Well, why not?
That Salty Air by Tim Sievert
Posted in Graphic Novel review on January 21, 2012 by brunswickThat Salty Air
by Tim Sievert
Top Shelf Productions, 2008
In the current publishing environment, it’s rare to see a first graphic novel published which isn’t utterly exceptional. This book is merely very, very good; it appears that the publishers can see potential in Sievert and have invested in him, expecting greater things in the future.
It’s almost like a short story by Hemingway: Hugh’s mother has died and he blames the sea, to the extent of attempting to beat it up, which is hard position for a fisherman to maintain in the long run. His wife Maryanne tries to be understanding, but has her own pregnancy and magic-realist problems to deal with, including a solicitous giant squid.
The high-contrast illustrations seem influenced by the graphic simplicity of Jeff Smith’s Bone, which makes for a powerfully-told, if slightly overwrought, story.
5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth by Matthew Inman
Posted in Graphic Novel review on January 20, 2012 by brunswick5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth (And Other Useful Guides)
by Matthew Inman
Andrews McNeel Publishing, 2011
Most readers will already be very familiar with The Oatmeal. This excellent webcomic is best consumed on a weekly basis, one episode at a time. A little goes a long way, so reading this collection of nearly two years’ worth of the strip in one go is like overdosing on tasty, tasty nachos dipped in liquid orange cheese, although it’s interesting to see Inman’s interests laid out in print:
• The ‘How To’ series, including an explanation of how cheese is made and the popular grammar comics, also available as posters. These infographics clearly explain the difference between weather and whether using real-world examples, i.e. “Your correct usage of this word will determine whether or not I kick you in the hemorrhoids”.
• Explanations (as if any were needed) of why pterodactyls, tyrannosaurs and bears are awesome.
• Frustration at the essential stupidity of human beings and how they interact with each other, inspired by Inman’s real life experience of working as a web designer.
• A fascination with unhealthy food, which seems incongruent with the slim author photo on the back cover.
The book is packaged with a fold-out poster, but unfortunately (in the copy I read, anyway) it’s ‘Why I Believe Printers Were Sent from Hell to Make Us Miserable’, which isn’t one of the most interesting cartoons to own in a large format.
RIP Blanket Man
Posted in Deep Thought on January 19, 2012 by brunswickBlanket Man’s public memorial service took place in Waitangi Park’s most exposed corner. At 10:15 a grey hearse trundled up and parked awkwardly on the lawn. A few family representatives and a selection of Wellington’s street community clustered around the open boot and brightly-decorated white coffin containing the earthly remains of Ben Hana. They were flanked by nearly two hundred mourners (definitely more than reported) and a small squad of cameras from the press. A few TV reporters stopped preening and looked suitably solemn: one of the camera operators never stopped chewing gum.
The wind rendered most of the short speeches inaudible despite amplification. Many of the speakers weren’t used to holding a microphone, and their words were lost. Hana’s older brother, who looked his neater, healthier twin, told a few anecdotes about his childhood. His lawyer, Maxine Dixon, gave a powerful speech which ended with her requesting that he now be left alone.
There was no noise apart from the fierce wind and the flapping of what I thought was a flag, but proved to be someone’s tracksuit pants. Several people approached the hearse to take close-up photos during the service. The crowd was a fairly good cross-section of Wellington, a mixture of dark corporate suits and substance-happy teens. The service over, the boot was closed and the car trundled off to Makara Cemetery, to bury a human being.
The crowd, impassive but tense, began to disperse. There was a terrible sense of sadness in the air. I wish that everyone who had commented on blogs saying good riddance to Blanket Man’s death could have seen it.
Empire State by Jason Shiga
Posted in Graphic Novel review on January 18, 2012 by brunswickEmpire State: A Love Story (or Not)
by Jason Shiga
Abrams Comicarts, 2011
Shy, aimless 25-year old Jimmy follows his best friend Sara from Oakland to New York, and finds her establishing an adult career with a rather sophisticated boyfriend. Jimmy can still see the beauty of the world around him, but is painfully aware that he should be an adult by now – he doesn’t have a bank account, and his mother is pressuring him for grandchildren. He tells her he’s going to New York for a web design job interview at Google, but he’s never heard of Dreamweaver. He’s hopelessly outclassed by real life, but seems resigned to it all.
Shiga’s round-headed characters occupy a world familiar to anyone who’s read the original Generation X by Douglas Coupland, except instead of blaming the Boomers for their problems, this younger generation realize their malaise is self-inflicted, although the rules of life have changed to the extent that it would require a Herculean effort to achieve even a modest fraction of what older generations have taken for granted.
The slightly numbed air of the story is aided by scattering panels sparingly over the pages, and the colour palette is restricted to shades of red (in Oakland) and light blue (in New York), which makes the simple and clear artwork surprisingly lush.
The Adventures of Hergé by Bocquet, Fromental & Stanislas
Posted in Graphic Novel review on January 17, 2012 by brunswickThe Adventures of Hergé
by José Bocquet, Jean-Luc Fromental & Stanislas Barthélémy
Drawn & Quarterly, 2011
A novel and painstaking (yet ultimately inessential) addition to the vast library of related works that orbit Tintin like the rings of Saturn. Summarizing anyone’s life in a 60 page graphic novel is impossible without extreme simplification, and although Hergé’s controversies aren’t avoided, it’s rather like being raced around a Tintin museum five minutes before closing. Without already knowing details about Hergé, you’ll just be confused, and as a biography, the late Harry Thompson’s Tintin: Hergé and His Creation (recently reprinted in paperback) is superior.
The attractive book is designed to look like a Tintin volume, down to the portraits on the inner covers, but although the artwork by Barthélémy is excellent and adopts many of the graphic conventions that Hergé popularized, it’s fairly scratchy and crowded by comparison. Like the recent film, there’s many references to the original artwork and quite a bit of slapstick, but this project might’ve worked better by handing the artwork over to a studio that could reproduce Hergé’s style exactly.
Grandpa Won’t Wake Up by Simon Max Hill & Shannon Wheeler
Posted in Graphic Novel review on January 14, 2012 by brunswickGrandpa Won’t Wake Up
by Simon Max Hill & Shannon Wheeler
Boom! Town, 2011
Definitely not for anyone who’s suffered a loss in the family recently. Hill and Wheeler (in much better form than Oil and Water) take a big exuberant piss all over Dr. Seuss, and hilarity ensues. It’s not until the child narrators of this rhyming picture book dress their (apparently slumbering) grandpa in a swastika thong that you begin to feel as though some sort of line has been crossed, but then they summon a lesser Cthulhu demon and put a horse in a gimp mask, so the thong is forgotten.
It’s packaged as a Little Golden Book parody, and at the back there’s a list of other books in the series, including But I Poop From There!, The Haunted Dildo and The Racist Eggplant. Please let these titles never exist.
