in the present, in which an American documentarian meets with Olaf, a former member of the German art rock band Werkstatt, the subject of his next film. He’s unable to help, but the director presses ahead, asking “what really happened to the band called One Model Nation?” You’d be forgiven for assuming that Olaf would play some pivotal role in the flashback that makes up the rest of the story, but neither Olaf nor Werkstatt are mentioned again until the final pages, when we return to the framing sequence for a non sequitur ending. This kind of elided storytelling continues throughout the book, such that it feels like Taylor-Taylor is deliberating leaving details out, as if to preempt accusations that he’s holding his reader’s hands. But there’s a difference between expecting readers to think and engage with the text, and preventing them from doing so by excising important story elements.

The flashback takes us to Berlin in 1977, when One Model Nation is an apparently internationally popular krautrock band in the Kraftwerk vein, who are tormented by both the RAF and the police. During a meeting with a local promoter, the band is faced with two options: appeal to the West German government to get the police off their case, or play at an illegal festival in Frankfurt. They can’t come to a decision, but soon it doesn’t matter because one of their numbers, Sebastian, leaves the group after their specially-equipped studio is destroyed during a police raid. The remaining members tinker with electronics and meet David Bowie while Sebastian spends time in the countryside with his elderly father, a former Nazi officer, who convinces him to return to the group and face his frustration with the deterioration of society. The group eventually decides to play the festival, but an encounter with Badder, Ulrike Meinhoff, and their former roadie who’s become a full-fledged RAF member, lands them all in prison.

As a central tension, deciding whether to keep it real or sell out isn’t particularly compelling, especially when it’s already been established that One Model Nation is famous in Germany, England, the United States, and elsewhere. Taylor-Taylor inexplicably begins the story after the more interesting conflicts that arise in stories about mythical bands/artists have already resolved, and ends before a compelling mystery or ambiguity about the characters is established. The sound of the band’s music is never addressed, either – fans of bands like Kraftwerk and Can probably have an idea, but anyone uninitiated in krautrock would be largely in the dark (Note: Taylor-Taylor – the frontman of the Dandy Warhols – is releasing music under the name “One Model Nation” to accompany the Titan reissue, which is a fun marketing idea, but it doesn’t really solve the problems raised by the text. The songs I’ve listened to are ok.) The answer to “what really happened to the band One Model Nation” turns out to be “nothing, really,” and as the plot returned to the framing sequence I wasn’t sure why the question had been asked in the first place.

It’s often difficult to distinguish the members of One Model Nation from one another, with the exception of Sebastian, as their surface personality quirks (Ralf is sheepish, Wolfgang is outgoing) come and go as the scene dictates, and their dialogue is mostly interchangeable. Artist Jim Rugg makes an effort to differentiate them through facial features, but still, they’re all tall, thin, and pale with long dark hair (except Wolfgang) – it wasn’t until 2/3rds of my way through the book that I felt comfortable pinning names, much less motivations and personalities, to the characters.

Taylor-Taylor’s depiction of Ulrike Meinhoff as Sebastian’s vapid, easily manipulated ex-girlfriend is particularly deplorable. When we first encounter Meinhoff she is faking the sounds of sex from inside her apartment to prevent Sebastian from knocking on her door – in the afterward we learn that this actually happened to Taylor-Taylor, but does such behavior square with the historical Meinhoff? Later they meet in a café, and in response to Sebastian’s rambling about the nature of mankind, Meinhoff can only say “I really love you” and “I’m bummed we never could get it together.” Couple that with Taylor-Taylor’s description of Meinhoff in the Titan edition’s backmatter as a “left-wing political journalist with the facial structure of a bull terrier” and “German radical left-winger she-beast” and it’s clear that One Model Nation’s gender politics are retrograde (and I haven’t even mentioned the sexy punk rocker who only shows up in the final act to dispense some exposition and act as a romantic interest for Wolfgang).

Plot and characterization problems aside, Jim Rugg’s art is gorgeous, particularly his detailed views of the Berlin cityscape. There’s a sense of location, both geographically and temporally, in every panel – little touches with clothes, cars, hairstyles, and other signifiers of the late 70s reveal the care and precision in Rugg’s disarmingly simple linework. He sticks to a nine-panel grid for most of the story, which drags the pace down a bit, particularly in dialogue heavy scenes that might play better in larger panels, but does set up some nice surprise moments when the grid is broken, particularly a stunning explosion and the few concert sequences that convey the excitement and energy of a One Model Nation show. Colorist Jon Fell also deserves praise for the palette of grays, browns, and whites that give the book a quiet, subdued feel, and the moments of shocking color that accompany major plot points.

There’s an interesting story in the intersection of competing youth-oriented cultures, but One Model Nation is a few drafts away from really telling it. It’s revealing that Taylor-Taylor originally conceived of the story as a screenplay, and only adapted it into a comic after it failed to gain momentum with producers and directors – comic scripts and screenplays suit different purposes, and one can’t and shouldn’t just replace the other. That Taylor-Taylor’s friend, indie comic stalwart Mike Allred, guided that transition is encouraging, but I can’t sense his expertise in the final product. One Model Nation is a beginning writer’s good effort, but is ultimately disappointing.

[A review was requested and a review copy provided.]

Editor: Joseph Gordon Levitt

2011, hitRECord

Filed Under: Short Stories, Poetry, Graphic Novels

As the name implies, this is a short little book filled with “stories” that are mostly less than a sentence. Each bite-sized story is paired with a drawing: in a way they’re almost like one panel comic strips, but also not at all like that. While some are funny, some manage to plumb some nice depth, especially for their size. It’s not an impossible thing to do. (The not-exactly-true tale of Hemingway’s shortest story–”For sale, baby shoes, never worn.”–comes to mind.)  Most importantly this is a collaborative book, curated like a lit mag. The art is varied and interesting, and the range of the stories is pleasantly surprising. And yes, that’s the actor Joseph Gordon Levitt* who runs the show.

Here’s an example:

Tiny Stories is an attractive, if not substantive, little book; a nice thing to have on your shelf, or to leave out on a coffee table. To call it more than a diversion would probably be overdoing things, but it’s a good one. I wrapped up my copy to give as a Christmas present, but then decided to order another for myself. I can see myself quickly flipping through this many times before I’m done with it.

Similar Reads: Our own Eric Markowsky’s collaborative story, “Other Doors, Other Rooms,” over at Camera Obscura was in the same spirit as this.

[This book is currently being advertised on the site--that's how I found it.]

*more or less completely unrelated side-note, he’s the lead in a very smartly written movie titled Brick, a noir-style film set in a high school, which is one of my favorite movies of the last few years.

2010, IDW Publishing

Filed under: Graphic Novel

The Cape, a one-shot comic book released by IDW Publishing in late 2010, has an unusual pedigree (and no it has nothing to do with the ill-fated NBC television show of the same name). It’s an adaptation of a prose story by Joe Hill, which originally appeared in his short story collection 20th Century Ghosts. Hill (the son of Stephen King) is also a comic book writer, best known for the critically acclaimed Locke & Key, which is also published by IDW. He’s involved with The Cape as a creative consultant, working with writer Jason Ciaramella and artist Zach Howard to not only adapt the story, but also create a mini-series that explores the characters and their world.

I missed The Cape entirely when it was originally released, but stumbled upon the “Legacy Edition” that IDW published a few months ago to coincide with its 2011 Eisner nomination for Best Single Issue (it didn’t win, but Joe Hill was awarded Best Writer for his work on Locke & Key). The reprint also includes Hill’s original story, which is really the occasion for this review. While the comic was somewhat disappointing, reading it back to back with Hill’s short story brings the strengths and limitations of the comic book medium into relief.

In both instances, The Cape represents the inverse of Spider-Man’s oft-quoted mantra, “with great power comes great responsibility.” As a boy, Eric discovers that his homemade cape grants him the power of flight, which immediately leads to a serious accident that puts an end to his flying. He grows up angry and insecure, steals his older brother’s girlfriend, Angie, and quickly drives her away. Eventually he moves back in with his mother, rediscovers his cape in the basement, and takes to the air. Eric heads to Angie’s apartment for a reunion and takes her flying, only to intentionally drop her from a great height, revealing himself as a villain and reminding us that sometimes great responsibility is hard to come by.

It’s an interesting if familiar story, but Hill’s descriptions of flight are the real draw. Rather than relying on dry technical explanations or general abstractions he renders flight as a physical experience. By focusing on Eric’s bodily distress during his flight experiments Hill has found a way to make superhero fantasy natural, almost replicable, like riding a bicycle or swinging a bat:

I slipped off the edge of the roof like a swimmer sliding from the edge of the pool into the water. My insides churned and my scalp prickled, icy-hot, my whole body clenching up, waiting for freefall. This is how it ends, I thought, and it crossed my mind that the entire morning, all that flying around the basement, had been a delusion, a schizophrenic fantasy, and now I would drop and shatter, gravity asserting its reality.

That’s strong description for a story, but it would make for a pretty dense narrative caption or thought bubble in a comic. Necessarily, Ciaramella and Howard take a different approach to the flight scenes, emphasizing the suddenness of sensation. Howard in particular makes good use of awkward poses and facial acting to convey Eric’s surprise and delight in his newfound ability. Superman would never bend his legs at the knee when flying, but that’s an appropriate gesture for an enthusiastic amateur.

In fact, Howard’s art is the highlight of the comic. His use of dark lines and slightly exaggerated detailing recalls Leinil Yu, but with a softer, rounder edge. And colorist Nelson Daniel makes effective tonal choices, contrasting the bright oranges and blues of the early scene when Eric first flies as a boy with the dark greys and browns of his drab, sinister adulthood. The only misstep in the art is an overuse of Ben-Day dots in shading—the coloring and inking are enough to create the right feeling, the dots are an unnecessary distraction.

My strongest reservation about both versions of The Cape is the twist ending. I understand the appeal of revealing that villains can come from unlikely places, but neither Hill nor Ciaramella manage to anchor Eric’s evil impulse in the story. Eric is ill-tempered and selfish, for sure, but selfishness doesn’t precede murder. Both writers leave a bread-crumb trail of potential sources of alienation, jealousy, and paranoia—Eric’s father was M.I.A. in Vietnam, his mother is a passive-aggressive hoarder, his recovery from the flying accident as a boy—but none of those concepts are revealed to have any bearing on the story, nor are they mentioned more than once in the narration. Maybe Eric is just inherently evil, but that reading renders the entire plot unnecessary. If evil comes from nowhere, why bother to witness its baby steps?

On this front Hill is a bit ahead of Ciaramella—his characterization of Eric is more nuanced, not as relentlessly obnoxious as Ciaramella’s. But Hill also has more control over the size of his story, whereas Ciaramella and Howard are restricted to the 22 page format and must find an effective balance of words and images on each page. Ruthless cuts to Hill’s story were necessary, certainly, but different choices might’ve resulted in a thicker narrative and a more compelling central character.

Perhaps my concerns are addressed in the new mini-series, but I haven’t bothered to find out—after one issue I’ve had enough of Eric. And enough of characters like Eric—those immature, put-upon young men who do nothing to deserve a reader’s attention except seethe with rootless anger—in either medium.

Similar reads: Locke and Key, written by Joe Hill; Wanted, by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones

2009, Fantagraphics Books

Filed Under: Graphic Novel, Sci-Fi, Horror.

Get the book.

This book is pretty messed up. I’m not even really sure what it’s about, but it’s pretty messed up.

Edward and William are two very smart little rich kids living off their father’s inheritance. As a hobby, they make steampunky musical instruments out of animal carcasses and phonographs and sundry things. There’s a crazy woman known as Pig Lady, and they somehow have a cavernous workshop hidden beneath the house their father left them. There’s their odd mother, and a girl named Morgen who gets banged in what I can best describe as a snail sorter. And there’s this:

There’s something about this book I really liked. It’s not the plot, because there really isn’t one. I don’t mean that I couldn’t suss out what happens in the surreal narrative, but just that it wanders. The story’s a bit like a fever dream, and it depicts a few of those, tumbling things even farther into its churning delirium. There’s a book called The Squirrel Machine that keep cropping up, but its relevance or importance is anyone’s guess.

It’s not the characters, because they are far from whole. And it’s not really the art, though that is certainly the most interesting aspect to be singled out. Rickheit is very talented with a pen. This book is full of quite detailed, even ornate, drawings. His ability to capture his imagination on paper is staggering (even if the product is more than a little disturbing). While the art is very good, you probably wouldn’t hang it on your wall; after finishing this book, it will be the subjects and not the artistry that sticks with you.

So pretty much what it boils down to is there’s a lot of intricately drawn death and gore and grotesquery, and a little bit of boobs. Mostly a lot of weird happens. None of the parts are all that great, but somehow the whole package left me quite satisfied. The experience is a bit like watching a David Lynch movie. I don’t think I get it, and I’m not even sure I’m supposed to. But I like it.

Similar Reads: Silverfish (Lapham), Kill Your Boyfriend (Morrisson)

Author: Grant Morrison

2011, Spiegel & Grau

Filed under: Memoir, Nonfiction, Graphic Novel

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In Supergods, a nonfiction exploration of superheroes as a fictive phenomenon, comic book writer and artist Grant Morrison argues that Superman is humanity’s greatest accomplishment. From anyone else that might be considered a cynical statement; of all the scientific and artistic achievements, across centuries, nothing scores higher than a gaudily costumed, flying strongman born in a medium that’s not even 100 years old?

But Morrison is absolutely sincere—he contends that superhero comics are not just entertainment for children and fodder for blockbuster movie adaptations, but windows into a separate reality populated by gods that fight intensely pitched battles for good, of which Superman is the best and brightest.

Morrison’s is a delightfully optimistic premise, doubly refreshing when considered next to the daily articles and blog posts about the imminent death of the comic book industry. Those writers worry (rightfully so) about relevance, demographics, and market share, while Morrison knows that the stakes are actually much higher. How appropriate that a book about the history and potential of superheroes aims to save the world.

Writing about Alain Resnais’s notorious experimental film Muriel, critic Gary Giddins states that “a reputation for difficulty is almost impossible to undo.” That’s true of individual texts, like Muriel or Finnegans Wake or Metal Machine Music, but also of entire careers. And perhaps no other comic creator’s career is as obscured by received wisdom about difficulty or inscrutability as Grant Morrison’s.

Part of the “British invasion” of writers in the early 80s that also included Garth Ennis, Neil Gaiman, and Alan Moore, Morrison’s interest in surrealism, cut-up narrative techniques, fringe science, and the occult marked him early as a creator whose comics couldn’t necessarily be digested in a single reading. As a result, Morrison is labeled a “challenging” writer, and his work often gets dismissed as “weird for weirdness’s sake,” or deliberate provocations meant to confuse and irritate readers.

What his critics so often overlook is Morrison’s solid storytelling instincts—his characters are never ambiguous, and his plots follow an internal logic that rarely wavers (even if they don’t resemble conventional plots). Supergods is just as readable, perhaps more so considering Morrison has nothing to gain thematically or dramatically by employing unusual structures or oblique dialogue. He keeps his prose light and often quite funny, reflecting the boyish enthusiasm that informs his thesis. Even when discussing difficult concepts like fifth-dimensional beings (more on that later), the text stays lucid and expansive, as Morrison clearly wants readers to follow along.

The structure of Supergods also contributes to that readability. It’s part history book, part treatise, and part memoir, with all three modes braided into a single coherent narrative. For instance, Morrison folds his recollections of childhood and his writing career into the history of superheroes, discussing the cultural impact of the Silver Age Kennedy-era superheroes along with his own first experiences with comic books as a boy growing up in Govan, Scotland.

Later, he breaks down the first page of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s classic series Watchmen, while expanding on how the deconstructed, realistic approach runs contrary to the very nature of superhero comics and their paper-god status. This structure is also key to the book’s appeal; there’s no shortage of superhero histories, but precious few with such a strongly defined point of view and direct access to a celebrated creator’s life story.

In fact, many of the most interesting passages in Supergods concern Morrison’s take on his own career, particularly his self-willed transformation from wallflower to bon vivant. Directly inspired by superhero comics, Morrison turned himself into the kind of person he often wrote about—confident, curious, open to every possible experience. Of those experiences, the most likely to get attention in reviews of the book is Morrison’s encounter with fifth dimensional beings in Kathmandu. I won’t even try to describe what happened—any attempt to summarize or condense the story inevitably leads to distortion and incoherence—suffice to say that it’s a surreal and highly entertaining tale that requires a bit of lateral thinking to comprehend.

It’s also the story detractors most often point to as evidence that Morrision is crazy, or a binge pscyhedelic drug user, or a fabulist who embellishes his biography to accumulate counter-culture cred. Morrison himself acknowledges that there are a number of ways to interpret what happened in Kathmandu, and doesn’t quibble with those who maintain it’s nothing more than a particularly memorable acid trip—what’s important, he argues, is how the experience changed his worldview and led to a fervid creative period he’s maintained for almost twenty years.

There’s an almost spiritual quality to the Kathmandu story, and to much of Supergods, but it’s a spirituality rooted in creativity. Morrison is aware that superheroes aren’t real people, that they only exist on paper (in fact, that’s a key point in his criticism of Alan Moore’s take on superheroes, specifically Watchmen—sure to be another flashpoint for controversy), but he maintains that those same characters can have a real, substantial impact on our reality, just as we can have an impact on theirs.

You can’t pray to Superman and expect him to save you from a burning building, but perhaps through fiction and storytelling you can interact with him, and draw hope from his example. For Morrison, superheroes don’t just represent warmth and bravery and loyalty and love; they’re a way to directly access to those very same qualities in ourselves, which too often go undiscovered and unexpressed.

Recommended reading: All-Star Superman, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely; The Invisibles, by Grant Morrison and various artists; Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book, by Gerard Jones

[A review copy of this book was provided by the publisher.]

Author: Wilfred Santiago

2011, Fantagraphics Books

Filed under: Graphic Novel, Nonfiction, Biography

Get it at Powell’s

My father loved baseball. When I was young, he told me stories of his favorite players as if they were superheroes. He held none in higher esteem than Roberto Clemente. As a result, I believed Roberto Clemente had superpowers. I believed he floated through the outfield and flew between the base paths. I believed the ball exploded off of his bat and that he had a cannon for an arm.

In the years since, I have read as much about Clemente as possible. And while each article or book reinforced my belief that Clemente was both an incredible ballplayer and incredible human being, none of them seemed to satisfy the childhood fascination I had for him. I should have known, given the superhero aspects of the image in my head, that I needed a comic book. With his graphic novel, 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente, Wilfred Santiago delivered exactly what I’ve been waiting for.

Take, for instance, one of the book’s first pages:

The way his feet barely touch the ground, the way the ball blasts from his arm, the eyes on his fingers, this finally is the Roberto Clemente I imagined as a child.

21 will tell you the same stories as any other good Clemente biography. It covers his underprivileged childhood and caring family in Puerto Rico. It shows his natural prowess for the game of baseball, how he was the player scouts have in mind when they say a guy has “five tools.”

The book shows the anomalies of Clemente’s life, too, anomalies that added to his superhuman mystique. It shows how fans hated him for the seemingly cocky answers he gave in press conferences, yet consistently voted him their favorite Pirate. The narrative is bookended by the story of Clemente’s 3000th hit, baseball’s magic number, which came on a double in the final at-bat of Clemente’s career. It shows how he was a hero off the field as well, an ever-caring humanitarian who died when his plane crashed while taking relief supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.

Yet, if you know nothing about Roberto Clemente, I wouldn’t recommend picking up this book by itself. While the art does a fantastic job of telling most of the story, too much is subtly implied. I wonder, had I not known of Clemente’s somewhat tumultuous relationship with the media and fans, whether this book alone would’ve satisfied me. Perhaps long-time readers of graphic novels can infer the full story just from the artwork, but for traditional book readers looking for the whole Clemente story, I’d suggest reading 21 along with David Maraniss’s biography, Clemente.

This book’s contribution to the Clemente oeuvre is clearly in the artwork, and not just the superhero aspect of it. The brownish-green hue captures the agrarian nature of Clemente’s Puerto Rican childhood. Black and gold do the same for industrial Pittsburgh. And throughout the whole book is a sepia background, as if the pages are soaked in nostalgia.

I guarantee this book will be on my shelf for a long time, and that occasionally I will pick it up just to get lost in the artwork. Then one day, when I have children who are of reading age, I will put it on their bookshelf, hoping they will eventually ask me about it so that I can tell them stories about a superhero named Roberto.

Similar reads: Clemente, by David Marniss; The Team That Changed Baseball, by Bruce Markusen. For other excellent nonfiction graphic novels, check out Fun Home by Alison Bechdel and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.

2008, Drawn & Quarterly

Filed Under: Graphic Novels, Short Stories.

This is a collection of nine short stories told in a pre-pop-manga comic format. Penned (but not occurring) in the early 70s, these vignettes are serious, dark, and downright sad. The first things that probably come to mind to most Americans when they hear Japanese comic are probably giant robots, or cyber-ninjas, or cat-eared girls, or tentacle-rape hentai. According to the brief introduction at the beginning of this volume, those are probably closer than the themes of Tatsumi’s work to the modern Japanese reader’s consciousness as well.

Instead, these stories paint a serious and fairly grim picture of a society in flux, of a generation of postwar Japanese tethered to two different Japans, yet belonging to neither. Most of the characters in this book are aging men, survivors of World War II trying to maintain a sense of identity while navigating newfound luxuries and freedoms and simultaneously trying to adhere to traditional Japanese expectations and mores, especially those concerning gender roles.

“Hell” opens the collection with a snapshot of a Japan in transition. A photographer documenting the aftermath of Hiroshima captures a silhouette of a mother being massaged by her son burned into a wall by the atomic flash. It is picked up by newspapers, and is to become a symbol of the endurance of the Japanese spirit through tragedy. A statue is commissioned, and the photographer achieves moderate fame. When he learns the image is actually proof of a woman being murdered, he commits a murder himself to protect his secret. He enters a “personal hell” and allows himself to become someone he loathes for the sake of public honor.

Personal hell is a concept that recurs in most of the stories in this volume. The tired protagonist of “Night Falls Again” references it as he meanders between hostess bars and peep shows like a specter. The impotent Saburo in “Just a Man” decries the same personal hell. The young hostess Akemi in “Life is So Sad” copes with a similar incongruity between sense of inner self and outward actions and duties.

It is this incompatibility between increasingly self-reliant Japanese citizens and the tendrils of a culture transmogrified by American bombs that permeate this book. We see the society pulling through, growing, progressing, but Tatsumi reminds the readers of the great pains this effects. The pain manifests itself economically, sexually, and psychologically. This idea is best represented in “The Woman in the Mirror,” in which a boy living with and caring for three sisters and an infirm mother secretly cross-dresses at night and admires himself in the mirror. He is caught, shamed, and subsequently burns his house to the ground, destroying that part of himself along with it. As the story ends, we see the boy, grown to a man and caring for a wife and daughter, fully assimilated into the new Japanese culture.

In the final, titular, story Tatsumi most directly addresses the postwar effect on the lower classes of Japan.  It tells the story of a whore–very different, status-wise, from a hostess–who beds GIs in the slums. Her father constantly visits in search only of money. Like the men she beds for money, he sees her only as a means for filling a need. Whatever identity she had was lost in the blast, and indeed, it’s clear that her father also suffers from cultural displacement–he wears the hat of a Japanese soldier. The story ends not in despair but acceptance and complacency, with the girl bedding her father (that’s them on the cover), and severing all ties to the honorable, family-centric culture she surely was raised in.

Anyone interested in graphic novels or contemporary Japanese history will find these strips compelling. Tatsumi manages to convey a surprising depth of emotion without using a lot of words or elaborate art. Good-Bye deftly tells the story of an entire generation and is a masterful example of concise and poignant storytelling.

Similar Reads: Rashomon and Other Stories (Akutagawa), Buddha series (Tezuka), The Arrival (Tan)

[This is the last entry in our 2010 Best Books Series. Find all the other entries here. We've also compiled all our best books in one easy-to-browse page; find it by clicking the stamp, at left or anywhere else you see it on the site.]

The Second Annual Aaron Block Awards, Celebrating Excellence In the Comics I Read This Year, Presented By Aaron Block

“Most Awkward Purchase” Award – Black Kiss, written and illustrated by Howard Chaykin

My local comic book store, Comicopia in Boston, displays the “adult” themed books on the top shelf of the new releases rack, usually with plastic bags and carefully placed stickers to hide the naughty bits from sensitive eyes. I didn’t even think to look there when the newest hardcover collection of Howard Chaykin’s poison-pen letter to Regan’s America, Black Kiss, though I was eager to pick it up. I’d heard it was controversial, but didn’t think it would be stocked alongside more overtly pornographic comics. When I finally did find it, I realized that it wasn’t the explicit sex that kept it on the adult shelf, but the pitch-black worldview Chaykin presents.

For all the horrible things that happen within its pages, Black Kiss is remarkably frothy. You can almost hear writer/artist Chaykin laughing to himself as he detailed each panel, knowing the furor and outrage it would engender. That anarchic spirit seethes in every element of the book, from the knotted, hard-boiled plot to the cast of morally bankrupt Los Angeles archetypes, and even Chaykin’s rough, sketchy but heavily detailed style. The book is so dense with death and perversion in the first issue alone that any titillation or lurid appeal is quickly numbed, replaced with a morbid fascination with how deep in the gutter Chaykin is willing to tread.

Reading Black Kiss is fun, even though it shouldn’t be. Chaykin is rumored to be working on a sequel, but I wonder if an update could be as powerful as the original, given how much of this book shock-matter seems to be front and center in mainstream culture?

“Hey Wasn’t This Book a ‘Best Of’ Last Year?” Award – Batman & Robin #7-16, written by Grant Morrison and illustrated by various; Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne, written by Grant Morrison and illustrated by various

Batman and Robin may have launched in 2009, but the bulk of the story took place in 2010, and it was in three 2010 story arcs (drawn by Cameron Stewart, Andy Clarke, and Frazer Irving, respectively) that Morrison began weaving the new Batman and Robin’s adventures in with the circumstances surrounding Bruce Wayne’s journey from the dawn of civilization to the end of history, finally landing in the present where he belongs. That story began in earnest in May with the first issue of The Return of Bruce Wayne. And while each series could be read individually with few gaps in comprehension, reading them together offered a rare treat—a modern superhero story that makes narrative use of inter-book continuity. Not that Morrison ever resorted to heavy-handed exposition to make those links easy to find, or process; instead, Morrison trusts the reader to look for details, raise questions, and try to solve the mystery along with the characters.

The art is predictably gorgeous. Cameron Stewart’s glossy, animated feel suits Batman and Robin’s British adventure, while Frazer Irving makes the most of the hallucinatory, nightmarish final act with odd angles, odd coloring, and soft line-work. Only Georges Jeanty’s issue of Return hits a sour note, one issue out of fifteen, the rest of which are of consistently high caliber.

I assume the Return of Bruce Wayne miniseries will be collected separately from the Batman and Robin collections, but they’re both worth picking up and reading concurrently.

“Best Unfinished Series” Award – Joe the Barbarian #1-7, written by Grant Morrison, illustrated by Sean Murphy

To say that delays have affected Joe the Barbarian’s momentum is an understatement—the first issue of the eight-issue series appeared in January, and we’re still waiting for the eighth issue. Seven issues in eleven months isn’t the worst rate in comics (I waited longer between issues of Ultimates and All-Star superman) but lateness is particularly detrimental to a story that operates on two separate time scales, and relies pretty heavily on cliffhanger endings.

But if a little extra time is what artist Sean Murphy needs to produce art this detailed and evocative, then it’s worth it. Inking and penciling, Murphy acquits himself in both of this story’s worlds: the “real” world of diabetic teenager Joe, and the “fantasy” world of his hypoglycemic hallucinations where most of the books action occurs. The seven-foot-tall ninja rat creatures, flying demonic knights, and steampunk-esque mechanics of Playtown (which is also populated by pastiches of G.I. Joe, Transformers, and other toys scattered around Joe’s bedroom) are just as precisely rendered as the stairs and hallways of Joe’s house, and the action is clear and well-choreographed.

Issue 8 promises Joe’s final confrontation with King Death, and the conclusion of his quest to fight through his hallucinations and get a soda from the kitchen to reset his blood sugar, and I can’t shake the feeling that the ending isn’t going to be a happy one. Morrison is optimistic and hopeful at his core, and doesn’t dwell in misery without also developing the up-shot, so I shouldn’t worry. But who knows? The conclusion might doom the entire series and I’ll be forced to retract this “best of” entry (unlikely)—until then, I’m happy to celebrate an unabashedly kid-friendly comic in these days of gloom and angst.

“Weird Nostalgia Trip” Award – The Bulletproof Coffin 1-5, written by David Hine, illustrated by Shaky Kane

The Bulletproof Coffin is the history of comics projected through a grimy lens. It’s the kind of story that has a deep regard for its own fabricated past, and seems intent on fusing that past with the reader’s present. Kane’s pencils are a rougher, scratchier version of Jack Kirby’s style, and each issue is in part a “replica” of the fictional Golden Nugget comics that appear in the story, turning the product itself into some kind of bridge between realities. It’s as if the creators are trying to imagine what modern comics might look like if they drew influence and inspiration from these stories and ideas.

Not that those stories are entirely pleasant—the superheroes who appears first in the comics the protagonist reads, and then cross over into real life, resemble characters published by Marvel or DC in the ’60s, but they’re bleaker and angrier. That anger seems to come from Hine and Kane’s own frustration with the industry—both veteran creators, Hine has moved into mostly for-hire work at the Big Two (currently writing DC’s The Spirit, one of my favorite books) and Kane has mostly withdrawn from comics. But in this book they’ve cast themselves as Stan Lee and Jack Kirby analogues, the genius partnership that cast a long shadow over an entire industry.

I should mention that Bulletproof Coffin, like Joe the Barbarian, has yet to conclude, but with one issue left there’s not much Hine and Kane could do to taint its status as one of the most playful mainstream comics in the past few years.

(You can read the first issue of Bulletproof Coffin online, for free, here.)

“Undiluted Superhero Action” Award – Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine #1-3, written by Jason Aaron, illustrated by Adam Kubert

Writer Jason Aaron is probably best known for his Vertigo series Scalped, a very serious, often grim crime book, which makes it all the more surprising that this book is so joyous and willing to explore the boundaries of what superhero comics can do. Telling a story that’s part of the established Marvel universe but not bound to any current continuity, Aaron is free to dip into the sci-fi well, using time travel and alternate realities as tools to explore Spider-Man and Wolverine individually and as complimentary forces who also happen to be two of the medium’s most popular characters.

Adam Kubert is an inspired choice to illustrate this series—he’s capable of big, bombastic action sequences (see the gatefold spread of Wolverine facing down a planet-sized Doctor Doom in issue three) but also aces the acting, letting each character’s posture and expression reflect the forces of life and death that they’ve come to represent.

I’m grateful for any comic that doesn’t depend on my having internalized years and years of publication history, even when I do have the required knowledge to put the plot together. And while Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine does draw on Marvel history for some of its most poignant moments and funniest sight-gags, this is a comic designed for new readers, eager to play with their expectations without ever disappointing them.

[Read the first Aaron Block Graphic Novel Awards here.]

Written and illustrated by David Lapham

Vertigo, 2007

Filed under: Graphic Novels

David Lapham’s 2007 graphic novel Silverfish reads like an illustrated screenplay for a never-filmed John Carpenter-style suburban thriller. And while writer/illustrator Lapham is clearly familiar with (and fond of) the conventions of such films (Chief of Police father, bratty, rich-girl best friends, overly nice strangers with terrible secrets, etc.), he isn’t merely paying tribute to a lost genre, but reviving it in a separate medium.

If cinematic horror has largely abandoned atmosphere, suspense, and character, why shouldn’t comics pick up the slack? It’s not the novelty of “cinematic comics” that makes Silverfish such an exciting read, though; any comic that uses wide panels and dramatic visuals can make the same claim. Urgent pacing, realistic (if supernaturally tinted) danger, and a bold visual style set Silverfish apart in a field flush with predictable plots and flat characters.

Set in Seaside Heights, NJ in the late 80s (only one Springsteen reference!) Silverfish concerns bored teenager Mia, who is still reeling from her father’s remarriage to a younger woman, Suzanne. When her father and stepmother leave for a weekend ski trip, Mia and her best friend Vonnie steal Suzanne’s notebook and make a few prank calls, hoping to uncover a lurid past life. A suitcase full of money and a blood-stained knife in hidden in a bedroom closet deepen the mystery, as does unhinged realtor Daniel, who responds to their call with a mixture of terror and bloodlust. Too scared to delve any further, Vonnie, Mia, and her little sister stop the calls, but soon find themselves pursued by both Suzanne and Daniel, each violently disturbed by the churning gears of their shared past.

The plot is pretty basic, but Lapham being Lapham, there’s something more sinister at work beneath the surface. Daniel is possibly possessed by demonic anglerfish with razor teeth and long, notched tails that seem to be swimming through his head and attacking his brain. For most of the book this seems like the author’s attempt to illustrate the sensation of psychosis, but by the climactic chase scene the safety of metaphor is abandoned, and Lapham forces us to wrestle with the potential threat posed by the fish. Realistic settings and characters, blended with a bit of supernatural uncertainty and a dark take on human behavior, is Lapham hallmark, and here those themes turn what would otherwise be compelling, but standard, genre work into genuinely terrifying graphic storytelling.

Lapham’s art also contributes to the sense of unease. His lines are clear and bold, almost cartoonish, and the detail isn’t exaggerated so that everything feels real and organic to its universe, particularly the beach-town and empty amusement park settings. The widescreen panels add a “film” feel to the book (and make it a rather quick read despite its length) but it’s Dom Ramos’s greytones that give the book its visual character. The shadows feel darker, almost palpable, but I think light gets the biggest boost from the black and white scheme. Headlights seem brighter and more penetrating, and the amusement park is all the more unsettling when lit up and gleaming and totally still.

I must mention Lapham’s gift for dialogue as well, if only because it’s a rare commodity in contemporary comics. Mia, Vonnie, and their friends speak like real teenagers, confident and cynical, but never falling into the hyper-aware riffing that plagues both mainstream and indie comics. And while plot details are sometimes offered in conversation, Lapham lets his characters speak without forcing them to push the story along, or underline meaning for any readers who haven’t been following along.

Silverfish only falters in its conclusion, which seems to want to put a smile on a story that’s way too dark to render any kind of real comfort. While the quick wrap-up ending may be another convention of the genre Lapham is working in, it nevertheless feels like a missed opportunity to push the psychological horror further than a mainstream-friendly books (or films) like this are likely to go. Regardless, Silverfish is a tense read, and a welcome return to a kind of story that’s long been relegated to the pop culture dustbin.

Similar reads: Stray Bullets, by David Lapham; and 100 Bullets, by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso

Author: David Petersen

2008/2009 Archaia Studios Press

Filed Under Graphic Novels, Fantasy

I used to love Brian Jaques’s Redwall series when I was younger (and I’d probably still love it if I went back now to read it, which I now may), so when I saw the cover of Mouse Guard Winter 1152 depicting the cloaked and armed mice trudging determinedly through the snow, I couldn’t help but get it. This review is actually of two books, Winter and Fall, both quite short.

While the premise of the series seems almost identical to that of the Redwall series, Petersen actually creates a pretty unique and compelling scenario for his world. Unlike Jaques’s mice, who more or less live in a human universe all their own (i.e. trees and rivers are of the same proportions they would be to human characters), the mice of Mouse Guard live in a world where they are the smallest beings. They inhabit oak trees and rock walls converted to great halls, and the non-mouse foes (crabs, an owl) they face are many times larger than they in size.

What I liked most, though, is that for the most part, the foes are other mice. Mouse Guard is set after a great war with weasels has been over for enough years to be slipping into legend. The guard mice, once heroes, now travel between the isolated mice cities and act as emissaries, or as body guards to trades mice. The first compilation (each season collects a run of individual comics), Fall, concerns sabotage and insurrection: a faction of rebel mice, fearing oligarchy, attempt to overthrow the guard mice and establish a monarchical government. It does a nice job (as any first entry in a series should do) of presenting a complete beginning, middle, and satisfying end. Winter works more as an establishing point for a longer running series, opening the world and revealing a much broader setting for the fiction.

I enjoyed the art style a lot. There are lots of bold lines and colors, and the characters have a sort of badass-Beatrix-Potter look to them. The landscapes and action scenes are also a pleasure to look at. Neither of these Mouse Guard compilation quite manages to be the sprawling epic a novel could be, but they do lay the groundwork for a series that may accomplish that. I found these books to provide a nice, if brief diversion, and I’d be interested in revisiting Petersen’s fiction in the future.

Similar Reads: Salamandastron (Jaques), Watership Down (Adams), The Arrival (Tan)