![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bookblogging
Jul. 21st, 2008 01:19 pmGraphic novels/comics:
Baldock, Kirsten, writer, Fabio Moon, artist: Smoke and Guns
(shades of "writing a story based on what you love"--in this case, girls in fetishy outfits, lots of cigarette smoking by women young enough that they aren't showing any of the outer signs of the way cigarettes destroy your body, and lots of guns and gunfire. We do get to see some of the outer signs of how guns destroy your body, though. Whee? Well, Baldock and Moon clearly enjoyed themselves making this, and it's a fun romp if you don't mind all the male-oriented fanservice, casual violence, and the most over-the-top glamorization of smoking I've ever seen. Really, I think the only way you could make the smoking/sex thing more obvious would be if you created a line of cigarette-shaped dildos and sheaths...).
Eisner, Will, artist and adapter, Herman Melville, author: Moby Dick.
Sipe, Harold, story, Hector Casanova, art: Screamland (issues 2-5)
(ahhh, the high-concept comic. I kinda dig Dracula--Dracula in the closet to protect his movie career as a ladies man/sex icon is certainly a clever undercutting of the trope. None of the rest of it feels that inspired to me, but it's cute).
Masereel, Frans: Story Without Words: a novel in pictures, Passionate Journey: A Vision in Woodcuts, The City: A Vision in Woodcuts
(I dig the more precise, detailed style of The City to the rougher, thicker lines of the others, but all of it works pretty well. I do keep having to remind myself that this would have been more mind-blowing to an audience that had not grown up reading comics and graphic novels and wasn't already utterly familiar with wordless art sequences. To me, these are good pieces of work in a style I already know (and like less than genuine word/image fusions), but I know that once upon a time, this was revolutionary).
Swain, Carol: Foodboy
(eek).
Dupuy, Philippe: Haunted
(D&Q. The back says this is Dupuy's second solo effort away from fellow creator Charles Berberian, distinct from the tightly constructed narratives and urbane, elegant graphics of his projects with Berberian. Frankly, I'd think I'd rather see the tightly constructed narratives and urbane, elegant aesthetic of those projects; the loose, floppy, and rather pointless shorts that make up this book did not interest or impress me).
Rabagliati, Michel: Paul has a summer job
(Recommended! I loved this book hard. It's so lovely to read an graphic novel/memoir about someone who wasn't a wasted stoner asshole in his youth, even if he did go through a period of feeling frustrated and directionless. This is a beautiful, happy book about decent people something doing something good and enjoying it, and learning from it. A fun to read, well-illustrated account of what I baselessly assume is the author's experience of working as a counselor at a summer camp for underprivileged kids back in 1979, shortly after he'd dropped out of high school. These are either happy memories for Rabagliati or a really good fictional approximation of same, and he clearly enjoys relating them, but without any sense from the narrator of regret or wishing he could go back--it's enough to have had the experience and grown from it. I'm really impressed with Rabagliati, and will look for books by him in the future.
As I over the book again, I realize that it nowhere claims to be a memoir or non-fiction--I just assumed it was! I have edited my comments accordingly).
Baldock, Kirsten, writer, Fabio Moon, artist: Smoke and Guns
(shades of "writing a story based on what you love"--in this case, girls in fetishy outfits, lots of cigarette smoking by women young enough that they aren't showing any of the outer signs of the way cigarettes destroy your body, and lots of guns and gunfire. We do get to see some of the outer signs of how guns destroy your body, though. Whee? Well, Baldock and Moon clearly enjoyed themselves making this, and it's a fun romp if you don't mind all the male-oriented fanservice, casual violence, and the most over-the-top glamorization of smoking I've ever seen. Really, I think the only way you could make the smoking/sex thing more obvious would be if you created a line of cigarette-shaped dildos and sheaths...).
Eisner, Will, artist and adapter, Herman Melville, author: Moby Dick.
Sipe, Harold, story, Hector Casanova, art: Screamland (issues 2-5)
(ahhh, the high-concept comic. I kinda dig Dracula--Dracula in the closet to protect his movie career as a ladies man/sex icon is certainly a clever undercutting of the trope. None of the rest of it feels that inspired to me, but it's cute).
Masereel, Frans: Story Without Words: a novel in pictures, Passionate Journey: A Vision in Woodcuts, The City: A Vision in Woodcuts
(I dig the more precise, detailed style of The City to the rougher, thicker lines of the others, but all of it works pretty well. I do keep having to remind myself that this would have been more mind-blowing to an audience that had not grown up reading comics and graphic novels and wasn't already utterly familiar with wordless art sequences. To me, these are good pieces of work in a style I already know (and like less than genuine word/image fusions), but I know that once upon a time, this was revolutionary).
Swain, Carol: Foodboy
(eek).
Dupuy, Philippe: Haunted
(D&Q. The back says this is Dupuy's second solo effort away from fellow creator Charles Berberian, distinct from the tightly constructed narratives and urbane, elegant graphics of his projects with Berberian. Frankly, I'd think I'd rather see the tightly constructed narratives and urbane, elegant aesthetic of those projects; the loose, floppy, and rather pointless shorts that make up this book did not interest or impress me).
Rabagliati, Michel: Paul has a summer job
(Recommended! I loved this book hard. It's so lovely to read an graphic novel/memoir about someone who wasn't a wasted stoner asshole in his youth, even if he did go through a period of feeling frustrated and directionless. This is a beautiful, happy book about decent people something doing something good and enjoying it, and learning from it. A fun to read, well-illustrated account of what I baselessly assume is the author's experience of working as a counselor at a summer camp for underprivileged kids back in 1979, shortly after he'd dropped out of high school. These are either happy memories for Rabagliati or a really good fictional approximation of same, and he clearly enjoys relating them, but without any sense from the narrator of regret or wishing he could go back--it's enough to have had the experience and grown from it. I'm really impressed with Rabagliati, and will look for books by him in the future.
As I over the book again, I realize that it nowhere claims to be a memoir or non-fiction--I just assumed it was! I have edited my comments accordingly).
