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Some graphic novel reviews
We recently cleaned out the shelves and I found a bunch of older graphic novels that, if I’d read them before, it was long enough ago that I didn’t remember them. I figured I should post about them before I started on the giant new pile of comics.
Sin City by Frank Miller: I realized about halfway through, when Marv is talking about how modern cars look like electric shavers, that Sin City was written as the most perfect parody of noir ever. It’s the classic example of really good satire being indistinguishable from the nuttiest devotees. (See also: Landover Baptist.) The charitable interpretation of Frank Miller’s recent career is that he realized that the fanboys were taking this seriously and that he could just push it farther and farther. The less-charitable reading is that he bought into his own hype and thinks he was brilliant for completely different reasons.
Moonshadow by J.M. DeMattis: Take the Hitchhiker’s Guide, remove all of the British-ness and replace it with the “summer of love”. Now replace all of the humor with attempts at poignancy. Now, the Hitchhiker’s Guide, though I love the series, details an entirely futile and eventually hopeless endeavor, you just don’t care because it’s fun along the way. You have to be a certain type of artsy dreamer to appreciate Moonshadow, otherwise there’s nothing to keep you from seeing it as pointless and rambling. Also, Moon is the only Manic Pixie Dream Boy, to my knowledge, to ever appear in comics.
Goddess by Garth Ennis: This is basically, “What If Garth Ennis wrote Alan Moore’s Promethea?” The answer is: Much less wanking about kabbalah, and much more bloody violence and cursing. Gorn (gore-porn, not the Star Trek aliens) is apparently is his answer to Frank Miller’s whoreswhoreswhores. Honestly, this is nowhere near his best work, as most of the characters are one-dimensional to begin with and someone become more flat as the story goes on. I was kinda hoping for a reveal that the villain was being prodded along by an evil god or something, but no, he was just completely batshit loco for no good reason.
The Originals by Dave Gibbons: Wasn’t actually terribly original, though I think that’s the point. Vaguely futuristic world, vaguely 80s coming-of-age story, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.
Black Orchid by Neil Gaiman: Surprisingly “meh” for Gaiman, mostly because it follows a lot of the same themes that Moore did better in Swamp Thing. The one noteworthy bit: The plant-hybrid-developing scientists who created the Orchid were college friends of Poison Ivy, the Floronic Man, and Swamp Thing, all of whom obviously later developed ways to turn themselves into plant-monsters. It seems to me that one of them hit upon the critical idea necessary for turning people into plant-monsters at that point and shared it, and they all took it in slightly different directions; which I find a pleasant and realistic alternative to them all spontaneously figuring it out separately within a year or two of each other when no one has before or since.
The Witching Hour by Jeph Loeb: A little disjointed, makes you think a little, simultaneously a love song to Wicca and a gross misrepresentation of its history. I think I liked it, but I also think you need to read it twice to really get all the bits.
Sin City by Frank Miller: I realized about halfway through, when Marv is talking about how modern cars look like electric shavers, that Sin City was written as the most perfect parody of noir ever. It’s the classic example of really good satire being indistinguishable from the nuttiest devotees. (See also: Landover Baptist.) The charitable interpretation of Frank Miller’s recent career is that he realized that the fanboys were taking this seriously and that he could just push it farther and farther. The less-charitable reading is that he bought into his own hype and thinks he was brilliant for completely different reasons.
Moonshadow by J.M. DeMattis: Take the Hitchhiker’s Guide, remove all of the British-ness and replace it with the “summer of love”. Now replace all of the humor with attempts at poignancy. Now, the Hitchhiker’s Guide, though I love the series, details an entirely futile and eventually hopeless endeavor, you just don’t care because it’s fun along the way. You have to be a certain type of artsy dreamer to appreciate Moonshadow, otherwise there’s nothing to keep you from seeing it as pointless and rambling. Also, Moon is the only Manic Pixie Dream Boy, to my knowledge, to ever appear in comics.
Goddess by Garth Ennis: This is basically, “What If Garth Ennis wrote Alan Moore’s Promethea?” The answer is: Much less wanking about kabbalah, and much more bloody violence and cursing. Gorn (gore-porn, not the Star Trek aliens) is apparently is his answer to Frank Miller’s whoreswhoreswhores. Honestly, this is nowhere near his best work, as most of the characters are one-dimensional to begin with and someone become more flat as the story goes on. I was kinda hoping for a reveal that the villain was being prodded along by an evil god or something, but no, he was just completely batshit loco for no good reason.
The Originals by Dave Gibbons: Wasn’t actually terribly original, though I think that’s the point. Vaguely futuristic world, vaguely 80s coming-of-age story, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.
Black Orchid by Neil Gaiman: Surprisingly “meh” for Gaiman, mostly because it follows a lot of the same themes that Moore did better in Swamp Thing. The one noteworthy bit: The plant-hybrid-developing scientists who created the Orchid were college friends of Poison Ivy, the Floronic Man, and Swamp Thing, all of whom obviously later developed ways to turn themselves into plant-monsters. It seems to me that one of them hit upon the critical idea necessary for turning people into plant-monsters at that point and shared it, and they all took it in slightly different directions; which I find a pleasant and realistic alternative to them all spontaneously figuring it out separately within a year or two of each other when no one has before or since.
The Witching Hour by Jeph Loeb: A little disjointed, makes you think a little, simultaneously a love song to Wicca and a gross misrepresentation of its history. I think I liked it, but I also think you need to read it twice to really get all the bits.
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(Anonymous) 2009-08-19 11:02 pm (UTC)(link)