[At the end of every month, Aaron surveys the comics he read, celebrates the best, considers the rest, and takes stock of what it means to be a contemporary comic fan. Follow "The State of My Pull List" here.]
Spotlight
Saga #2
Had last month’s column not been waylaid by end of semester chaos and other roadblocks to productivity it would’ve featured Saga #1, from Image Comics, as my Spotlight read. That I’ve selected Saga #2 as my Spotlight book for April shouldn’t be read as a consolation prize, or a way to make up for last month; I would’ve happily celebrated the first ever back-to-back Spotlight pick for the Pull List, had last month gone according to plan. It’s a brilliant title, unlike anything else on the shelves and well worth discussing at length. And if it’s brilliant again next month and I have to rename this column “Saga and Some Other Comics” then so be it.
What Saga does best is open up the science fiction adventure story, filling it with ideas and trusting to reader to follow along. Whereas a lot of sci-fi comics follow the Blade Runner model, where the entire fictional world seems to grow out of a single design choice, Saga feels more like Star Wars, filled with weird creatures and technologies that don’t necessarily make sense together but we accept them as a whole because the story never stops to let us figure out how the giant gangster slug fits with the admiral who looks like a prawn. The characters in Saga (and Star Wars and Blade Runner, for that matter) are rich and complex enough that I don’t really care about the how – I only want to know what they’ll do next, and what the consequences of their actions will be.
Saga’s main story concerns Marko and Alana, alien soldiers from opposite sides of a war who have fallen in love and deserted. Saga #1 opens with Alana giving birth in hiding, just before the pair are tracked down by Alana’s former confederates. They escape, and begin searching for something called the Rocketship Forest that they hope will take them far away from the war where they can raise their daughter in peace. Along the way we meet Coalition officers with humanoid bodies and televisions for heads, giant turtles with laser eyes, and bounty hunters with names like The Will and The Stalk, the latter of which is the principle threat in issue two. Alana and Marko are also humanoid, but are distinguished by a pair of wings and a set of ram’s horns, respectively, which are the unique characteristics of their particular races. Writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Fiona Staples understand that a well-constructed story will sweep that quantity of detail along and use it to set-up even more sophisticated plot points, and that readers are more likely to appreciate the richness of everything than to complain that everything and everyone looks too weird.
All of that oddity would mean nothing if the characters weren’t relatable and interesting, though. Marko is an awkward new parent, nervously optimistic about their chances of escaping the war but also slightly a bit of a bumbler, while Alana is more collected and pessimistic. When The Stalk (a bounty hunter with a forked, weaponized tongue) stabs Marko and tells Fiona to hand over the child, Alana points a stun gun not at the monster, but at her own daughter, deadpanning that she’ll do anything to keep her away from the powers that are hunting her family. Even The Stalk is shocked, and as a reader I found myself in the strange situation of relating to the ruthless professional killer. So far, Saga is made up almost entirely of quiet character moments like that, with a smattering of action sequences mixed in. When the action does inevitably pick up, the stakes will be even greater because we’ve come to care about Marko, Alana, and even baby Hazel, who narrates the story from some point in the future.
Outside of the clever plotting and rich character work, Saga is notable in that it represents Vaughan’s return to comics. A critical darling of the 2000s, who built a loyal fan following around titles like Y: the Last Man, Runaways, and Ex Machina, Vaughan was celebrated for his deep plotting and dynamic characters, which made him a natural to make the transition to screenwriting, most notably three seasons writing for Lost. It’s too early to speculate about how that time away might’ve changed his writing, but nevertheless it’s good to have a gifted writer, especially one capable of drawing a non-traditional comics audience, working in the medium.
That said, the star of this series is clearly Staples. She broke through with Mystery Society (written by Steve Niles) in 2010, but Saga is the first in hopefully a string of high-profile gigs for the artist. Her linework is a bit sketchy but still clear, and suited to rendering all of the detail necessary for the kind of world-building she and Vaughan are up to. Staples particularly excels in acting – her characters are expressive, not only in their faces but in postures and gestures. When Prince Robot IV enters in issue two he is upright, striding as his position would dictate, but as soon as he learns something new about Alana his confidence is shaken and he takes this stance, somewhere between petulant defiance and a slouch, that tells us everything about Prince Robot in a single panel.
Staples’s backgrounds don’t quite grab me, though. They’re rendered digitally, and appear hazy and soft, whereas the foreground figures (also, I suspect, rendered digitally) are clear and defined, outlined in black lines. The result is a cel-animation feel, which is interesting in some ways but seems to rob the story of some of its depth and richness.
I never would’ve suspected this would happen, but Image Comics has been slowly taking over my pull list in the past few months. I’m reading more Image titles than ever, and gradually dropping Marvel and DC books. I still enjoy superhero titles, but I’m finding that books like Saga are making me all the more excited to visit my local store (Boston’s Comicopia) every Wednesday. … Continue reading »
He’s been in the bigs for less than four weeks, but it’s already pretty clear that Bryce Harper, the Washington Nationals’ uber-hyped new outfielder, is on a trajectory to superstardom. Still, that doesn’t mean he deserves a biography quite yet. Yardley agrees. He’s pretty harsh: “‘The Last Natural’ is an absolutely preposterous title and Miech, a longtime sports writer, is at best a pedestrian stylist.” He does give Miech credit for doing his homework, but the writing appears to be unforgivable. Maybe when Harper’s been around long enough to mature as a player, he’ll get a biography to match.
Man, this review is pretty awesome. Maslin lays into this guy–who actually has a fair amount of cred–pretty heavily. Even without Maslin’s commentary the book sounds like a hack-job tea party cash-in. Maslin lays on the sarcasm right from the get-go:
“The Amateur” by Edward Klein is a book about an inept, arrogant ideologue who maintains an absurdly high opinion of his own talents even as he blatantly fails to achieve his goals. Oh, and President Obama is in this book too.
The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom, by Christopher Healy. Reviewed by Susan Carpenter (Los Angeles Times).
This book, which “challenges every presumption readers have ever had not only about Cinderella’s savior but about the nameless princes who brought enduring bliss to other fairy tales’ forever-young heroines,” sounds pretty cheeky, but could also be pretty charming (pardon the pun) if pulled off right. A send-up to classic fairy tales? I’m at least intrigued. And it sounds like he sneaks a little scholarship in the back door. Worth a deeper look.
This is a quirky little piece from the brand-new Slate Book Review. It contains a few oddities like a big block quote in the early going, and a bar graph detailing how many pages the main character spends at different activities. These quirks befit a massive (600+ page) debut novel full of lists, anecdotes, asides, court transcripts, and other digressions. Another peculiarity: De La Pava self-published this book in 2008, and it was only recently picked up by the University of Chicago Press (more on that here). That alone makes it worth a look. Find this book at Goodreads.
Newman kicks off with this eye-catching opening line: “No subject offers a greater opportunity for terrible writing than motherhood,” and then proceeds to explain that writing well about children is hard because child-rearing is so mind-numbingly boring. On the shortlist of qualities I prize in book reviews, “acerbic humor” might be at the very top. Find this book at Goodreads.
Ulin finds Irving’s latest—which follows the life of a bisexual man over the course of four decades—good, but too familiar and ultimately unbelievable. His meditation on the modern-day role of sexually political novels like this one is well worth reading, shame that Irving’s novel does not seem the same. However, Jeanette Winterson, in the New York Times, takes a more favorable outlook. But then Ron Charles breaks the tie on Ulin’s side. Find this book at Goodreads.
Julavits’s latest mixes a pitch-black tone with a markedly silly setting: a liberal arts college for psychics. Sounds like it has enjoyable passages that don’t quite cohere. Oh, and a completely inappropriate cover. Find this book at Goodreads.
I actually picked this book up last week, based on this funny blog entry by Lawson (a pro blogger who calls herself The Bloggess). I’ve only read the first twenty or so pages, but I already know I’m probably going to like it. She’s got a sort of bitter playfulness to her sense of humor. Kelly certainly seems impressed, comparing her to David Sedaris. I’ll have my own review in a few weeks and I’ll tell you where I come down.
People sang the praises of Mantel’s last work, Wolf Hall, from the rooftops. It won the Man Booker Prize, amongst others. I started this novel about the court of Henry VIII, but it never grabbed me so I abandoned the pursuit. But in her review, Powers makes a compelling case to why you should read both Wolf Hall, and this, its sequel.
If that’s not enough monarchic politics for you, here’s a book on Henry VII. Owchar makes repeated reference to the Game of Thrones show on HBO (as well as Martin’s books), with regards to political maneuvering. But the line between GoT and the War of the Roses was one originally drawn by Martin, so I suppose it’s apt. (This is a double review, also touching on a graphic novelization of GoT, so that’s the incentive for Owchar’s connection.) The Penn portion of the review is heavy on the history, as the book surely is, but it’s certainly interesting if you’re into this kind of thing.
This is my third pick in a row with somewhat musty subject matter, but it’s also rather fascinating. It documents an art collector’s quest to prove a painting he purchased was actually painted by perhaps the most famous artist in history. There appears, however, to be a bit more depth than you might expect from such a book, with Silverman relating his own compulsion to exert “much effort, and lots and lots of money, into what is in the end a very expensive hobby.”
Christopher Priest has been writing about the Dream Archipelago for more than 30 years. The Archipelago is a fictional island chain between a cold, Europe-like land of technology and deferred warfare, and an Africa-like place where the fighting actually happens. This latest book about the islands comes across as a guide to 53 of their unknown number, but it also contains a nearly indescribable mystery woven in. This is a crazy, intricate book, and a great review at the new LA Review of Books site. Find this book at Goodreads.
On one hand, this is a historical novel about the death of one of Hitler’s super-henchmen, Reinhard Heydrich. Simultaneously, Binet inserts a writer-narrator with serious qualms about the book he’s writing. It’s an interesting twist for a historical novel, and well-handled in this quick review. Find this book at Goodreads.
These two opening sentences sell the review (and the book):
Even if you are familiar with the News of the World phone-hacking saga, you will be gobsmacked by this account. It is a tale of stupidity, incompetence, fear, intimidation, lying, downright wickedness and corruption in high places.
Damn. My only concern is whether I’m physically capable of reading 300 pages about Rupert Murdoch without killing myself. Find this book at Goodreads.
OK, so USA Today isn’t exactly The New York Review of Books, but in this case the medium fits the subject. King’s latest occupies a middle slot in his Dark Tower series. In a riff on The Canterbury Tales, the Dark Tower’s central hero, Roland the gunslinger, sits down with his companions around a campfire and tells stories. Almost certainly not a masterpiece, but neither should it be a clunker. Find this book at Goodreads.
Book trailer of the week: I’m stealing a page from Sean’s WBBR handbook. Here’s a pretty hilarious book trailer starring Neal Stephenson, for his new “group-written” book The Mongoliad.
[This feature is a brief summary of interesting books coming out each month. Follow it here. Click the pictures or the title links to find these books at Goodreads.]
Richard Ford writes impressively introspective novels. His Pulitzer prize-winning Frank Bascombe trilogy featured a sportswriter (who later becomes a realtor), ruminating on his life. Each novel in the trilogy takes place over the course of a holiday, and nothing much happens in the sense of plot beats—the narrative is almost entirely interior monologue. That seems simple and boring, but Ford makes even Bascombe’s most mundane thoughts riveting. So it’ll be interesting, then, to see what he does with this new storyline, which features murder, bank robbing, and a teenager trying to fix his criminal family.
Alison Bechdel’s first graphic novel/memoir Fun Home—about her father, who committed suicide shortly after he came out of the closet—won several awards, became a bestseller, garnered a slew of critical raves, and even caused a bit of controversy. Bechdel’s new illustrated memoir looks to raise the bar even further. Are You My Mother? focuses on, predictably enough, Bechdel’s relationship with her acerbic mother, and it’s been getting nothing but rave reviews. Even the joyless controversy-dowser Katie Roiphe loved it. It comes out today, so I’m probably reading it right now.
Niromi de Soyza grew up in an educated, middle-class family in Sri Lanka, but she joined the Tamil Tigers’ first female contingent at the tender age of 17. This book is the story of why she joined the Tigers, how she survived, and how she transitioned from that life to a relatively normal one with a husband and children. If you’re one of those people who say that only people who’ve lived interesting lives should write memoirs… yeah, this is for you.
Robinson is a fantastic author. Her essays are no doubt as great as her novels. I really like her notion here that, at least to her, “lonesomeness means the opposite of isolation,” instead allowing for a means of appreciating the world that surrounds her. It sounds, however, that this book of essays might be a little too Christian-focused for my taste, but her skill with words will likely make up for that. To be honest, I really mostly want to read this one because of the title.
This review is pretty funny, mostly from all the quotes it pulls from this book. Langella shares the dirt on a slew of Hollywood icons, most dead and/or from a bygone era. Still, this book looks worth a look. I mean, who wouldn’t want to hear about how he and Raul Julia teamed up on Jill Clayburghfor “a pulsating Oreo cookie with nothing remotely chaste about where our hands and mouths wandered”?
It’s a little tough to believe there wasn’t a whole lot of drugs involved in this one. Nica, a young British aristocrat in the late 40s, hears a Thelonious Monk album, and promptly decides to walk out on her husband and 5 kids, and spend the next 36 years more or less as a jazz groupie. The book’s nonfiction, written by Nica’s great niece. Sounds pretty crazy, but could be a fun read.
Steve Almond turns in a characteristically insightful and entertaining piece about Etgar Keret’s new book of stories. Almond expounds about reality and publishing, and makes Keret’s stories sound pretty damn good—he calls them “exhilarating” and “funny,” and Almond has a keen sense of humor himself. He also, however, notes that Keret’s style is “unadorned” and “expository,” and that the collection as a whole is uneven. Still, a writer of Almond’s notable creativity noting the imagination of a collection, as he does here, is high praise indeed.
Wilson’s latest book deserves attention simply by virtue of his resume, which Woodard details for almost half the review. Suffice it to say, Wilson is legit. In this latest volume, Wilson examines the nature and cause of altruism. The accepted scientific explanation for this, he says, is wrong, and the answer he now espouses explains, in one aspect, how religion itself is an evolutionary byproduct. Fascinating stuff.
I’m not sure I ever need to read another novel about the witness protection program (this one was more than enough), but I also have a terrible weakness for “noir thrillers,” and this one looks to fit that bill: a mob wife in witness protection (for ratting out her husband) learns she’s being hunted by both her husband’s people and a crooked U.S. Marshal. She flees to the edge of a continent, and gets help from a pseudonymous sailor named Gray. Depending on Epperson’s character work, this could be terrible or terrific.
With the Red Sox not doing much to improve an unapologetic and overrated pitching rotation, and my dynasty fantasy baseball team more or less built around the assumption that Clayton Kershaw is the second coming of Sandy Koufax, I’ve already found myself watching and listening to just as many Dodgers games as Sox games so far this year (MLB.tv’s stupid blackout restrictions have something to do with it, too.) But my fair-weather fandom aside, this book looks pretty cool. It compiles pictures of people and ephemera, but, most interestingly, it is punctuated with essays and reminiscences of famous Dodger personalities like Tommy Lasorda and Vin Scully. Baseball fans should give this a look. Also, it’s not too often you see a review of a coffee table book, so the review is neat in that regard as well.
Here’s another review of Leyner’s zany return to literature. I’m about halfway through this book myself, and having a hard time putting my thoughts about it into words. Di Filippo’s write-up is a bit more concise than the Ben Marcus review Nico briefly mentioned last week, and he’s able to sum this book up nicely:
If mythographer Joseph Campbell were still around to rewrite the Ramayana for the cast of Jersey Shore, the result might approximate Leyner’s novel — except without as many outrageously funny transgressive absurdities.
I really like the reviews they run over at Strange Horizons. They have a knack for dismantling a book (usually fantasy of some variety) and revealing all its faults, while still giving it the fairest shake they can. Truslow’s review of Regicide –a surreal-sounding book about an imaginary city in real-world Britain--is another example of a criticism that could very well be more interesting and entertaining than the book itself.
Quickly: Since I’m trying real hard but to have nothing but baseball on my mind this week, here’s a quality look at a whole bunch of baseball books out right now. Also: it’s a couple years old, but some guy made a pretty hefty Amazon list of baseball books that I’m really tempted to read all the way through. I loved The Bullpen Gospels, and Dirk Hayhurst’s next book is waiting for me at the library, so I’m pretty excited about that. One last, slightly different baseball-book list from the Daily Beast.
