This graphic memoir by George Takei—who was imprisoned, along with his family, in the U.S.’s World War II concentration camps for Japanese Americans—i This graphic memoir by George Takei—who was imprisoned, along with his family, in the U.S.’s World War II concentration camps for Japanese Americans—is timely, moving, remarkably objective, and historically necessary.
It is timely because, once again, we have concentration camps in America. Children, snatched from the arms of their mothers, are confined in large wired enclosures as demeaning as cages. Their crime? They dared to cross the border into what was once considered to be the Land of Freedom, in a desperate attempt to escape hunger, poverty, gang violence, and sexual exploitation. It is true that Takei and his family were the victims of yet a crueler irony: they were American citizens. Yet the callous brutality of what is essentially a white man’s government toward people who are different from themselves makes these two situations much the same.
This memoir is particularly moving because it is viewed primarily through the eyes of the children, the most undeniably innocent of all victims, and often the most oblivious. We see them playing contentedly through the railroad journey the camps, unaware—until years later—of the humiliation their parents suffered and the challenges they faced. The pain of the adults becomes more poignant in isolation, and the distance it causes between children and parents compounds the crime.
It is also remarkably objective, taking care to show the occasional non-Asian American who acted with compassion and courage, from the anonymous man who regularly delivered carloads of books to the internment camps to lawyer Wayne Collins who led the fight against deportation during the “renunciation crisis.” It also shows its objectivity—as well as a little irony too—in its account of how many Japanese—including Takei’s father—worked to organize the detainees into a mutually helpful community, organized democratically in a quintessentially American way.
We all owe our thanks to George Takei because, above all other things, this memoir is historically necessary. For it is only by seeing the evil our nation has caused in the past that we are able to recognize the evil happening now and do what we can to stop it. ...more
Fun Home isn’t your average graphic autobiography. As a matter of fact, Fun Home isn’t your average anything. Perhaps that is one reason why it was a Fun Home isn’t your average graphic autobiography. As a matter of fact, Fun Home isn’t your average anything. Perhaps that is one reason why it was a finalist for “The National Book Critics Circle Award,” and the winner of “The Stonewall Book Award” for non-fiction, in 2006. Perhaps it is also why it became a Broadway musical too, winning five Tony Awards in 20015. Yet its great success is somehow baffling, just because it’s so … well, just because it’s “odd.”
Sure, you can make it sound normal if you phrase it right. A young girl gradually awakens to her lesbian sexuality, but continues to be haunted by the ghost of her father, the director of a funeral home (the “fun home” of the title), whom she learns was himself bisexual, and whom she suspects of having taken his own life. Before his death, father and daughter reach some sens of each other’s sexuality, but the hint of what could have blossomed into a growing intimacy is cut off—alas!—when father is killed by a truck in the highway.
Sounds pretty normal, right? But the two of them are each eccentric, chilly people, demarcated by their preoccupations—he with home restoration, interior decorating and gardening, she with journalling and a bizarre fixation on numbers—and their great mutual passion: a love for great literature.
Perhaps it is literature itself that makes this graphic “novel” rise from its particular oddness into universality. First of all, Alison Bechdel, unlike many graphic novelists, writes with an exquisite and precise sense of language, and the great writers—Joyce, Fitzgerald, Proust, Wilde, Camus—are never far from her narrative. Not only do the stories they tell offer psychological insights, but their techniques—like the “tricky reverse narration” Bechdel mentions at the end of her tale—give the author useful ways to organize and inform her tale.
These great books give Fun Home unusual resonance and warmth, and that resonance never seems unmerited, never hijacked or misappropriated. In much the same way that Alison and her father both transcend their oddness through literature, Fun Home transcends its oddness through literature too....more
This second collection of the illustrated adventures of a North African Rabbi’s cat (inspired by Joann Sfar’s father’s Sephardic heritage) may not be This second collection of the illustrated adventures of a North African Rabbi’s cat (inspired by Joann Sfar’s father’s Sephardic heritage) may not be quite as witty or humorous as the first collection, but it is deeper, more nuanced, and more ambitious, and I like it just as much.
In the first third of the book, the cat—while his owner the Rabbi is away somewhere “slaughtering chickens”—travels with Malka of the Lions, the venerable teller of tales. The cat visits various North African villages, camps out in the desert, and learns many things from Malka’s old pet lion (and a few things from their companion, a venomous snake). Two things he learns: 1) Malka is a hero who of the Jewish faith, who stands up not only to a a fundamentalist sheikh but also to “Father Lamber,” ant anti-Semitic mayor of the town of Oran, and 2) he (with the assistance of his lion) is also a bit of a conman.
The final two thirds of the book consists one a single adventure, featuring a wandering young painter from Russia (here Sfar’s mother’s Ashkenazi heritage comes in). The painter goes on a quest—accompanied by the Rabbi, the cat, and a few other interesting characters—to discover the fabled black Jews of Ethiopia. Eventually they find what they seek, but they have many extraordinary adventures along the way.
The is volume is definitely darker than the one that precedes it, for it treats of both the rise of Nazism and the effects of racism on human relationships. But the whimsical illustrations and bright bold colors—suggestive of both Chagall and Soutine—ensure that the comforts of beauty are never far away.
Oh, speaking of the comforts of beauty: the Rabbi’s lovely daughter—the only person that the cat truly loves—makes appearances (alas, too briefly) in both adventures. ...more
A comic book narrative brings a special delight when the story’s teller’s mood and the graphic artist’s method perfectly combine—a condition perhaps m A comic book narrative brings a special delight when the story’s teller’s mood and the graphic artist’s method perfectly combine—a condition perhaps most easily achieved when the teller and the artist are one. So it is with The Rabbi’s Cat, the creation of writer and illustrator Joann Sfar.
Sfar is a Frenchman, born in Nice, the son of an Sephardic Jewish father from Algeria and an Ashkenazi Jewish mother with a family from Ukraine. The setting of The Rabbi’s Cat is an Algerian city in the 1930’s, when Jews and Arabs (sort of) got along. The customs and dress here are Sephardic, but I think I detect more than a touch of Ashkenazi humor in the dialogue (“Western thought,” say the eponymous Rabbi, “works by thesis, antithesis, synthesis, while Judaism goes thesis, antithesis, antithesis, antithesis . . . ) But then again, who I am to judge? I know nothing of Sephardic humor.
I do, however, know a good-looking comic when I see one, and the lush interiors and bright dresses of the women are beautiful, and the Rabbi’s daughter Zlabya, and the Rabbi, and the Rabbi’s cat are—each in their own way—very cute.
The plot is set into motion by a Garden-of-Eden sort of crime: the Rabbi’s cat eats the Rabbi’s parrot, and by doing so he gains the gift of speech (and first uses his gift to lie: he denies that he ate the parrot). The Rabbi realizes that he has a Talmudic dilemma on his hands. Is a cat who speaks the same as a human? Can a speaking cat be considered a Jew? And, if so, should a Jewish cat be bar mitzvahed? Neither the cat nor the rabbi are sure about all this. Much theological speculation ensues.
The Rabbi’s Cat consists of three originally separate comic adventures: 1) The Bar Mitvah (plot outlined above), 2) Malka of the Lions (the Rabbi’s fierce cousin Malka—and his lion--come to visit, the rabbi takes a French exam to gain government status, and a cute young rabbi comes to town) 3) Exodus (Zlabya and the young rabbi are wed, and they go on a honeymoon--with the Rabbi and the cat--to visit the young man’s family in Paris).
Altogether, this is a sweet and charming book. The cat—like all cats—can often be a pain, but he does love his mistress Zlabya!...more
It is a rare thing when the New York Times calls a graphic novel “a shattering work of art” and lists it as one of the “100 notable books of the year,It is a rare thing when the New York Times calls a graphic novel “a shattering work of art” and lists it as one of the “100 notable books of the year,” and an even rarer thing—in fact, unique (so far)--when a graphic novel is nominated for the Man Booker Prize. Since both things are true of Nick Draso’s new graphic novel—and because its plot reminds me of an episode of Disappeared, my favorite ID Network show—I decided to give Sabrina a try.
The plot centers around Sabrina, but is not about her, but about her disappearance, and the effect that disappearance has on her sister Sandra, her boyfriend Teddy, and Teddy’s buddy and host/roommate Calvin, a Colorado airman who works for NORAD, stationed at Peterson Air Force Base. At first the book is mostly about simple grief and loss, but then disappearance ends in tragedy, a graphic video goes viral, and the conspiracy theorists, the talk show hosts, and the wackos on the fringe hijack the narrative. It is then that simple loss and grief become complicated, confusing.
The illustrations, well-planned and well-realized, create a slice-of life, minimalist effect. The tone of the dialogue is understated and subdued, and the colors chosen for inking are always pastels, even in the frequent darkness (except for the occasional dream, which shouts out in stark black-and-white). The sequence of panels resembled a movie story-board, filled with shots of characters walking long hallways, traversing interminable rooms, allowing the open spaces of the narrative to fill up with menace and silence. The drawing is minimalist too, which contributes to the power of the work: the faces of the characters are expressionless, lacking individuation. Males sometimes are indistinguishable from females: each looks like the other, everybody looks like everybody, soon we sense they look like us too.
In our age of fake news and far-fetched theories, crisis actors and false-flag operations, Sabrina is a memorable and sadly relevant novel. Highly recommended....more
Alan Moore’s graphic novel From Hell is an extraordinary creation, difficult to encapsulate for someone like me, who strives to epitomize the essence Alan Moore’s graphic novel From Hell is an extraordinary creation, difficult to encapsulate for someone like me, who strives to epitomize the essence of a work in a relatively short review. As Walt Whitman once said of himself, From Hell is “large” (576 pages) and does “contain multitudes,” and—like any thing large and multitudinous—it is full of tantalizing contradictions.
On the surface, From Hell presents, in the form of an illustrated narrative, the historical events of the 1888-1891 Whitechapel murders, adhering to the facts (as precisely indicated in an extensive series of notes), except for an occasional fictional invention (also scrupulously acknowledged in the notes). On the other hand, the tale it tells is improbable and fantastic, in which Sir William Gull, Queen Victoria’s physician and high-ranking Freemason, executes each of the “Ripper” murders not only to conceal the sexual indiscretions of the Queen’s grandson Prince Albert Victor, but also to perform a magic ritual, a pageant of ceremonial violence, designed to suppress feminism and exalt patriarchy, to quell socialism and promote capitalism, to forestall the chaos Gull foresees that is coming to blight the century to come.
Yet, in the wake of Gull’s magic, historical contradictions are revealed. In one of the books most powerful—and memorably realized—sequences, Gull takes us (and his coachman Netley) on an occult tour of the urban geography of London, crowding our minds with historical anecdotes, precisely limning for us the pentagrammic map of the ceremonial violence to come. Yet, in spite of his precision, Gull’s calculations are off. When, after murdering and methodically dissecting his final and victim, he is granted the vision of a late 20th century business office, Gull realizes he has failed to bring about the advent of an Apollonian age: no, nothing remains in the future but unemotional phantoms, fiddling with strange electronic devices:
”What spirits are these, labouring in what heavenly light? . . . . No, this is dazzle, not yet divinity. Nor are these heathen wraiths about me spirits, lacking even that vitality. . . It would seem we are to suffer an apocalypse of cockatoos...morose, barbaric children playing joylessly with their unfathomable toys. Where comes this dullness in your eyes? Has your century numbed you so? Shall man be given marvels only when he is beyond all wonder? . . . With all your shimmering numbers and your lights, think not to be inured to history. Its black root succors you. It is INSIDE you."
Another contradiction is in Moore’s (and artist Eddie Campbell’s) treatment of the women who are the “Ripper” victims. The depiction of the murders themselves—particularly their climax, the murder of Mary Kelly, which takes up an entire chapter—is horrific and merciless, explicit and graphic. Yet one of the most moving aspects of Moore’s book is his detailed presentation of the day-to-day lives of these women: their comradeship and their recreations, their fears and hopes for the future. Moore and Campbell never forget for a moment that Gull’s ceremonial pawns are also real human women. In fact, Moore dedicates the work to them:
You and your demise: of these things alone are we certain. Good night, ladies.
“Of these things alone are we certain”: the phrase calls to mind another of From Hell’s contradictions. Moore’s scrupulous adherence to the facts in the case gulls the reader into thinking that Moore himself must be scrupulously recreating a scenario he believes to be true, and yet in the final pages of his work—”The Dance of the Gull Catchers”, a history of “Ripperology”—he adopts a pose of profound skepticism:
The complex phantom we project. That alone, we know is real. The actual killer’s gone, unglimpsed, might as well not have been there at all. There never was a Jack the Ripper. Mary Kelly was just an unusually determined suicide. Why don’t we leave it at that?
I enjoyed this graphic version of Jon Lee Anderson’s biography Che: a Revolutionary Life (1997). As I did not read the original biography, I cannot co I enjoyed this graphic version of Jon Lee Anderson’s biography Che: a Revolutionary Life (1997). As I did not read the original biography, I cannot comment on its faithfulness, but since Anderson himself created it (in collaboration with Jose Hernandez, political cartoonist for Mexico City’s La Jornada) I assume it is an accurate reflection of its source. In addition, since I knew little of Guevera’s life before reading this graphic, I cannot comment on its historical accuracy either.
What I can say, though, is that Anderson and Hernandez gave me a vivid feel for Latin American in the ‘50’s and ‘’60’s, and, although it made clear Che’s uncompromising vision and dedication to revolutionary justice, it also revealed the man, warts and all: he was an implacable foe but also an intractable ally; a revolutionary saint capable of murder; a lover of humanity who had little time for his wives and his children.
Much credit for the book’s success may be attributed to the drawings of Hernandez: the foggy, noir imagery of cigars glowing in shadows, a world never far from the sea; the vividly specific evocations of the great cities: Buenos Aires, Guatemala City, Mexico City, Havana; the faces, the unchanging intensity of Guevara in each of his many disguises, and the many mercurial expressions of Fidel—always himself though always changing.
I recommend this book to every United States citizen. It does us good to read a book where Uncle Sam is the villain—for a change....more
This is a highly enjoyable anthology of major Lovecraft works adapted and realized by noted professionals in the graphic novel and comic book fields. This is a highly enjoyable anthology of major Lovecraft works adapted and realized by noted professionals in the graphic novel and comic book fields. The seven adaptations include “The Call of Cthulhu,” “The Haunter of the Dark,” “The Dunwich Horror,” “The Colour Out of Space,” “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” “The Rats in the Walls,” and “Dagon.” All the adapters have the good sense to cut much of the Lovecraft prose, letting the progression of the images do much of the work instead, and the artists continually divert the eye with a variety of styles.
I particularly liked the backwoods imagery Of “Dunwich” and “Colour,” which sometimes teeters on the edge of “Beverly Hillbillies” exaggeration but is still chilling and evocative; the box-like panels and vivid coloring of “Cthulhu” which give the whole piece an appropriate 1930’s flavor; and the sombre shades and cinematic development of the panels of “Innsmouth.” My favorite piece, however, is “The Haunter of the Dark,” for the way Shane Ivan Oakley's fragmented and jagged illustrations fill each panel with queries of form, visual mysteries of possibility; it is not often that the image of a graphic novel evokes fear of the unknown.
My only cavil with the collection is the problem I have with all graphic adaptations of terror fiction: the moments of horror, the anticipated climax is often ineffective, even ludicrous. Because, of course, our greatest fear is always not what we see, but what we fear to see....more
Endless Nights is an enjoyable, albeit unnecessary, addendum to “The Sandman” epic: seven unrelated tales, each one of which featuring one the “Endles Endless Nights is an enjoyable, albeit unnecessary, addendum to “The Sandman” epic: seven unrelated tales, each one of which featuring one the “Endless,” the group of seven sisters and brothers which includes the Sandman (AKA Dream, AKA Morpheus) himself. I did not find any of them particularly memorable (I had to pick up the volume again to remember exactly what they were about) but my favorites are the one about Death (which features a singularly decadent party hosted by a degenerate 18th century count) and the one about Dream (which takes place during a period anterior to all the other Sandman, in happier days when Destruction was still an active member of the family and Delirium was still known as Delight.)
None of these Gaiman tales are equal to the rest of the Sandman opus, but I found the art, if anything, superior to the earlier ten volumes. (The art of the prequel Overture, which came after, is even more remarkable.) I particularly liked Milo Manara’s “Desire,” whose art deceives you into thinking you are reading a conventional romance tale, until the bloody, willful conclusion disabuses you of the notion, Bill Sienkiewicz’s appropriately varied styles in the tale of “Delirium,” and—perhaps above all the others—Barron Storey and Dave McKean’s fifteen experimental portraits of “Despair.”
As I said, this is not an essential work, and—although the stories are entertaining too—it is worth checking out for the art alone....more
Overture is at least technically a prequel to the Sandman series, and it ends with an explanation of how Dream came to be imprisoned by an evil magici Overture is at least technically a prequel to the Sandman series, and it ends with an explanation of how Dream came to be imprisoned by an evil magician in the first place. Well, some sort of an explanation.
Actually, though, Overture is a rather involved, allusive series of meditations and philosophical disquisitions showing how Dream—and a score of other “Dreams” from parallel planes—attempts to cope with a crisis involving an angry star and how our own particular Morpheus ends up on the short end of the stick. It also involves a bit of a quest, starring the Dream we know, Dream’s feline alter ego (presumably the designated Dream in some cat universe) and a lovely little girl named Hope.
I enjoyed reading it, but I founded it too brooding, too detailed and too allusive to be a satisfying narrative. It reminded me of the later work of Henry James, James Joyce, and Algernon Blackwood: a quintessence of the author’s characteristics and concerns but too dense and too cryptic, too concerned with artistic materials and too little concerned with audience.
Overture (2014) was issued eighteen years after the final volume, The Wake, was published—more than twice the time it took to produce the entire original series. Perhaps Neil Gaiman waited a little too long.
I would hesitate to give Overture more than a mediocre rating if it weren’t for its illustrator J.H. Williams III. His art is cosmic, capable of protean transformations, bold changes in tone, jarring juxtapositions, and a radical shift in the use of panel and page. I particularly enjoyed 1) the many incarnations of Dream (each with its own distinctive dialogue box and lettering) and 2) the eerie pastel world of the merciless stars. Gaiman has a gift for choosing great artists, but in this case it is Williams—not the original Gaiman story—that brings this volume close to greatness....more
This is the final volume–if you exclude the prequel—of the Sandman series, but it is really more coda than conclusion. Half of it consists of the “wak This is the final volume–if you exclude the prequel—of the Sandman series, but it is really more coda than conclusion. Half of it consists of the “wake” itself (Morpheus’ wak, funeral services, and related events) and the other half of three stand-alone tales that provide a philosophical commentary on the life and death of Dream.
The wake itself will be a moving and interesting for most faithful reader of the series, as we reacquaint ourselves with most of the characters we remember—and a few we have forgotten about entirely. At times these first three numbers feel like the final chapters of a long Victorian novel, but that is not in any way a criticism; it is pleasing to observe each small part—and person—falling discretely into place.
The second three numbers, though, I liked even better. The first (“An Epilogue, Sunday Mourning") features Hob Gadling, the Renaissance Englishman made immortal by Dream, and his experience at a U.S. Renaissance fair. Hob meets up with Death, has a dream about Dream, and tells us all the reasons why he hates Renfair. (As any good renaissance man should!) The second tale (“Exiles”) features an encounter between Morpheus and an old Chinese civil servant. It has much to say about duty, and the death of sons, and causes the reader of The Sandman to think of the death of Orpheus. The last tale (“The Tempest”) is about Shakespeare and the writing of his final play, and makes a fitting conclusion to series.
I loved the series, hated to see it come to an end, and am already experiencing withdrawal. Luckily, I still have Overture, the prequel!...more
I remember reading somewhere that Bleak House is one of Neil Gaiman’s favorite novels, and The Kindly Ones, the penultimate volume of The Sandman, rem I remember reading somewhere that Bleak House is one of Neil Gaiman’s favorite novels, and The Kindly Ones, the penultimate volume of The Sandman, reminded me a great deal of Bleak House. Like the typical Dickens novel, The Sandman series contains a multitude of characters and plot threads, and The Kindly Ones is the volume which, gathering these characters and threads together, brings them to climax (though not to conclusion, a matter reserved for the next volume, The Wake.) It is precisely this movement toward climax that reminded me of reading Bleak House: somewhere near the end of Dicken’s narrative, with about one hundred pages remaining, you can sense the characters arranging their final tableaux, the plot threads combining into a finished tapestry. This is a huge endeavor, and the reader can feel the novel, like a great engine, moving deliberatively forward, and the readers excitement increases, for he knows he has almost reached his destination.
This is the tale of Morpheus’ struggle with The Furies (known euphemistically as “The Kindly Ones") and a few other enemies Dream has acquired over the years: Loki, Peaseblossom, Hippolyta Hall (also a “Fury,” from DC Comics), and Thessaly (last of the 1,000 year old witches). It also resolves a few other stories, including those of Rose Walker and the fairy Cluracan.
It is sad to see this series brought to a close, but The Kindly Ones is an excellent beginning to what one can sense—as the great machine of the story moves forward—will be a satisfying ending....more
This eighth entry in the series is, like Dream Country, a collection of individual tales only tangentially connected to the characters and concerns of This eighth entry in the series is, like Dream Country, a collection of individual tales only tangentially connected to the characters and concerns of the series. Gaiman, in a brief afterward, tells us that he crafted these stories to take advantage of the talents of some of his favorite artists, and in this he has succeeded admirably. The visual styles are pleasantly varied, and many of the individual images are haunting and memorable.
The tales are presented to us through a Decameron style frame: a diverse group of people gather at an inn for shelter and safety, and tell stories to pass the time. They seek shelter, not from a plague, but from a “reality storm,” an event that disrupts the lives of people living in many historical periods and different dimensions, and consequently the tellers of these tales are an extraordinarily diverse group.
I particularly enjoyed “A Tale of Two Cities” (a “Mr. Gaheris,” traveling through his own city, finds himself in a dreaming city similar yet different from his own) for artist Alec Stevens’ modernistic, one-dimensional images which give to Gaheris’ cities a contemporary yet dreamlike reality. I also enjoyed very much “The Golden Boy” (an alternate United States in which an eighteen-year-old named “Prez” follows Dick Nixon as president and does very well) and “Cerements” (a series of tales told by the masters and apprentices of the necropolis Litharge, who discuss their work among the dead), but the other two tales were also entertaining, as was the resolution of the frame story itself.
All in all, a worthy contribution to the series....more
Perhaps the strangest thing about this “comic book” version of the Book of Genesis, illustrated by R. Crumb, the legendary counter-cultural artist of Perhaps the strangest thing about this “comic book” version of the Book of Genesis, illustrated by R. Crumb, the legendary counter-cultural artist of the ‘60’s, is that is straightforward and non-ironic, each part treated with equal respect and attention. The second strangest thing is the it contains every word of the original text.
This in itself makes the book look somewhat strange to those accustomed to seeing it in other formats, whether it be leather-bound, gilt edged volumes or in the cheap Gideon versions placed in motels. For example, all the sex in the original is here, and illustrated (of course, as is everything), and it is disconcerting seeing Crumb’s hairy men and big butted woman copulating just like they did in Zap Comix, but even more unsettling to see how much sex there really is in this first book of the bible (Lot and his daughters, the rape of Dinah, Onan and Tamar, Tamar and Judah don’t usually make it to Sunday’s bible readings.) This treatment of sexuality (not prurient, but unabashed and unblinking) makes the book seem even stranger and richer.
In addition, R. Crumb doesn’t rush through all the “begats,” that is, the boring genealogical sections most readers like me usually skip over. Instead, he honors almost every generation with at least one picture of its patriarch (and sometimes the depiction of his family too), and each illustration is detailed and individualized. The result is a deepening of the biblical texture, an emphasis on the countless individual lives from which this ancient book arose. The pictures also helped me to see certain themes I had never noted before, for example, that Jacob raises memorial stones wherever he goes and that Joseph is continually weeping.
There are also a score of individual panels which moved me: the first panel (the Lord God holds the spinning Void in his hand), the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the first look of astonishment on poor Noah’s face when he hears the command of the Lord, the Lord God shutting the door to the Ark, the builders of Babylon and their thought balloons containing many languages, and many, many more. For some reason, though, my favorite of all is the open, guileless face of Esau welcoming younger brother Jacob home from exile. (It made me think of R. Crumb and his older brother Charles, another complicated relationship.)
Enough of my impressions. This is the kind of a book that will leave you with powerful impressions all your own, probably much different from mine. Give it a chance, letting Crumbs faithful yet subversive art work its way with you, and it is likely that your opinion of Genesis—and of the power of cartoon art itself—we be transformed in a variety of ways....more
This volume is one tale, one quest. Delirium (one of the less frequently seen of the Endless Family) misses her brother Destruction intensely and is d This volume is one tale, one quest. Delirium (one of the less frequently seen of the Endless Family) misses her brother Destruction intensely and is determined to find him. Desire and Despair refuse to join her, but she does persuade Dream. Their quest takes them from a travel office in Dublin, Ireland to a strip club called Suffragette City, from the Palace of Bast, Queen and Goddess of Cats to the Temple of Orpheus (where the head of the bard still lives), and finally toward the island retreat of the abdicated Lord of Destruction himself. Early in their journey—as Dream himself notices—the bodies begin to pile up. Could it be that there is someone (or something) that is trying to keep them from seeing their brother again?
I liked a lot of things about this story—Pharamond, god turned travel agent, and Isis’ dance at Suffragette City are two which come immediately to mind—but the most delightful thing about Brief Lives was the character of Delirium (formerly known “as Delight”. For someone whose conversation is full of , and whose appearance changes markedly from panel to panel, she is a thoroughly consistent and charming character, vulnerable, affectionate toward family and filled with a childish delight for experience and adventure. The conclusion of the tale, involving a reunion with Destruction and the fulfillment of a promise Dream once made to Orpheus, is both poignant and satisfying.
There is also a good essay by Peter Straub, sensibly placed at the end in order to avoid spoilers....more
It was the evening before the inauguration, and I was looking for something to read, something that would fortify me against the dark rhetoric of soon It was the evening before the inauguration, and I was looking for something to read, something that would fortify me against the dark rhetoric of soon-to-be president Trump. I decided on March 3, the final volume of Congressman John Lewis’ graphic autobiographical account of the civil rights struggle, and it turned out to be an excellent choice.
I read half of the book that night, from the Birmingham church bombing in September of ‘63 to the failure of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to seat their delegates at the convention in August of ‘64. I read of Lewis’ painstaking organizing efforts during the dangerous “Mississippi Freedom Summer,” when the brave young activists of SNCC labored to register black people to vote. Afterward, I reflected on the recent attempts to suppress the black vote with voter I.D. laws—in Wisconsin, in North Carolina, in Florida, in Texas—and I realized how vital to the health of democracy the courage of heroes like John Lewis can be.
I finished the book the next morning, waiting for the inauguration to begin. I read of “Bloody Sunday,” the attempt of civil rights activists to march from Selma to Montgomery for voting rights, and how it ended on a bridge in Selma when non-violent marchers were beaten by the billy clubs of Alabama state troopers, how John Lewis himself was beaten severely, suffering a concussion and other injuries. I read, too, how America’s horror at such gratuitous violence led to the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Soon the inauguration began, and I heard our new president speak. He spoke of “American carnage” and—although it was a different “carnage” he spoke of—I couldn’t help thinking of four little girls blown to pieces by a bomb in Birmingham, of the murdered civil rights workers Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, and of John Lewis himself: sprawled unconscious, bleeding from the head on the pavement of the Edmund Pettus’ Bridge.
Our new president continued to speak. He reminded us that “whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms.” I thought again of the black voters of Wisconsin, North Carolina, Florida, and Texas, and of young black men dead by police violence on the streets of Ferguson, Baltimore, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Chicago. Then I thought of the recent confirmation hearings of Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, how he defended vigorously the concept of voter I.D. laws, and I began to pray that what our president said about our freedoms may hold true, that it may continue to be true.
Amid the uncertainty of this new era, there is one thing of which I am certain: if we wish to preserve--or to gain--those “glorious freedoms" for all, we must follow the heroic example of Congressman John Lewis and people like him. Reading the three volumes of this excellent autobiography is a very good place to start....more
This graphic adaptation of Jean Patrick Manchette’s existential crime novel is the matter-of-fact tale of an average guy type—a salesman, a husband, a This graphic adaptation of Jean Patrick Manchette’s existential crime novel is the matter-of-fact tale of an average guy type—a salesman, a husband, a father—who, when his life is randomly derailed by two murderous contract thugs, kills, changes identities, and kills again before eventually resuming his humdrum life where nothing but a tendency to drive very fast (while listening to American West Coast Jazz) shows the effects on him of this violent interruption.
This noir tale reminds me of the elegant French films of Pierre Melville and the novels of Alain Robbe-Grillet, but it reminds me even more of American bargain basement noir, the films of Joseph H. Lewis and the novels of Jim Thompson. And as far as I’m concerned, both are good things.
The illustrations are appropriately black-and-white, penned by Jacques Tardi, artist/ creator of Adele Blanc-Sec’s Extraordinary Adventures and artist/adaptor of the Nestor Burma Mysteries, a man who has distinguished himself by refusing the Legion of Honor. The illustrations are bleak and ordinary and kind of dumpy looking (as they should be), but they are also extraordinarily well-framed and full of movement, evoking the feeling of a darkened movie palace on a 1950’s afternoon....more
The sixth collection—as its title suggests—is a somewhat random grab-bag of tales, only tenuously connected with the Sandman story. Still, there are a The sixth collection—as its title suggests—is a somewhat random grab-bag of tales, only tenuously connected with the Sandman story. Still, there are a couple of themes present here: 1) the fate of empires and emperors, and 2) the ways in which narrative—in dream and song—can sustain hope and foster illusion.
Four of the stories feature historical rulers—Emperor Caesar Augustus, revolutionary leaders Robespierre and St. Just, Caliph Harun al-Rashid, and San Francisco native Joshua Norton (self-proclaimed Emperor of America)—all of whom led lives profoundly affected by dreams. The best of these four—in fact, the best of the entire collection—is the story of the Caliph of Baghdad and the bargain he makes with the Lord of Dreams. Gaiman wrote it during Operation Desert Storm, and, although the tale is not only filled with magic but also inked in a marvel of colors suited to the city of the Arabian Nights, it is touched with melancholy and loss rooted in the devastation of war in Iraq.
The second most powerful story in Fables and Reflections is the life of the poet and musician Orpheus. In Gaiman’s mythology, Orpheus is the son, not of Apollo, but of Morpheus, and Dream’s entire family, who attends Orpheus’ wedding, are caught up in the tragic events surrounding the death of his wife Eurydice. Gaiman’s economic method of connecting Orpheus to the Sandman story is ingenious, but the real attraction here is the straightforward telling of the legend of Orpheus itself and the memorable illustrations of the wedding, the palace of Dream, the cottage of Death, the wraiths of Hades, and the rage of the frightful Maenads.
The other stories here are all enjoyable too (I particularly liked the lycanthrope grandpa telling his “old country” story to an inattentive granddaughter), and each acknowledges—sometimes grimly, sometimes sweetly—the power of narrative both to distort and to transform the world....more
I have read the first five volumes of The Sandman, and so far this is only my third favorite (after A Doll's House and Seasons of Mist). Its developme I have read the first five volumes of The Sandman, and so far this is only my third favorite (after A Doll's House and Seasons of Mist). Its development is somewhat muddy, its narrative too crowded with characters, and it is somewhat removed from the central myth of Sandman and the theological and cosmic questions which surround him, themes I find the most compelling part of this series.
I admit, though, that this preference may be merely a matter of taste. What A Game of You lacks in abstract matters, it compensates for in its emphasis on the personal. As the title indicates, this tale is about human psychology and the stratagems we employ both to hide from ourselves and to endure what we must. But it is also more than mere psychologizing, for it is metaphysical too, suggesting that our dreams may be rooted in an extra-personal reality, a pre-planned landscape which can be invaded and dominated by others.
Our tale opens as the sleeping Barbie--a character (along with her husband Ken) from "A Doll's House"--is being summoned by a group of little talking animals to a dream world where she is the Princess, and in which her friends the animals are being menaced by someone--or something-- called "The Cuckoo." Soon The Cuckoo extends its menace to the waking world, Barbie is sucked into the world of dreams, and her fellow apartment dwellers--a lesbian couple (one of whom looks like an adorably benign Pete Lorre), a transgender woman, and a hippie witch (who is a lot--I mean a lot--older than she looks.) Their quest to defeat The Cuckoo, and the help they receive from Dream, occupies most of the narrative.
Perhaps most remarkable about this tale is its great range, from the childlike and whimsical to the violent and horrific. Nothing in this tale--neither the sentiment nor the ghastly humor--seems the least bit out of place....more
This first volume of the graphically realized three-part autobiography of civil rights stalwart John Lewis covers the congressman’s life from his days This first volume of the graphically realized three-part autobiography of civil rights stalwart John Lewis covers the congressman’s life from his days as a poor farm boy dreaming of becoming a preacher to his work as an organizer of the 1960 lunch counter sit-ins in Nashville and the founding of the Students’ Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. As it it shifts from its frame story—a gathering of Lewis with friends and constituents minutes before Obama’s first inauguration—to the tales Lewis relates of his early years, the book manages to convey both the heroism and charm of the man, his steadfastness, his shrewd strategic mind, and his loving, almost childlike simplicity.
Nate Powell, the graphic artist and co-author, makes the excellent choice of stark black-and-white illustrations to tell John Lewis’ story. They evoke the 60’s news films of the civil rights era, at times suggesting a noir-like menace, at other times a quiet melancholy. Very effective too are his scenes of crowds, protest, and violence, for Powell brings a vivid sense of movement and drama to the conflicts in the southern streets.
There is much important public history here to be savored and remembered, but I have to admit that my favorite part of this book is Lewis’ accounts of his first efforts to be a preacher by delivering sermons to an unlikely congregation: the family chickens. His obvious affection for these humble creatures and his determination to spread the Good News are both important parts of the man who is John Lewis.
I liked this book a lot, and intend to read Book Two and Three....more
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