Review - Therefore Repent! by Jim Munroe and Salgood Sam

August 27th, 2008 John

The Rapture has provided adventure fodder for those who believe in it — I’m looking at you especially, Tim LeHaye — as well as those who don’t. To the best of my knowledge, though, it’s never been depicted as anything other than exactly what is happening. God has taken all the Christians away to Heaven and the Earth is ruled by the Anti Christ, with the Final Battle soon to follow.

In “Therefore Repent!” Canadian team Jim Munroe and Salgood Sam depict a post-Rapture world where nothing is for certain. The creator turn the bizarre religious belief into a science fiction scenario that has the characters actually searching for explanations beyond the accepted one while still working within the parameters of popular legend we all accept, either with straight face or with conspicuous snickers.

Raven and Mummy are two bohemian performance artists who wander around in their performance costumes. Squatting in an abandoned apartment in a little urban neighborhood, the two become acquainted with their surroundings and the other people left behind. One of the givens of the Rapture is that it would create a world populated mostly by artists and ne’er do wells, at least among the respectable crowds.

Munroe and Salgood also play with the likely post-Rapture psychology in regard to reactionary acting out that provide daily dangers and annoyances to the survivors. The Splitters are a group of people who believe there will be a second Rapture and they have one more chance to follow Jesus. Meanwhile, religious militia with names like “God’s Faithful” roam around spreading dread.

There is one way to read the Bible — that is between the lines and asking simple questions like “Who is God? What’s his story? Why’s he so vague about where he comes from and what he wants?” While “Therefore Repent!” may not be moving down that road exactly, it’s certainly in that spirit.

The story’s conclusion recontextualizes the circumstances of the Apocalypse in an inventive and fun way — oh, yeah, and it’s kind of corny. But good corny. The kind of corny that twists things inside out and lays out some intriguing possibilities as it unfolds. The kind of corny that’s missing from the eye-rolling corny that infects the belief “Therefore Repents!” lampoons.

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Review - That Salty Air by Tim Sievert

August 27th, 2008 John

In this fable of the sea, Hugh is a fisherman whose relationship with the sea turns stormy after a personal tragedy. “That Salty Air” portrays not only a man who is enraged by the primal fury of the oceans that give him his bounty, but of the woman who must struggle against his rage — his wife Maryanne — and hold their life together.

The couple live in a stark landscape on the edge of the sea, their only encounters with the real world being the letters brought to them by a friendly mail man on a bicycle. Two letters are received in the same delivery and both are life-changing — one, however, overtakes Hugh’s rationality with grief as he turns inward, beating himself with his own violent pity and punishing his wife with the same. The other letter might well sate him, but Hugh is beyond the point of calm.

The couple, though, are part of a much larger cycle of life and death and lurking under the ocean like a calm, ancient reminder is a giant squid that lords over sea life, fair but strict. When Hugh is finally able to lash out at the sea, it’s this creature that puts Hugh in the position of making the choice, of growing up and moving onward, of accepting the natural order of things.

Sievert presents a stark landscape in contrast to the bountiful sea with great skill as he presents the spinning emotionalism of Hugh, which sometimes, unfortunately, comes off as over-the-top in a way that’s far from the tone of the rest of the story. And while the point of the story is obviously to have Hugh’s histrionics stand  opposite to the leviathan that doles out justice with a calm and logical demeanor, there are points where you hope that Maryanne just dumps the self-pitying and simplistic man-child that she’s married. Even the death of his mother really doesn’t excuse some of the characters behavior, and that makes it a little hard to care for Hugh’s outcome.

In Maryanne, however, Sievert has presented a strong female character and the true emotional center of the story.

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Review - Sardine in Outer Space 5 by Emmanuel Guibert

August 26th, 2008 John

French creator Emmanuel Guibert offers giddy science fiction tomfoolery with the fifth volume of his “Sardine in Outer Space” series, “My Cousin Manga and Other Stories.”

Guibert’s work follows. the adventures of the little witch-like girl Sardine and the cat hiding in her hat as they travel with goofball Captain Yellow Shoulder and the manic Little Louie — together a crew of rather silly space pirates. The regular villains for the crew are Super Muscleman, the so-called “chief executive dictator of the universe” and his partner in crime, Doc Krok, an oogly looking guy with a big orange head.

The collection is packed with 10 delightful stories. In “The Bold and The Bashful,” the space pirates help unite lovebirds from the dark and light sides of the moon. In “The Scamcorder,” Doc Krok discovers “a new way of making children’s lives miserable,” a device that will make kids grow extra pimples, hair and buck teeth.

Guibert’s stories are light-hearted and energetic — oh, and pretty hilarious. They’re perfect for younger readers — reminiscent of something you might find in Nickolodeon Magazine — but older kids will find enjoyment in them too. And adults.

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Review - Red Colored Elegy by Seiichi Hayashi

August 26th, 2008 John

Seiichi Hayashi’s “Red Colored Elegy” evokes French New Wave film as it follows the relationship between Ichiro and Sachiko, investigating the personal tortures that have an effect on their status as a couple.

Structurally, Hayashi unfolds his tale through disjointed scenes that either hint at more than they reveal, or sometimes just make the reader feel left out from a secret. It’s that arm’s length mode of storytelling that grew out of films like “Breathless,” where it’s hard to engage with the characters since it’s impossible to get inside them beyond their whining to each other.

Hayashi matches the oblique attitude with simple artwork — sometimes so simple that characters can become interchangeable in appearance. That’s a shame because at points, Hayashi lets his skill slip through, mostly with some lovely renderings of landscapes, street scenes, and architecture. The complication of these renditions make it seem as if he is holding back too much with his characters — especially since there are points where the author is really on the verge of drawing a reader into his characters’ dramas.

At the same time, Hayashi does have the detached, disjointed storytelling technique down. It’s not hard to see that in 1970/71, when this first appeared, it certainly was groundbreaking — it’s just that decades later, it has little emotional resonance and stands best as a technical example of experimentation in the graphic arts.

It points to what could be and shows an astonishing level of creative maturity — it is, unfortunately, a promise of what could be rather than a realization of it.

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Review - The Aviary by Jamie Tanner

August 22nd, 2008 John

If anyone can tell me what Jamie Tanner’s “The Aviary” is about, please do so. This is not to say I didn’t like the book — in fact, I loved it. But a good man knows when he’s down and “The Aviary” has put me in the place of being a very good man. Usually I can eek deep meaning out of anything — it’s part of the alarming arsenal of a reviewer, heck I do it all the time in my Secret History of EL Comics — but Tanner has me stumped. In a good way.

An aviary is a large, enclosed place to keep birds — like a house-sized cage — and the characters within cross each other’s stories so often that one gets the feeling that they do inhabit an enclosed space, the walls of which are the edges of the pages of the graphic novel. With no other space to wander into, no life beyond that which Jamie Tanner allows them to exist in, they are left little choice but to run circles around each other’s existence. The characters’ movements hint that there is some sort of meaning to their imprisonment, but they may just be the inevitable things that happen by dropping people in a confined space and seeing what happens.

It’s a cartoon version of the Big Brother house mixed with the sensibilities of “Waiting For Godot.”

Tanner’s tale revolves around a little toy doll of a bird with a human body, dressed up in a suit and sporting a special “blinking eye” novelty, as manufactured by the Casualty J. Organ Company. The bird’s part in the tale comes and goes, though Casualty J. Organ himself figures into what unfolds, as well as his secretary, an ape-faced collector of pornography named Heinrich Bruno, a robot, a comedian with no arms and legs and a penguin child. The characters parade through a variety of short pieces that work as self-contained curiosities, but also add up to something more bizarre. They link, but what the links add up to will tease your brain afterwards.

Add to my befuddled but enthusiastic explanation the fact that the story has the feel of having been written by someone with Tourette’s Syndrome and you pretty much get the idea.

For all its obscurity, “The Aviary” is a hilarious venture in surrealism. And one fact is obvious throughout — Jamie Tanner is going to be a major talent in the world of graphic novels. His ideas and presentation are uniquely his own and watching how they grow further in his work will be a great pleasure.

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Review - The Amazing, Remarkable Monsieur Leotard by Eddie Campbell and Dan Best

August 21st, 2008 John

In the delightful “The Amazing, Remarkable Monsieur Leotard,” graphic novel treasure Eddie Campbell and his collaborator Dan Best take a look at old side shows and draw a direct line between those performers and the modern day superhero. This unexpected feat is accomplished by examining the structure of exciting narratives and sweeping adventures as experienced by outsiders.

Leotard is, of course, the famed daring young man on the flying trapeze who inspired the song, the man who created the garment of the same name. This book is not about him, but his nephew, the far less interesting Etienne, who dons his uncle’s fake mustache and accepts his dying gift of a blank book. Etienne takes the book as a challenge to fill it with tales, and assumes the moustache as a key to the adventure. Like a dying wizard passing on his powers to a young orphan, Leotard leaves the world, but leaves a representative of his legend.

What follows is a series of short vignettes that constitute comic book issues in a larger adventure series. The idea here is that Etienne has been pass a mantle and he runs with it, he has been given a blank book and a challenge of sorts — “May nothing occur,” his uncle wishes him on his death bed. A small thinker would look to the sky and hope the same, a life of safety, but Etienne is no small thinker.
Aided by a dwarf named Zany, Etienne immediately sets about filling his book, ballooning past hordes of invading Prussians during the Franco-Prussian War in order to return to his uncles troupe to announce his elevation to fill the legendary Leotard leotards. Etienne also begins to reinvent the troupe in fantastic ways, most notably in the form of Quartette Fantastique, a crew of performers modeled after the Fantastic Four.

Campbell and Best deliver the tale with a breezy and casual structure, allowing the characters to decide the pace with which the stories unfold. Often in vignette form, the pieces add up to something understated and lovely in regard to telling stories and relating your own mythologies. Campbell’s artwork, meanwhile, is beyond beauty — he is one of the most important creators in the field and his color work here, which crosses styles and genres and employs some brilliant panel placement as well, elevates his legend further. You leave the story loving both him and Etienne.

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Mr. Big by Carol and Matt Dembicki

August 21st, 2008 John

A nature tale about wetlands survival and the cycle of life unfolds as a suspense thriller, complete with a murder conspiracy and a plot twist involving just who really is the villain in the tale. Carol and Matt Dembicki’s “Mr. Big” delivers in its revelation of nature as an unsentimental and logical system that still involves passion and drama.

As spring begins, the inhabitants of a certain pond are faced with the regular cycle of life. Much as spring heralds new life, it also is marked by death and in this pond its messenger is often the mysterious and silent Mr. Big, a lumbering but deadly snapping turtle who lurks in a sewer pipe waiting for kills.

A conspiracy between fish and crayfish — followed by frogs and other creatures — begins in order to enlist a rebellion for the assassination of the killer turtle. Matters are complicated further when the crows are brought into the scheme and the existence of another, possibly more dangerous creature is brought to everyone’s attention. As the plot spirals out of control and the result of the creatures’ actions become less sure, the Dembickis bring their tale into a philosophical rumination on the balance of nature, the place of death in life and the real ecological scourge of invasive species on an ecosystem.

“Mr. Big” is a great book for kids and adults, mixing genre excitement with natural science, utilizing human personalities in the animals just enough to draw you in and illustrate the themes fluidly. As a result, “Mr. Big” is a multi-faceted look, also, into the psychology of how human’s perceive nature and what realistic steps we can take to understand the way the world works — and perhaps even apply it to our own human condition.

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Review - The 10 Cent Plague by David Hajdu

July 28th, 2008 John

Why do Americans love censorship so? We fight against fascists and dictators and communists, and yet we revere John Adams and the sedition act as a model for dealing with words and works we find uncomfortable. From Dixieland music to hip hop, popular culture has been at the forefront of the threat against American culture. One of the ugliest — and least documented — movements in American censorship has been in regard to comic books, a recurring effort that resulted in the gutting of an industry populated by Jews, immigrants and women in the 1950s.

In “The Ten Cent Plague,” author David Hajdu documents the dismantling of an American art form, where moral concerns — often misguided ones — bullied a vibrant, street level, populist creative format that eventually blossomed into the biggest selling entertainment in America, read by kids and adults.

Before the 1950s, comic books were not synonymous with superheroes — instead, it was populated by a multitude of genres, as well as pure drama and comedy, and millions were sold each month. Hajou reveals the medium’s contribution to the post-1950s culture of America where, even as aboveground culture continued to maintain a choke hold on creativity, alternative and youth culture wanted something more than the pre-fabricated, canned artistry that was offered to them. Comics helped build that sensibility.

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Review - The Dayan Collection by Akiko Ikeda

July 25th, 2008 John

Hidden away in children’s popular culture in Japan is a big-eyed cat named Dayan who inhabits a magical world not far down the street from the works of Beatrix Potter, thanks to its darkness and absurdity. The books are being translated into English for the first time, giving American kids the chance to encounter the cat’s low key adventures.

Akiko Ikeda’s tales walk a path that welcomes mysticism and a subtle folkloric quality, as well as an existentialism that replaces any sort of humdrum exposition. The first book, “Dayan’s Birthday,” opens with the simple idea that Dayan does not know when his birthday is, but wants to so he can throw himself a party. Like something out of an old folk tale, Dayan makes a deal with witches to uncover the mysterious date, but thoughtlessness creates a conflict with the witches that can only be solved through fast-thinking trickery.

There is something positively pagan about the comings and goings of the animal characters — “Thursday Rainy Party” involves a celebration of showers and the creation of a calendar; “White Eurocka” brings animals together for a Winter Solstice style celebration that involves a mystical birth; and “Chibikuro Party” unveils a party of freed shadows who plan never to return to their masters, under the leadership of the nefarious shadow of “The Satan of Death Forest.”

Despite the dark, supernatural tones, these are not scary stories in the slightest — and they all unfold around cute forest animals. The darkness functions as a spice that mixes well with the adorable simplicity of the other half of the tales — there will be, perhaps, a cultural difference in what is considered the norm for children’s books. For a little kid who might be ready for something with unexpected texture — or a parent who might want to expose the child to other cultures in a subtle, less dictatorial manner, that involves exciting strangeness traveling through the aether — the Dayan books are just the thing.

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Review - Good-Bye by Yoshihiro Tatsumi

July 22nd, 2008 John

If Ingmar Bergman were a Japanese Manga creator, he would no doubt have been Yoshihiro Tatsumi. In “Good-Bye,” a new collection of Tatsumi’s short works from 1971 and 1972, the underbelly of the Japanese psyche is examined in from an intimate and often grim vantage point with masterful results.

Japanese Manga has been the hottest comics trend in the United States, with shelves of the books finding their way into mainstream bookstores and the hands of American teenagers everywhere. Tatsumi, though, is a pioneer of the form and if the current onslaught is mystifying to adults on a number of levels — from the youthful subject matter to enormity of the titles available — Tatsumi provides a reference point for the lost, both in chronology and maturity.

In Tatsumi’s world, Japan is land of not merely of repression, but of the illusion of repression. Nastiness still abounds and people still act out their coarsest desires, but society turns a blind eye to it, creating the mass delusion that there is nothing wrong. The way Tatsumi tells it, this results in a world of colliding, mournful loners who want and take and hurt.

In “Hell,” Tatsumi uses the bombing of Hiroshima as the ultimate indicator of the fraud of Japanese society, with the desire for upright decency being revealed as a compulsion enabled by the country’s nostalgia for its own need for honor.

Japanese women are portrayed as being expected to submit to being objects of lust, while being shamed into doing what their society demands of them. In “Life Is So Sad” Akemi is forced to work as a hostess after her abusive boyfriend lands in jail — but his assumptions about her job push her into fulfilling his worst expectations. In “Good-Bye” Mariko — branded a slut by her neighbors — finds herself torn between her American lover and her sleazy father, a conflict that results in a horrible dehumanization of the woman.

Meanwhile, men are desperate and lonely, filled with self loathing due to the expectations of society. In “Just a Man” and “Rash,” older men grope for their fantasies and end up with further dark holes in their souls. In “Woman in the Mirror” and “Night Falls Again” the inability of Japanese men to express themselves in a sexual manner is turned inside out on them by the world at large.

Tatsumi’s bitter slices of life unwind with a silent grace — his artwork renders the tragedies with a compassion that never hides the starkness of the emotions portrayed. Tatsumi is spare with dialogue, but it packs a punch when his characters speak, bring the reader to intimate corners as we intrude on the most private — and sometimes horrible — moments in their lives.

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