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 Nickelodeon Magazine — but older kids will find enjoyment in them too. And adults.
Posted 5 months ago at 11:23 pm by John. Add a comment
One of the most amusing — and common — ironies of teenage rebellion is that its survival is often contingent on the patronage of those against whom the fight for independence is waged — that is, the parents of the rebel. Two recent graphic novels from France explore this dynamic from the rebellious child’s point of view, all the while being admirably straightforward about the parent’s role in this action. In “Garage Band,” a more typical situation is presented — four goofs get together for a band in order to thrash out noise and all their troubles. In “The Professor’s Daughter,” forbidden love is taken to an absurdist level, as the daughter of a prominent Egyptologist falls in love with a mummy he has discovered — a relationship he most emphatically refuses to endorse.
“Garage Band” is the work of Italian comics creator Gipi, whose gorgeous watercolors provide an animated grit to the world of Giuliano and his friends, who hold band practice in a decrepit old garage provide by Giuliano’s dad.
“The room’s mine as long as I stay out of trouble,” Giuliano explains.
The garage is not a longterm vote of confidence, it’s only a temporary gift from a father who spends more time with his champion show dogs than his child. The idea is that they will earn the rehearsal space, cleaning up the rat poop and clutter and dirt and through self-reliance build themselves up as they build their musical hideaway.
Like so many bands whose performing careers are played out in garages, this one is born of forging their own identity — even though dad owns their soul searching space. The other members are also beholden to parents — Nazi memorabilia collector Alex depends on his mother and aunt to help him transport equipment out, while troublemaker Stefano begrudgingly accepts his father’s overtures to set the band up with a client of his who is in the record industry.
An effort to be self-reliant turns into a bungled disaster for the band that has them on the verge of losing everything — Giuliano breaks his father’s one rule, while Stefano faces a temptation that forces him to choose between integrity and success. By the end of the story, it seems as though the support of parents — even the worst ones — are crucial to following your own rebellious muse and what Gipi illustrates is the process that everyone must go through in order to take that double-edged sword of a gift and put it to the best use.
“The Professor’s Daughter” is the effort of French creative team Joann Sfar and Emmanuel Guibert, who trade off duties in their works — in this book, Sfar scripts and Guibert illustrates in watercolor. This rebellion is one entrenched in a Victorian setting and surrounded by the sort of frantic, authoritarian squabbling that is indicative of the time. Professor Boswell feels he is showing proper parental affection toward his daughter, Lillian, but she feels at arm’s length from his heart.
“I sometimes feel like I’m a possession of his,” Lillian complains, “one of those antiques he goes searching for in the far corners of the world.”
“I do know the feeling,” the mummy wryly responds.
Though previously linked through meaningful conversation and one happy jaunt to a teahouse, Lillian and Imhotep IV become even more bonded through travails such as an accidental double murder, a kidnapping at sea, a stirring court case, the involvement of Queen Victoria herself and interloping by another mummy.
Lillian proves herself a plucky Victorian heroine — a direct descendant of the inhabitants of the old “penny dreadful” horror novels and the girls given life through the imaginations of the Bronte sisters. This is as much romantic comedy as Victorian potboiler, however, and Imhotep, despite being covered in bandages, is a sympathetic monster in the vein of Dracula and much more of a direct gentleman than many of his literary contemporaries.
It just takes one reading of something like “Pride and Prejudice” to see that there were smart girls in the 19th Century — and that their lot in life was not always in line with their clever brains. These women were expected to find men and the real motion of their narratives is a sparring courtship — that is, a domestic adventure — in which the men prove themselves worthy of the women. Within this marriage context, the women will rise on the power of their own strengths with their male counterparts giving them the social prominence that allows such growth to happen.
Lillian picks up half that archetype, but her choice of male — a reanimated mummy of a long-dead Egyptian pharaoh — isn’t quite as socially acceptable as a Mr. Darcy type. In the eyes of everyone, Lillian is marrying down — socially, yes, since a mummy is a belonging, but also in the area of time. A two thousand year old man is not quite within her station.
Both are burdened not only by “modern society,” but also by the sort of demanding familial responsibility that can squash even the slightest rebellion— their flight through rollicking adventures in the underbelly of 19th Century London is equal part escape from the control of their own paternal forebears. Just as the band in “Garage Band” learns to make the best of these parental intrusions and use them to their advantage, so do Lillian and Imhotep. It is a more practical form of biting the hand that feeds you and a truth any of us could have used, though only some of us have had the good fortune to have in our arsenal.
The creators in these books utilize the graphic format with a mixture of scrappiness and maturity — these are adults who haven’t lost that feeling of being young, but can also apply the lessons they have learned to the tales of those days left behind. In this way, Europe has been miles ahead of our own country in their approach to the graphic story telling — while we have largely relegated the format to male-oriented genre tales geared towards adventure and action and delivered in a disposable monthly form, the Europeans have been publishing diverse works in book form for decades.
“Garage Band” and “The Professor’s Daughter” represent ways in which we are finally catching up to the possibilities that French and Italian creators have been offering for years through their work. Just the fact that books such as these are finally being published in our country and made available to teens — heck, you can find these in local libraries — shows that we are finally maturing in our appreciation of the medium.
Posted 1 year, 3 months ago at 9:53 pm by John. Add a comment
