Emma Vol 1 by Kaoru Mori:

Set in Victorian England this books traces the life of a young kind-hearted ,intelligent maid Emma . William, a young aristocratic lad falls in love with the beautiful Emma and she too starts developing feelings towards him. But they are on either ends of the social ladder which makes it a twisty situation.

This is book was my first attempt at graphic novels thanks to Alyce from At Home With Books for the recommendation. I must say that not only are the illustrations beautiful but also the life in Victorian Era has been depicted very beautifully. It is a very easy read and also very enjoyable.This is an ongoing series so I am yet to discover what happens  to the love birds eventually.

People who love historical romances or Georgette Heyer type of regency romances will love this series. If  you are new to graphic novel genre then this would be a great start.

Highly recommended.

My rating : 4.5 out of 5

My reviews of Emma Vol 2, 3 , 4 will be posted  soon

The world can’t exist without the Avengers. At least, the world in Marvel Comics can’t. After Brian Michael Bendis’s destruction of the Avengers in Avengers Disassembled, a lot of Marvel fans were upset. I was one of them. If you haven’t read that book, go read it and see if you’re upset too.

At any rate, any reconstruction of the Avengers was going to have to be a lot different. Marvel Comics chose to take their powerhouses, basically the guys who sold the most comics, and pair them with personal hero favorites of Bendis. That list includes Luke Cage and Spider-Woman. Granted, Bendis has made these characters pull their weight in the strip, but fans wouldn’t have expected them to be in the ranks of the Avengers before.

Captain America, Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Wolverine are high rollers in the comics game. Putting them in the series makes good sense on some levels. Captain America and Iron Man have both been Avengers before. They have a history. And both of them have worked with Spider-Man and Wolverine on other occasions.

In the original Avengers comics, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby also gathered their heavy hitters from the 1960s that weren’t on a team and brought them together to chase down the Hulk, who was on a mad rampage inspired by Loki. The heroes had to band together to defeat a menace no one else could deal with.

That’s the setup in Breakout. But Bendis weaves in a lot of plot points that he’s going to touch on in future volumes of this new series. Matt Murdock (Daredevil) is on hand when Electro manages to bust everyone out of an island prison. We get some really good set pieces of some of the characters before they plunge into the fight. In fact, Bendis does a few quick double backs with each issue collected in the graphic novel to turn back time and pick up story threads from before the action breaks out.

And the action is fast and furious. Readers get to see a ton of old foes at their best. One of my favorite scenes was the confrontation between Luke Cage and the Purple Man. Anyone who’s read Alias, another Bendis created comic, knows that Luke has a HUGE bone to pick with the Purple Man.

One of the most intriguing aspects of this graphic novel is the introduction of the Sentry. He’s purportedly the most powerful superhero in existence, yet the world doesn’t remember him. And he’s in prison for murdering his wife. Bendis deals with that plot line in the second arc of the series.

The aftermath of the prison break ends up with Captain America and Iron Man reaching an agreement to bring the Avengers back in some form. Following up on leads established from the investigation regarding the breakout, this new group journeys down to the Savage Land and confronts a conspiracy they hadn’t expected. They also meet up with Wolverine.

I enjoy Bendis’s portrayal of characters and the dialogue that flips back and forth between them. I had a blast watching Luke Cage and Spider-Man mix it up with verbal sparring. The bit about Luke getting his hands spider webbed so he could fight Electro was priceless. David Finch and Danny Miki handle the art chores and do quite well on the pages. When I finished the book, I went back through for the fight scenes and some of the character specific art just for another look.

The New Avengers is off to a good start and I’m enjoying the series. These guys may not be your dad’s Avengers, or the Avengers you grew up with, but it doesn’t look like there’s going to be a dull moment around them.

He is the Dark Knight. He is the winged vigilante, the greatest superhero in all of the comic book world.

And he is dead.

So goes the plot of Neil Gaiman’s Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? a follow up to this year’s Batman: R.I.P. by Grant Morrison.  Gaiman, the comic book genius behind the ever-popular Sandman series, penned this eulogy as a way to say goodbye, a love story to his first comic book hero.

In a short, but complete introduction to the graphic novel, Gaiman describes that his love of Batman is as “one loves a parent.” In what is ultimately every fan’s chance to say goodbye to the dark hero who helped raise us all, Gaiman starts it off beautifully with a heartfelt lecture on his own connection to the character.

The plot, like any good Batman comic, is somehow just a shade past realism, while taking a huge step into fantasy.  Dozens of characters, spanning the whole of Batman’s 60 years, attend Batman’s funeral, each telling his or her own tale of Batman’s life and death, all while Batman himself watches, narrating off-screen. He, like the readers, has no idea what is going on, and why so many of his friends and enemies have gathered to tell wildly conflicting stories about the man of mystery. It is up to him, the so-named World’s Greatest Detective, to figure it out, and to explain it to all of us.

Friend and foe, great and small make their way through the ceremony. There’s Commissioner Gordon, Batman’s trusted ally, and his daughter Barbara, who after being injured by the Joker became Batman’s all-seeing eye, Oracle.  Enemies like Two-Face, Poison Ivy, Ra’s al-Ghul, Penguin and the Mad Hatter sit among them, as Dick Grayson, the first Robin and Bruce Wayne’s soon-to-be replacement as Batman, starts the ceremony.

It is left to Batman’s two closest relations, lover/enemy Catwoman and faithful butler Alfred, to tell the extended stories. They draw on Batman’s character, his greatest flaws, and all of his complex history. They rewrite the beginning, and even the ending, of the life of their hero, but always manage to stay true to the character himself.

That is Gaiman’s greatest strength. He knows his subject, and any reader who has lost touch with the character will be faced with the impossible task of keeping up with the dozens of “there, did you catch that?” moments – and no, you probably did not catch them all the first time.

The graphic novel touches on every generation of the Dark Knight, from his early origins “a couple of years before Pearl Harbor” to the darker, more distressed Batman of recent years. Gaiman, and his tale, remind us constantly, that while the man may die, the legend never does.

It is a send-off fit for a warrior. What could easily fall into the realm of cheesy or fan-baiting instead retains all the dark lore of its hero. Gaiman and longtime Batman artist Andy Kubert worked tirelessly to represent every great artist and writer who has helped shaped Batman along the way, but each manages to leave his own touch on the project. Batman’s final four-page farewell, looks like a page torn directly from Gaiman’s Sandman.

Kubert’s artwork, shown more precisely in the supplemental sketchbook, is often a direct copy of his forefathers’ work on the comic, assuring that fans of any age will see Batman as they remember him best.

It is a difficult task to be the one to kill off an idol. Batman is so many things to so many people. He is America, our dark side to Superman’s purity. He has saved us countless times, maybe not from the Joker, but certainly from drowning in normalcy. He is deserving of the greatest goodbye granted a legend.

Gaiman may not be synonymous with Batman, but with this comic, his love is showing – and he allows every reader to show their appreciation as well for the man who shaped our culture and rewrote our ideas of “good” and “bad.”

It is a haunting goodbye to a tortured soul who has touched us all in some way, and we all deserve to be there, right beside all the men and women who made Batman what he was, so that he could shape us into who we would become.

-Stephanie Jackson

A new graphic novel that will surely become popular, Secret Science Alliance is about three kids who love inventing. They each have different strengths and weaknesses, but together they are a force to be reckoned with. When a renowned inventor steals their notebook of inventions, the team comes up with a plan to get it back. Of course they don’t realize that the scientist is set on using their inventions to break into a museum to steal a priceless artifact! But together, they will come up with a daring, adventurous plan. Based on the ending, this looks like it will be a great new series.

Posted by: Kate

The essence of popular art balances between the known and the unknown. With the inset of two “Star Wars” volumes that bridge the balance between the narrative, the aspect of canon continues to structure while the My Space Dark Horse compilation shows a dexterity of diversity which shows new abilities while also the inherent shortcomings of certain others which is how one truly can differentiate the exceptional from the merely standard.

Star Wars Adventures: Princess Leia & The Royal Ransom This Dark Horse quick read gives the aspect of the continuing romance of Han & Leia before it was seen in “Empire Strikes Back”. Granted hindsight allows for some interesting plays and other things you couldn’t see. Chewie ends up playing, to great comic effect, the lousy uncle who tries to keep the kids to stop fighting long enough to get the job done and make up. Here like always, Leia gets stuck aboard the Millenium Falcon (she probably likes to put herself in these situations) where they have to get some info back to the Alliance. In true form, Han gets sidetracked in doing a little side job for some spending money. They end up in the middle of a kidnapping bounty involving another princess. The thing is that this girl eventually likes Han and wants to marry him. The quips after they find her in an electronics drum are priceless and plays up the fact of why Leia likes Han: it’s because he’s a goof with a bit of charm.

My Space Dark Horse Presents Vol. 3 The aspect of an anthology of would-be artists that are getting some of their elements shown compared with the elements of established writer/artists is an interesting exercise although the best work does for sure bubbles to the top. Beginning with “Murderous Intent”, the inflection of an almost “Sanctuary” based tale, shows that the genre is beginning to catch up with those it seeks. “I See The Devil In My Sleep” fares better because it is purely psychological. A man thinks he is seeing ghosts. We think he might be sane but it turns out that he’s not. “The Creepys” plays like a mix between the trailers for “Grindhouse” and “Creepshow” in a sick but slightly humorous way that is brought to bear later. “The Cleaners: Body Colony” is one of the better stories in the volume because of its almost floral connection to “Andromeda Strain”. Its structure follows more of a “Twilight Zone”motif.

“The Stain” is more reflexive in terms of the writer but, as a result, seems more convoluted. The essence of bringing work home with you is an essence of being but nonetheless one that has been created time and time before. “Emily The Strange” works with poetry and although it seems to speak to a certain theoretical area of the population, it comes off as too pretentious here. “Om Nom Nom” is the continuation of “The Creepys” story with a chicanerous young woman thinking she can rip off a harmless old invalid. Turns out the old girl is a mass murderer who is just waiting for the chance. The boyfriend ends up in the freezer and the girl gets conched in the head. It happens. “Previously Possessed” is a piece about a dress which is cursed but the story is indominantly dumb. “The Nightmare Of A Wine Hobo” is equally as weak simply because of its overabundance of metaphors. “Hunger For Knowledge” tries to use a different color palette but its insistance and reflexiveness of a dragon killed for a girl being a car is a bit overplayed. “Saccards” which follows the trails of a Ronin Rabbit has its odes to Kurosawa for sure but lacks a great perception in spite of its “Kill Bill” inventiveness in the vision of its lead character. “Beanworld” shows that the anthology is losing steam because even as it tries to create something intensive, it loses the character in the over complication of its personalities. “The Couch Fort” by The Mysterious Actor is simply sheer self indulgence underwhelming in the sheer “inside” nature of what it is showing.

“One Dollar Genius” has a great humor in a Weird Al sort of way simply because it turns the aspect of a couple bears in Nike suits going to Taco Bell for some food into an inherent exercise on the meaning of life. In the end, it seems, all that is needed is a good bowel movement. President Carter and Kenny star in “The Best Job In The Whole World” which has everything to do with ice cream but nothing to do with running the country. “Nothing Nice To Say” follows the progress of “Getting Hip” but the reality is that Joey Ramone’s ghost can’t tell you how cool you are, you just have to find out for yourself. “The K Chronicles” is another short blip that has no relevance to anyone except the writer himself which is unfortunately something we all deal with at one time or another. “Steak & Kidney Punch” seems to be working towards a punchline which vindicates its lead character but never gets there. “Robro” has a good aesthetic working for it that rivals some elements of Gorillaz but its involvement of a standard robot going all psycho for an android female and then blowing stuff up is just bad storytelling. “Mister X In Slumberland”, like the man who commits a murder and can’t wake up, works because it exists in the predilection of a dream state yet it is narrated by a woman whom the character examined lost.

“Serenity: The Other Half” shows River (played by Terminator’s Summer Lau in the series) helping the team at least get even on the deal. The Captain isn’t very pleased but he knows better than to hedge his bets. At least “Castle” is doing well so Nathan Fillion can be happy. “Harmony Bites” is a little too inside for Hollywood but would probably make a good “Outer Limits” episode simply because the party girl retains some of her attitude despite being able to sire other vampires. It helps that her weak friend is a demon who likes to knit. “Vampy Cat” has Joss Whedon’s name on it but it basically plays like “Shin Chan” where the cat goes nuts and bites people. “I’m Moist” has a kid who thinks he is different becoming a drip because his dad brings home a humidifier that was made in the Soviet Union.

Like all anthologies there are some good and some bad. Here the aspects of “A Devil Never Sleeps” and “Slumberland” stand out because the rest of the other stories play unconnected or undeniably distracted.

Watching the perspective of the “Star Wars” canon ever expanding, this time, in more visual acuity, because of both the graphic novel output and the current Cartoon Network show, the layering of this universe is seemingly becoming more rich because the narratives placed in structure between all of the films. This allows for a lot of interspersed stories with characters not even shown or barely seen in those movies. This gives undeniable credence to the planned live action series because the groundwork is purely coming into play. “Menace Revealed” in Omnibus form shows the different perceptions of what “villain” can mean from a certain point of view.

Star Wars Omnibus: Menace Revealed The aspect of this collection is to permeate that which we can see which borders “A New Hope” and “Empire” and the breathe of the second two prequels. The first story “Starcrash” involves a Padewan who is not quite up to snuff yet. He ends up on a “Hitchhiker” drudge-ridden world where a princess is about to have a really bad marriage of convenience. He helps her get out of it but he is not big enough to fill his shoes. “Hearts Of Fire” follows a young Jedi who passes in a remembrance of her former master. “The Hunt For Aurra Sing” follows a character seen in “Clone Wars” who has a mean streak. Here we get to see her teacher and a primarily conflicted Padewan deal with a property deal gone bad. The Padewan loses control and almost kills her. He realizes his folly but almost relinquishes control of his emotions. “Jedi Quest” follows a younger Obi Wan and Anakin before we see them in “Clones”. Anakin, on a outlying planet with Obi Wan, sees a vision of Darth Maul who foretells his fall to the Dark Side. After this unnerving perception and the creation of his first lightsaber, the Padewan and his master are sent on a mission to take down a murdering smuggler Kradyn who ultimately works for the Hutts. Anakin is captured by a mercenary (who is also a undercover Jedi). Obi Wan is able to traverse back into the hold with disguise as the young Anakin leads a rebellion. After Obi Wan rescues some of the pslaves, Anakin faces off with Kradyn and kills him in cold blood boding well for his later betrayal. The image of rage in the rain perfectly balances Anakin’s defeat on the volcano planet some time later.

“Jango Fett” shows some of the background of the infamous bounty hunter. He is recruited for a signficant artifact retrieval to an employer he doesn’t know but for which he is paid double. The object turns out to be guarded by a Force Creature. The female bounty hunter (Zam Wessell) that helped him in “Clones” pulls a Belloq. It turns out that the anonymous buyer is a Dark Lord. Jango returns home and spends some quality time with Boba who always wonders why his father has to leave. “Zam Wessell” seems to have a thing for Jango Fettt even if she is a shape shifter (which we saw when she died in “Attack Of The Clones”). That much is certain. But she also seems to have a conscience against her better judgment. She gets Jango in the hay which is also one of her intents. Zam wants to get back the piece Jango stole. A lanky Jedi with mind control powers is on the case as well down in the bowels of Coruscant City, like something out of “The 5th Element” The final battle shows Fett helping with the aspect of good unlike later in “Clones” when Zam dies.

“Bounty Hunter: Aurra Sing” has the evil woman tracking down a Jedi turned bad. The angle of self reflexiveness works here showing both the craft of the writing but also the ability to come back to the good side of the Force. “Poison Moon” follows Anakin and Obi Wan where the young Padewan gets caught in the grips of a dark side element and is again spared. Maybe they see something in him. Briefing and the print is a bit smaller here which dictates something else. “Starfighter – Crossroads” is the most comprehensive of the stories in this volume in the progression of a stand alone because the lead Rym, like a buff version of the captain of the ghost boat in “Pirates Of The Carribean”, has a great essence to him like an “Indiana Jones Of The Sea” without morals. He seems to have more dexterity than the Jedi but does not do more damage than he needs to. In that way, he is like an amphibian version of Han Solo. “Full Of Surprises” takes a similar approach to “Clones” in terms of an asteroid altercation with Jango Fett but this time it is before an aspect with Boba. Jango narrowly escapes because this time Obi Wan has the upper hand. “Most Deadly Weapon” takes place right between the end of the Dooku/Yoda battle on Genonosis. The Count believes that Skywalker is a power to be reckoned with and will mention it to Lord Sidious when he returns. It is like a little easter egg that is added to the proceedings.“Practice Makes Perfect” shows the element of Anakin taking part in the trials to become a full Jedi. He masters his tests easily but Master Windu is wary of his overconfidence. “Machines Of War” examines the Clones confidence compared to the Jedi way. Yoda admits that they are powerful and wonders if it might cause them problems down the road which is self fulfilling.

“Star Wars Omnibus: Menace Revealed” helps clarify a lot of the relationships we have grown to criticize over the prequel trilogy. It works especially in the element of Jango Fett and Zam Wessell whom we see in “Attack Of The Clones” in allowing them to have a full arc which could not be seen on screen. By comparison, the volume also offers a greater psychological view into Anakin’s psyche in showing that his mind was unraveling from the beginning if these elements are to be taken as canon. As a result, this collection is riveting at times in its use of essential story points.

Just about done.  I think it looks good.  Find it at http://sites.google.com/a/ocsb.ca/graphic-novels/foreword.

Everyone knows that in the Marvel Comics universe Doctor Strange is the Sorcerer Supreme, right? Well, evidently that’s changing. There have been a lot of changes in the Marvel Universe, and some of them I haven’t been too keen on. I have to admit, it took a writer as good as Ed Brubaker to convince me that maybe I needed a new Captain America. So maybe some changes will be all right.

But Doctor Strange? Come on. The guy has been an icon since practically forever. Every time I think of him, I think about the old Stan Lee stories and the Steve Ditko art.

However, Brian Michael Bendis has been known to shake things up. His take on Daredevil won me over, as much as Frank Miller’s run back when I was much younger. And the idea of the responsibility of Sorcerer Supreme dropping to…uh-uh. You’ll have to read the book to find out, but I was thoroughly taken with the idea and want to see where it goes.

In the meantime, though, The New Avengers Vol. 11 Search for the Sorcerer Supreme is a great graphic novel. There’s lots of action, lots of jokes and humor, a meal at Luke Cage and Jessica Jones’s house, and a tour of some of the supernatural heroes in the Marvel Universe that haven’t been seen in a while.

I don’t know that I was particularly taken with the portrayal of the Son of Satan, but it was a fun romp watching him explode with power while fighting demons. And Bendis’s introduction of the whole plot, the gentle scenes with Doctor Strange seeking out Wiccan of Young Avengers and trying to find out if he’s supposed to be the next Sorcerer Supreme was well done. I really enjoyed the characters and the dialogue.

When the possessed villain showed up on the scene, though, Billy Tan and Chris Bachalo’s art really seized the stage. The look, the menace, was terrifically creepy and totally blew me away. Right then and there, I wanted to see a new Doctor Strange series showing him fighting demons like that – in the urban streets as well as other dimensions. Maybe we’ll get it soon.

In the meantime, Bendis delivers a great story chockfull of characterization and a blitzkrieg of supernatural action. The one-liners and the unmasking of Spider-Man (again, since the reset button got pushed on his life, which is not something I agree with) were awesome. This is a fun book that will make you think about the possibilities, especially since the Sorcerer Supreme in the Marvel Universe is –

Mathieu Mariolle & Aurore Demilly
Vol. 1-2
2009
Tokyopop

Pixie is a two volume graphic novel published in United States by Toykopop. It follows the adventures of Pixie, a young red-haired thief, Prince Ael, a young prince with the power to move through dreams, Elvynn, a spellcasting warrior and Balor, a wise werewolf. Together they are trying to stop Ankou from unleashing his terrible machine on the different worlds.

Didn’t that sound like any other review? LOL I picked up this series at my local Barnes and Noble store. Why? Because I like the illustrations. That is usually the reason why I pick up graphic novels, the pictures. If the illustrations don’t catch my eye, I probably will not buy it. I know that sounds awful, but it’s the truth. (Same goes for most books I’ve picked up.) Now that’s not to say that I buy everything with cute illustrations or that it is the only reason I pick up books or comics. It is the leading reason, not the only one. Got it? Great.

The Good

• I love the art! (Have you gotten that fact clear yet? LOL) The colors are rich and vibrant. It has that fantasy look down. Glowing-sparkling fairies and what-nots. Beautiful creatures: mermaids, fairies and even dragons. What can I say? Aurore Demilly is an excellent artist! If you’re not familiar with her work, please visit her website. She has excellent pieces in her gallery. (like the one below)

• The story: one thief helping out a confused prince. Classic. I love that they’re not perfect characters (ok, they’re kind of typical). Pixie is the typical do-first-ask-later hero that has a lame plan for every situation. But I like the idea of having the ability to control your surroundings with your dreams. What if I dream that I was a mermaid and woke up under the ocean? What if I have a really ugly nightmare and wake-up in that scenario? You have to admit, it’s an interesting idea.

The Bad

• This comic is a translation. Pixie was originally published by Delcourt in France. When I was reading it, it seemed that in some instances some of the context was “lost in translation”. Or I got the feeling that it was translated literally and that the meaning didn’t come across as intended. Really, it comes across as a bad translation.
• The action moves way to fast. One moment you are trapped in a jail cell; the next you are roaming around the palace halls. The ending is rushed.

Parting thought: I took French in high school and then one semester at the university, so technically I can read the original French version of this comic. What stops me? The prices. I wish I could afford to buy a lot of French comics. They have some gems over there that I know I would love. Maybe I should purchase some through Amazon.

:::::::::::::::::::::

Links:

Toykopop
Aurore Demilly

Lately Superman has become even more of an everyman hero in the hands of Geoff Johns and James Robinson. Superman/Clark Kent has his roots in Kansas farmland after all, and his core values aren’t the same as Batman or Wonder Woman. Batman’s personal tragedy propels him, and Wonder Woman’s sense of duty keeps her motivated, plus that whole history of being raised among Amazons.

At the end of the day, though, Superman is the kind of guy you can sit down with and talk about family issues. And he’d have good advice and experiences he could share with you. Beyond the super powered stuff and being an alien from another planet, if those were your problems.

James Robinson really gets that about Superman as well, and his first scripting run on the character is fantastic. Okay, I’ll admit that the villain plot of The Coming of Atlas is a bit simplistic and creaky, but that isn’t the real story. The real story is even more basic and much deeper than villains trying to take a hero’s head off.

The graphic novel is the story of a boy and his dog. From page 1 to the final page, that’s what this book is about, and the dog lover and father in me was ecstatic about that. In fact, I’m pushing the book onto my 12 year old now, and I’m ranting to you about it as well.

I loved the argument Lois and Clark had over whether Clark should keep Krypto, and how that argument escalated into whether Clark loved her and why he should love her even though he could have probably had anyone. Clark certainly answered that question with more aplomb than most guys out there would have.

But the thing that really sold me on the tale was Superman’s simple love for Krypto, and the way the dog returned that love. The scene with Superman playing fetch with Krypto out in space with Green Lantern watching was priceless. (Of course, it also made me wonder where GL was when Superman was getting the stuffing pounded out of him later.)

I wasn’t really sold on Atlas as a villain. For one, he didn’t really have an agenda against Superman, and I didn’t really know what happened to him at the end. However, Renato Guedes’s art is eye-popping. The battle scenes were terrific, and the black and white washed “memory” scenes of Lois and Clark were an absolute visual treat that really stood apart from the rest of the book.

One of Robinson’s greatest strengths is his vision of the characters he writes about. He can touch the core of their values, hopes, and fears like few other writers can. Even with the story isn’t particularly strong, Robinson’s portrayal of the heroes/characters will be. Highly recommended for the last scenes especially.

Ok.  This is how it’s going down.

Friday, November 27th at Lucky’s Comics on Main Street is the date and time for your chance to meet the charming and talented artist/writer/linocutist Marta Chudolinska (that’s pronounced Hoo-doh-linska as in the Guess Who).

She’s in Vancouver from balmy Toronto to launch her new wordless graphic novel Back + Forth (A Novel in 90 Linocuts).  It’s gorgeous, check the poster below to confirm.

It’s a story of emotional and physical journeys. Vancouver and Toronto landmarks are beautifully rendered in 90 blocks of sublime evocation.  Her publisher, Porcupine’s Quill, have done an amazing job with the book.  The paper and print quality are their usual high standard.

Marta has brought some of the blocks with her and will be doing something with them at Lucky’s that night.  I’m not sure what she’s going to do but it’s probably gonna be magical.

So come check it out.  This Friday @ 7.  Also: Gabe will be sad if you don’t come.

I purchased Diary of a Stinky Dead Kid for the JFIC collection thinking it was a straight parody of Diary of a Wimpy Kid.  It’s not, it’s a graphic novel and includes other stories, and is more YA than J, so expect to see it in your YA GN collection soon.  The real “gem” inside this book, in my opinion, is the parody of Twilight, something you might have to point out to the Twilight-haters who might not otherwise notice it.

My friend Vince Dorse, the über-talented artist who colorized Two Bad Pilgrims, spills the secrets of his technique here.

Here’s hoping you enjoy a blessed Thanksgiving with family and friends.

I found this website where Lars Martinson, a cartoon, writes about how he went about self-publishing his own graphic novel. Some of the advice may be American-oriented but I think they’re quite useful for comic artists of all nationalities as well. =D

Read and learn then.

How I Self-Published a Graphic Novel

1. 1/10 – Introductions / Disclaimers
2. 2/10 – Honing Your Craft / Creating Your Comic
3. 3/10 – Research, Research, Research
4. 4/10 – Savings & Money Management
5. 5/10 – The Xeric Grant
6. 6/10 – Preparing for Press
7. 7/10 – Working with Book Printers
8. 8/10 – Distribution
9. 9/10 – Marketing
10. 10/10 – The Long Haul / Conclusion

moon

138. Jack of Fables, Vol. 6: The Big Book of War by Bill Willingham, Matthew Sturges, Tony Akins, Russ Braun, José Marzán Jr., Dan Green (2009)
Jack of Fables, Volume 6

Read my reviews of:
- the main Fables volumes
- Jack of Fables, Vol. 1: The (Nearly) Great Escape
- Jack of Fables, Vol. 2: Jack of Hearts
- Jack of Fables, Vol. 3: The Bad Prince
- Jack of Fables, Vol. 4: Americana
- Jack of Fables, Vol. 5: Turning Pages

Length: 128 pages
Genre: Graphic Novel, Fantasy

Started: 14 November 2009
Finished: 14 November 2009

Where did it come from? The library.
Why do I have it? A new Fables fix in whatever form is always welcome.

You’ve got to be in
dire straits if you’d let Jack
lead your whole army.

Summary: Jack has had his differences with Mr. Revise, the Page sisters, and the staff of the Golden Boughs retirement home for Fables. But despite the animosity that exists between them, they must join forces to fight off an even bigger danger: The Bookburner, who has marched with his army to the Golden Boughs, intent on ridding the world of the Fables, whatever it takes.

Review: I enjoyed this volume more than I did several of the previous Jack of Fables collections, perhaps because we finally start to learn some of the secrets behind the story. We get to find out more about Revise’s plan, the relationships between the Literals, and some dark secrets about Jack’s past. The action and fight scenes are well-done, and the artwork is great as usual. I also thought that there was more comic relief than normal (or maybe more of the comedy worked for me than normal.) Babe was hilarious as always, but I also found the Knifejohns funny (if also nightmare-inducing), more of Jack’s narration worked, and even Kevin Thorne got in a one-liner or two. 4 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: I’m never going to be as invested in this series as I am in Fables proper, but it’s a fun complement that’s starting to get a fair amount of depth of its own.

This Review on LibraryThing | This Book on LibraryThing | This Book on Amazon

Other Reviews: Have you reviewed this book? Leave a comment with the link and I’ll add it in.

First Line: So, here it is — one for the ages. A true and fantastic tale of love, war, heroism and great deeds.

Cover Thoughts: Hee! Would have been better if Jack’s boxers had something more obnoxious than just stripes, though. Also, the shading/stubble kind of make it looks like he wiped his mouth with newsprint.

Vocab: (see the whole list)

• p. 16: ““While they cower in terror, awaiting their shameful and cowardly demise, I think I”ll make just one final inspection of my lovely eidolon army.”” – An image of an ideal. In this case it’s being used to mean something like “archetype.”
  .

‘There’s so much I’ll never be able to understand or visualize. I mean, reality is too complex for comics… So much has to be left out or distorted.’[1]

-Art Spiegelman, Maus

‘”La-la-la,” said Cruso, and motioned to Friday to repeat. “Ha-ha-ha,” said Friday from the back of his throat.’[2]

-J.M. Coetzee, Foe

I believe this to be a suitable way to begin this discussion of survival, storytelling, and silence. The question is how does contemporary literature cope in describing that which is beyond description? In Maus, Art Spiegelman creates what is essentially a Holocaust comic, yet despite the cultural implications of the form, his art is both distressing and beautiful. I intend to argue that he achieves his success through a process of visual defamiliarisation, which locates the historical and literary tensions in this sensitive issue, and then finds an aesthetic milieu at the centre at which to present what I believe can be seen as true sight. I intend to conclude with the character of Friday in Coetzee’s Foe to hopefully give weight to any discussion of silence, power and narrative that might arise from analysis of these tensions.

In Murder in our Midst, Omer Bartov discusses the problems of teaching students about the Holocaust: ‘Nor for that matter anyone who had experienced it or studied it from some geographical or chronological distance could quite grasp the essence…or make it understandable to others.’[3] If one aspect the Holocaust can be verbalised, it is the cliché that those events will remain one atrocity that is beyond our human power of description. As Omer Bartov digresses: ‘Somehow fiction and imagination seem to be unable to confront… Auschwitz, a place even those who had been there, both victims and perpetrators, kept describing as unimaginable.’[4] A secondary and rather sardonic cliché might be consideration of how history could have unfolded slightly differently had Adolf Hitler been successful in his goal of being an artist, rather than a politician. This link is often stated implicitly, for example in Glamorama, a postmodern satire on the image and destruction, Bret Easton Ellis begins his tale with a quote directly from Hitler: ‘You make a mistake if you see what we do as merely political.’[5] Indeed, it is impossible to study this period without considering the successful use of aesthetics in tyranny; the legacy of Nazi propaganda all the way from the Second World War to contemporary pop culture. Spiegelman also begins by merging the political and the aesthetic by taking Hitler’s view that ‘The Jews are undoubtedly a race but they are not human’[6] and manipulating the concept into something subversive to that ideology. The first tension provided to us is between the aesthetic power of Nazi Germany, and the void of representation it left behind through genocide. Spiegelman’s first success is retelling the story through his own images and those of his Father, highlighting both the success and failure of the image and its implicit work in politics of representation, both past and present.

Bartov also presents us with our second example of tension: Should the Holocaust be seen as the most important event of the epoch, or merely as a distraction which ‘obscures our perception and prevents us from a more vivid understanding of the real issues and cardinal problems’[7]? Indeed, the Holocaust may resist representation because it is being pulled apart from two opposing perspectives and cannot remain stable. All representations are also subject to varying motives, be they to achieve catharsis, or to promote a moral rhetoric. This myriad of tensions does create a problem for art. However, as Bartov relates, there is one solution: ‘Perhaps we can remember the unimaginable, but we can’t imagine it by definition.’[8] Although ultimately fragile, the personal memory seems to be the key in Maus, which is able to aim between the dichotomies, and strike ever so poignantly where prose would just remain ‘contrived.’[9]

However, this raises the question of whether Maus should be viewed as fiction or nonfiction. Despite critical acclaim upon release, it was initially relegated to the fiction section of The New York Times’ Bestseller List, until an acerbic letter was sent by a less than impressed Spiegelman and it changed category. Although the artist may not have approved of this error in journalism, he could surely have taken solace in the larger symbol of Maus moving freely between fiction and nonfiction so effortlessly, both artistically and inside the text, as well as outside in reproduction and consumption. As a piece of genre transcending art, Maus does achieve an almost ethereal status. Part of this is due to the fact that with its chosen subject matter, ‘poetic license and tolerant forbearance are not granted automatically’[10]; the Holocaust aesthetic means that Maus cannot be subjugated to regular media. Indeed, as Thomas Doherty also notes: ‘Maus redrew the contractual terms for depictions of the Holocaust in popular art.’ Of course, Maus is no regular text, as it has movement both in genre and through the tensions which complicate representation of the Holocaust.

The primary technique being used in Maus is what Viktor Shklovsky might label defamiliarisation. As Doherty observed, where the Holocaust is concerned, there are slightly different rules for attempts at media representation. Being a sensitive subject, there have to be boundaries constructed so that it is never treated flippantly. In this respect it can never become overly familiar because access is not so easily granted. However, with such fixed status, it could always remain static in perception. The result therefore requires a more spherical view of Shklovsky’s concept that ‘as perception becomes habitual, it becomes automatic.’[11] Indeed, he notes that ‘art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to make the stone stoney.’[12] Maus is certainly an exposition of the latter parts of this statement, but its true success is not in recovering the sensation of life, but rather in penetrating the void and also recovering either the truth of loss, or perhaps the essence of death. A very subjective version of defamiliarisation is in effect in here, where Maus approaches the concept from both angles, once again manipulating tensions. Ironically, the idea seems reluctant to be articulated, but perhaps the best example of a similar interpretation can be found in the world of graffiti. On the website of urban artist Banksy, a manifesto is provided. This is an extract from a military man’s diary, and his recollections upon liberating a concentration camp. He can give ‘no adequate description’ of the terrors he saw, but one event stands out; when the Red Cross distributed lipstick. I believe this result to be very close to the visual defamiliarisation employed in Maus:

This was not at all what we men wanted, we were screaming for hundreds and thousands of other things and I don’t know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it, it was the action of genius, sheer unadulterated brilliance. I believe nothing did more for these internees than the lipstick. Women lay in bed with no sheets and no nightie but with scarlet red lips, you saw them wandering about with nothing but a blanket over their shoulders, but with scarlet red lips. I saw a woman dead on the post mortem table and clutched in her hand was a piece of lipstick. At last someone had done something to make them individuals again, they were someone, no longer merely the number tatooed on the arm. At last they could take an interest in their appearance. That lipstick started to give them back their humanity.[13]

By recovering both life and death as sensation and art, Maus finds a true sight that can only be described as human.

Much like the subversive effect of graffiti, defamiliarisation in Maus is enhanced by its style of illustration. The use of the comic form allows many techniques to flourish where in prose they may not be possible, or may also appear ‘contrived’ as stated earlier. In many places, Maus uses a dual technique of speech and symbolic imagery to add further metaphor to a point. For example, early in the story, Vladek is waylaid and nearly caught in an ambush by violent German officials. The frame captures him in a spotlight and is captioned ‘will I walk slowly, they will take me… will I run they can shoot me.’[14] The spotlight itself is shaped as the Star of David, matching the mandatory badge Vladek is forced to wear, which in turn creates a spotlight of race and difference in a crowd. It also points him out as a literal target to be shot, with the startled animal expression made more effective by Spiegelman’s use of actual creatures. Vladek is caught in the beam of something far worse than a car headlight, but the danger is equally imminent. An equivalent device is also employed much later in a frame captioned ‘Anja and I didn’t have where to go. We walked in the direction of Sosnowiec- but where to go?!’[15] Their sense of hopelessness and the futility of their journey can be brought right down to the terrain in this format, as they follow a road shaped like a Swastika. This further emphasises that all paths available to them lead to the same fate, as well as the fact that their world is under the control of a malevolent force; from the horizon to the ground under their feet. In prose this could certainly appear a spurious sentiment, but it is deadly effective in Maus.

As well as reinforcing larger themes, the comic format also encourages repetition as a device in a way language could not mirror so subtly. For example, as tension builds and Vladek is conversing about hiding his son with another family, the angle of the frame emphasises the young mice on the floor playing with a train set.[16] Their innocent play pre-empts a more sinister use of transport later in the narrative during Vladek’s train journeys to and away from Auschwitz. In the next frame, as the adults grow troubled and insistent (shown by the now straight angle) the children curiously dismantle the train. They won’t find what Vladek sees later on surrounded by corpses in a packed carriage. Another such repetition would be Anja’s hysterical expression upon realising the likely fate of her family and her own isolation: ‘Why are you pulling me, Vladek? Let me alone! I don’t want to live!’[17] Her expression seems purposefully identical to that of Vladek’s girlfriend Lucia when he informs her that he is leaving her for Anja much earlier in the memoir.[18] Instead, Lucia begs him to stay with her, whereas in the more traumatic circumstances Anja is begging to be left to die. This shows the effect of different levels of crisis on personal relationships. With Lucia, Vladek can be irresponsible, but his carelessness here intensifies his responsibility with his wife when their lives are threatened much later on. It also gives a human ambivalence to the mice, as Vladek is presented in both examples of a masculine role (carefree and restless, then later fiercely protective) showing that he is far from a faultless individual, but very much a human model.

In fact, Spiegelman’s primary mode of defamiliarisation is the use of animal characters in place of human facial features. Presumably, each species reflects either the stereotype or common misconception of each race or nationality as Spiegelman illustrates when he reflects on how to draw his wife. Her suggestion of a ‘bunny rabbit’ would be too cute to represent the French; ‘let’s not forget the years of anti-Semitism.’[19] However, Francoise appears as a mouse like her Jewish husband, showing that although the representation is a satire of generalisations its conditions are purely on personal experience level. This malleability is further highlighted when a supposed German war hero steps out from the captive Jews, begging for his life and a new definition. Mirroring his oppressor’s perceptions, he is drawn as a mouse, but in the next frame a shadow of the character (as well as his speech) appears with a feline form. German or Jew; cat or mouse, the character was still ‘dragged away’ by a guard who ‘jumped hard on his neck…’[20] Katalin Orbán suggests that the purpose of this device is to ‘prompt viewers to mobilize their imagination.’[21] Without wishing to compare Maus to a child’s colouring book, but the black and white figures often beg for definition and non-literal colour from the reader to fill in the gaps. Once again Spiegelman finds a true visuality, here by creating an absence of representation as a form of defamiliarisation.

There are also many connotations of using mice in particular to represent the Jews. As well as belonging to a food chain of prey (we could say: dogs, cats, mice), rodents are known to be quiet. This could mean in terms of storytelling; their perspective is silent. This could also play on derogatory perceptions of rodents as vermin, or pests which live quietly under the nose of society and unnerve the public when they reveal their malevolent presence. This generalisation is manipulated by Spiegelman to its full potential. One chapter begins with the illustration and the title ‘Mouse Holes’[22], but instead of lurking in society’s architecture waiting to sneak around, the mice are huddled for shelter, starving. This symbol is taken further as Vladek describes how his friends and family were forced to hide from their German oppressors. He draws Arty a picture of his ‘Mouse Hole’, which is a bunker in a coal cellar. The following three frames are structured around the diagram[23], as the comic form hides its characters in its own illustration, yet another method that prose could not articulate. It appears that Spiegelman’s methods of defamiliarisation often focus on absence as well as presence; silences and what remains unsaid (perhaps hidden, or in death) alongside the narrative that is actually explained to us.

Another technique employed in Maus is the framing device of the relationship between Vladek and Arty, as the narrative is structured through Vladek’s recollections which are recorded by his son. Memory is shown to be a painful process as Vladek mounts his exercise bike layered over three frames, and essentially begins pedalling into the past.[24] The number tattooed on his arm is clearly visible as a picture of his younger self appears in a circular frame where the wheel of the bike would be, presumably spinning to show a portal between past and present. Vladek cycles through a lot of his story until the exertion, either physically or mentally causes him to need rest.[25] Here we see Spiegelman assault the tension between past and present. Historians often assume that History benefits from a detached perspective, so to pierce the perceptions of his audience even more, Spiegelman uses an amalgamation of past and present to literally bring the effects of the Holocaust home: to introduce part two of Maus, we see a close up map of Auschwitz juxtaposed with a road map of New York State.[26] In the illustration of Birkenau we can see in personal detail the barracks where Vladek survived, whereas the road map merely shows impersonal interstates, and the location of Rego Park, where Vladek now resides. This contrasts Vladek’s two forms of survival; as a prisoner of race, but also as a prisoner of memory in his old age. Ironically, it is the modern map which appears akin to the detached historian’s perspective of History, simply added to the more immediate image of the concentration camp which consumes the page and our view of chronology in the tale.

As past and present are merged, Arty and Vladek’s relationship is shown to be complicated by the horrors we see conjured in the story. Their confrontations add a layer of struggle and legacy to the narrative, contributing to the tensions inherent in the idea of true sight. They argue over many things, which contrast the image of Vladek as a resourceful victim to his modern persona of utmost Jewish stereotype. Out of all things, it is Arty’s new tape recorder (the method of retelling Vladek’s story) that proves the stereotype to be correct, as Vladek criticises his son’s financial decision, saying he could have got the product cheaper elsewhere.[27] Also, whereas warmth and security are important in the Auschwitz narrative, Vladek is not averse to throwing out his son’s coat and replacing it with one of his own that he has no further use for.[28] It is important to note that later when Arty returns, he is wearing a different coat to the one his father gave him[29], rejecting part of his influence. Here we see how survival in the past has designed family life in the present. It is evident that Spiegelman’s true sight has a keen grasp on the layers of human relationships.

This humanity is continually shown through ambiguous representations of the characters. Vladek may be a hero by default because he survived, but as well as being a stereotype who collects wire from the street[30] and returns half eaten groceries[31], he is also a serious racist. When Francoise picks up a black hitchhiker, Vladek is quick to make similar negative generalisations to the prejudices which ultimately allowed the Holocaust to occur: ‘I thought really you are more smart than this, Francoise… It’s not even to compare the shvartsers and the Jews!’[32] Vladek’s ignorance helps dispel any notion of Maus being a didactic moral sermon. We see that once again it presents two contrasting points of tension, and finds a middle ground which best captures humanity, however hypocritical it might sometimes be.

To illustrate true sight and the contradictory nature of humanity, Spiegelman occasionally has his characters wear masks. When Vladek and Anja are forced to hide their race they appear drawn with pig masks to blend with the Poles, but the most notable example of masked behaviour is when Spiegelman deals with the subject of survivor’s guilt, through the character of himself. In the chapter ‘Time Flies’ the artist appears at his desk with a mouse mask over his human head, observing how quickly time has passed since events he is writing about occurred, whilst also surrounded by actual flies.[33] These flies are the pestilence of Auschwitz being summoned back by memory, although not his own. The mouse mask may symbolise his reluctance to adapt a story of his own race, or perhaps his sense of being an imposter for succeeding commercially with a personal narrative. As the frames continue, we see the bodies pile up underneath his desk, a watchtower appears outside the window, and an anonymous voice announce that they are ready to ‘shoot’[34]; either in media or military terms. Whereas the past and present had merely been juxtaposed before, here they literally return to plague the artist. The tensions in his relationship with his father gave Maus the middle ground of true sight, but his narrative also draws absence as much as it does presence, and here the ghosts of what hasn’t been said choose to surface.

Previously, Arty has tried to explain to Francoise the impossible task before him: ‘I feel so inadequate trying to reconstruct a reality that was worse than my darkest dreams.’[35] Her only advice is to be honest. Due to the fact that Arty can never comprehend some of the images he must present, he begins to be haunted, ironically by an image; that of his lost brother. Richieu’s death relegated him to a photograph; something Arty’s parents never needed of him because was alive. He therefore developed a ‘sibling rivalry with a snapshot!’[36] Arty is attempting to create an immortal image, yet the only which he finds is that of Richieu, who had he survived would have a grasp of the horrors he lived through in a way Arty can never have. Arty begins to develop a strange sense of guilt because his story (Part One of Maus) was a commercial success, yet he believes his brother’s story would have been closer to the truth. This gives Arty’s character the body of a child while Spiegelman meditates on his thought process with this difficult issue. In fact, Arty has the true sight because he includes both the presence of his father’s tale, and the absence of his brother’s ghost narrative which must remain as a silence.

The result this brings is another aspect of the defamiliarisation in Maus; recovering not life, but death. As both the narrative and Arty’s shrink suggest, there was a tension between luck and skill as a means of survival. The shrink suggests that Arty is the true ‘survivor’[37], and in many ways he has experienced the impact of the Holocaust through his relationship with Vladek. In terms of survival, the theme which is important is silence: ‘it’s as if life equals winning so death equals losing… the victims who died can never tell their side of the story.’[38] As Arty grasps this concept he regains his human form (but retains the rodent mask) and relocates his muse. By the end of the chapter Arty has realised that describing the indescribable is a dual form of defamiliarisation; regaining the sensation and poignancy by also including noted absences and untold narratives, such as his brother’s. The last frames end with a symbolic silence of speech disturbed only by Vladek, whose nightmares cause him to moan in his sleep (proving him to be the opposite of silence in the tale). The flies from the beginning of the chapter return to gnaw at the artist’s body and subjectivity—‘damn bugs are eating me alive’[39] – but they can be dispelled into silence also as Arty now holds an insect spray. The dead time flies fall outside the frame as the question of the indescribable has been answered in Maus. The answer is silence.

The first of these silences is that of Anja’s diaries which Vladek destroyed. Although they would have benefitted the memoir, their absence serves the larger symbol; Arty calls his Father a ‘murderer’[40] but this death is also vital. The other is of course Richieu’s ghost; an aesthetic (photographic) silence. This perhaps best explained by the inclusion of a real photo of Vladek towards the conclusion of the text. Posing in a camp uniform after the event makes this ‘souvenir photo’[41] looks decidedly unrealistic compared to the two hundred and ninety three pages of mouse comic which precede it. An aspect of realism is certainly lost when Maus chooses to borrow visually from reality. This photo also serves as a double form of defamiliarisation, reminding us of the relationships and tensions Maus has employed until this point that have only come as close as they can to what really happened. It also proposes that was has happened with the mice is the actual true sight, and that reality ultimately fails next to art in this task of representation.

Perhaps this is because reality relies on presence and life, whereas art can also include absence and death. Maus concludes with Vladek in poor health, and he ends his tale as such: ‘more I don’t need to tell you. We were both very happy and lived happy, happy ever after.’[42] Of course, we know from earlier that this is a fallacy; Anja committed suicide and Vladek becomes nothing but frustrated with his new partner Mala. Before the frames cease and the lives of the characters thereby end, Vladek’s final address is not to Arty, but to Richieu. Here, all the tensions previously mentioned meet in the middle and the last aspect of true sight cements its creation. The two narratives of life and death, of presence and absence, of voice and silence have met and created this space. The story belongs to the ghost of Richieu as much as Arty. This is unsettlingly effective both in its literary technique, and its poignancy.

Katalin Orbán reaches a similar conclusion about the text. This critic believes that as time passes (or perhaps ‘flies’) the Holocaust slowly becomes de-sanctified and reduced to melodrama as generations end and culture changes. The success of Maus is how it models these changes by finding a middle ground: ‘it cancels and yet authorizes its own visuality and thereby seems to validate both sides of the conflict in an ambivalent and dynamic way.’[43] This is much like Bartov describing the conflicting social and historical tensions which capture the Holocaust in a difficult web. Orbán describes how Maus has ‘an ability to see inwardly, without the eyes, cancelling the visual image’ creating ‘blindness as true sight’.[44] With the Holocaust as a web of representation, Maus manages to locate an aesthetic milieu in the centre of the numerous tensions, and uses the numerous opposing forces to capture that which cannot be described.

If we are discussing the concept of visual silence, we should at least mention Foucault and the relationship between silence and power: ‘There is not one but many silences, and they are an integral part of the strategies that underlie and permeate discourses.’[45] Here, we see that ‘for Foucault discourse is always inseparable from power, because discourse is the governing and ordering medium of every institution.’[46] In many ways Maus can be seen as a power struggle between Arty and Vladek; both in terms of their relationship, and in terms of the life and death narratives. Indeed, Arty comments that he only became an artist because his father would not threaten him in that field.[47] If we are probing the depths of Maus, power and discourse must be relevant. Our model for this conclusion is the theoretical labyrinth of Foe.

Initially, Foe can be seen as a text which also deals with race, in this case, contemporary South African racial politics. Brian Macaskill and Jeanne Colleran suggest that the eponymous ‘foe’ will be ‘those who design, uphold, live amidst, fail to dismantle, or fail to detach themselves from systematic racial dominance.’[48] Indeed, the character of Friday remains a silence throughout, as those who struggle to extract his story believe he ‘has no command of words and therefore no defence against being reshaped day by day in conformity with the desires of others.’[49] Susan Barton does find Friday’s presence (or perhaps absence) to be quite vexing at times, as she finds herself wiping ‘the utensils which his hands had touched’[50]. Presumably because these may have entered the mouth she is frightened to examine, and touched the neutered stump where a tongue once existed to promise a story she cannot control by herself. If we consider these racial terms alongside Maus, the story itself is both an object of power and oppression, leaving Friday as ‘helpless’[51] as a mouse shivering in its bunker.

There are many examples in Maus however where Vladek uses language as a means of survival[52]. Coetzee also painted a response to a reversal of power in the depths of the critical Foe. Lewis Macleod proposes that Friday may in fact have a tongue, and his silence is therefore ‘an epic gesture of defiance’[53].  This is certainly a possibility, as on the island we learn that Crusoe’s teeth have become rotten, yet Friday’s have remained ‘white as ivory’[54]. The contents of his mouth may be pure out of his choice to resist the seduction of storytelling offered by Barton: ‘unlike Susan, he refuses to put the story… of his life into anyone else’s hands and as a result he seems to avoid the kind of narrative conscription that troubles his more ambitious caretaker… he avoids becoming source material.’[55] If we see the tensions that Maus manipulates represented by Barton and Foe, each struggling for discourse and power, Friday’s silence is another example of what we can now more confidently label true sight.

Friday also represents the exhibition of death and absence in a story, as Barton recalls ‘townsfolk pay us no heed’[56] because they move like ghosts. There are several ways to interpret the almost incongruous final chapter of Foe, but if we are using it as a theoretical explanation of Maus we can see the endings of both texts as very similar. The now anonymous narrator informs us that ‘this is a place where bodies are their own signs. It is the home of Friday’[57]. It is a place of death that concludes Maus, where all the stories not told can exist, both Friday’s, and Richieu’s. As the speaker opens Friday’s mouth, his side of events flow forth, ‘up through his body and out upon me… soft and cold, dark and unending, it beats against my eyelids, against the skin of my face.’[58] These are all the tensions and contradictions, historical, cultural, even personal, and all the complications that give Maus a true sight. Of course, this is where the text ends, so the silent story remains untold, to us at least. Both texts have located the space that exists between the tensions, and successfully found a way to capture the indescribable in contemporary literature. As Holocaust survivor Primo Levi states: ‘Silence, the absence of signals, is in its turn a signal, but it is ambiguous, and ambiguity generates anxiety and suspicion. To say that it is impossible to communicate is false; one always can.’[59] Describing the indescribable is possible through true visuality, an aspect of which will always include silence.

Let us conclude simply with Katalin Orbán saying that Maus ‘alerts one to the artificiality of visual representation.’[60] If discourse and storytelling is a power struggle, then Maus is a warning of this. The true sight that it achieves is reclamation of the power through its various techniques of anti realism and defamiliarisation. The type of power it has is its invitation to think about the holocaust in light of contemporary media[61] and therefore question political discourse as well as the power of the image in general. This purpose is illustrated with a certain grace through Foe’s Friday, who responds with a mocking ‘ha-ha-ha’ when asked to repeat after Crusoe’s inane ‘la-la-la’. Perhaps he is laughing because ‘real power is executed through discourse, and… this power has real effects’[62] or because like many readers he did not envision a Holocaust comic about mice to be so delicate and powerful, until he also fell under its spell.

5225 words

Bibliography:

http://www.banksy.co.uk/manifesto/index.html (last checked 8/01/08)

Bartov, Omer, Murder in Our Midst: The Holocaust, Industrial Killing, and Representation, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)

Coetzee, J.M., Foe, (London: Penguin, 1987)

Doherty, Thomas, ‘Art Spiegelman’s Maus: Graphic Art and the Holocaust’, Write Now: American Literature in the 1980s and 1990s, March 1996, Volume 68, No. 1

Easton Ellis, Bret, Glamorama, (London: Picador, 2006)

Foucault, Michael, The History of Sexuality Volume 1: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley, (London: Penguin 1979)

Levi, Primo, The Drowned and the Saved, trans. Raymond Rosenthal, (London: Michael Joseph, 1988)

Macaskill, Brian, and Jeanne Colleran, ‘Reading History, Writing Heresy: The Resistance of Representation and the Representation of Resistance in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe’, Contemporary Literature, Autumn 1992, Volume 33, No. 3

MacLeod, Lewis, ‘’Do we of necessity become puppets in a story?’; or, Narrating the world: on speech, silence, and discourse in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe’, Modern Fiction Studies, Spring 2006, Volume 52, Issue 1

Orbán, Katalin, ‘Trauma and Visuality: Art Spiegelman’s Maus and In the Shadow of No Towers’, Representations, Winter 2007, Issue 97

Selden, Raman and Peter Widdowson eds. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, 3^rd Edition, (Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993)

Shklovsky, Viktor, ‘Art as Technique’, in Literary Theory: An Anthology, Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan eds. 2^nd Edition, (Cornwall: Blackwell, 2004)

Spiegelman, Art, The Complete Maus, (London: Penguin, 2003)

[2] J.M. Coetzee, Foe, (London: Penguin, 1987) p.22

[3] Omer Bartov, Murder in Our Midst: The Holocaust, Industrial Killing, and Representation, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) p.115

[4] Murder in Our Midst p.129

[5] Bret Easton Ellis, Glamorama, (London: Picador, 2006) p.3

[6] Maus p.10

[7] Murder in Our Midst p.117

[8] Murder in Our Midst p.129

[9] Murder in Our Midst p.129

[10] Thomas Doherty, ‘Art Spiegelman’s Maus: Graphic Art and the Holocaust’, Write Now: American Literature in the 1980s and 1990s, March 1996, Volume 68, No. 1

[11] Viktor Shklovsky, ‘Art as Technique’, in Literary Theory: An Anthology, Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan eds. 2^nd Edition, (Cornwall: Blackwell, 2004) p.15

[12] Art as Technique p.16

[13] http://www.banksy.co.uk/manifesto/index.html

[14] Maus p.82

[15] Maus p.127

[16] Maus p.83

[17] Maus p.124

[18] Maus p.22

[19] Maus p.171

[20] Maus p.210

[21] Katalin Orbán, ‘Trauma and Visuality: Art Spiegelman’s Maus and In the Shadow of No Towers’,  Representations, Winter 2007, Issue 97

[22] Maus p.97

[23] Maus pp.112-113

[24] Maus p.14

[25] Maus p.93

[26] Maus p.166

[27] Maus p.75

[28] Maus p.71

[29] Maus p.108

[30] Maus p.118

[31] Maus p.249

[32] Maus p.259

[33] Maus p.199

[34] Maus p.201

[35] Maus p.176

[36] Maus p.175

[37] Maus p.204

[38] Maus p.205

[39] Maus p.234

[40] Maus p.161

[41] Maus p.294

[42] Maus p.296

[43] Trauma and Visuality

[44] Trauma and visuality

[45] Michael Foucault, The History of Sexuality Volume 1: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley, (London: Penguin 1979) p.27

[46] Raman Selden and Peter Widdowson eds. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, 3^rd Edition, (Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993) p.127

[47] Maus p.99

[48]Brian Macaskill and Jeanne Colleran, ‘Reading History, Writing Heresy: The Resistance of Representation and the Representation of Resistance in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe’, Contemporary Literature, Autumn 1992, Volume 33, No. 3

[49] Foe p.121

[50] Foe p.24

[51] Foe p.121

[52] For example, Vladek teaches his Kapo to speak English, and is treated less harshly as a result, Maus p.192

[53]Lewis MacLeod, ‘’Do we of necessity become puppets in a story?’; or, Narrating the world: on speech, silence, and discourse in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe’, Modern Fiction Studies, Spring 2006, Volume 52, Issue 1

[54] Foe p.22

[55] Narrating the world: on speech, silence, and discourse in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe

[56] Foe p.87

[57] Foe p.157

[58] Foe p.157

[59] Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, trans. Raymond Rosenthal, (London: Michael Joseph, 1988) p.69

[60] Trauma and Visuality

[61] Trauma and Visuality

[62] Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory p.158

Saiba mais sobre a novela gráfica “Um Outro Pastoreio”, projeto de Everson “Indio San” Nazari e Rodrigo dMart em www.pastoreio.org. Veja outras imagens e vídeos no Flickr.

What more do you need out of a graphic novel than art and time travel? Oh, crime solving, of course! The graphic novel Luna Park was reviewed in Underwire:

Druggy, thuggy graphic novel Luna Park tracks a slipstreaming Russian soldier through time and annihilation. A gripping but arty hardcover, Kevin Baker and Danijel Zezelj’s crime-travel comic samples cultural staples as different as Alexander Pushkin, Chinatown and The Manchurian Candidate.

But Luna Park also cleverly carves out its own gang tattoo, using a potent combination of dramatic graphics and fractal narrative that skips sharply across time, history and myth without leaving readers behind. The result is one of 2009’s best graphic novels.

“Time travel works particularly well in comics. You can just show it, instead of having to describe the hell out of it,” said the award-winning Baker, author of historical novels like the City of Fire trilogy. Luna Park, released earlier this month, follows that visual code with poetry, balancing Baker’s dense knowledge of history with Zezelj’s roughened but still cinematic illustrations.

“Luna Park gave me a chance to play with history,” said Baker of his first graphic novel. “But I’m just trying to hone and humanize it, to tell individual stories within its sweep. It bends me more than I bend it.”

See more art and more from the author.

Sterling Gates took over the writing reins of the months Supergirl strip and has proceeded to deliver a new spin on the Girl of Steel that I love. In the issues he’s written, Kara has become a real person, a teen that reminds me of the daughter I raised, as well as her friends. Not only that, but with Geoff Johns and James Robinson’s leadership into the world of New Krypton, Gates is also building on the deeper Kryptonian heritage that Kara possessed and young Kal-El (Superman) did not.

With the present storyline underway in the Superman book, Kal-El is torn and challenged, but Kara’s memories and place within the New Krypton community is more frail and more fully realized. There are definite responsibilities and expectations.

But I digress. Some of the above is backstory that you’ll need to get from other graphic novels to better understand what’s taking place in this one. The first issue collected in this graphic novel is very much a standalone piece that sets Gates’s vision of Supergirl in the minds of the fans. I enjoyed the vulnerable side of Kara, seeing how easily she was hurt by words when bullets, bombs, and buses didn’t do the trick.

From there, though, Gates delves deeply into Superman lore and brings an old character from the Superman universe into the forefront. Lucy Lane is Lois Lane’s sister, and she was once the girlfriend of Jimmy Olsen. That lucy is gone however. In her place is Major Lucy Lane, a military officer that’s a hard-as-nails, by-the-book kind of person that is, quite frankly, a little scary.

Then there is the mystery of Superwoman. Although Kara wants to trust this superpowered heroine that’s stepped into her life and has helped her with issues regarding living among Earthlings, Supergirl hasn’t quite been able to trust her.

In addition to the New Krypton storyline and Superwoman, Gates spins in other characters from the Superman books that provide touchstones for things going on over there, and embellishes on Kara’s personal world as the “niece” of Lana Lang, another character that’s stepped back on stage in the Superman universe.

I enjoy the dialogue and the way Gates sets up his comics pages. The last panel of every page entices the reader to flip to the next to see what’s going to happen. And there’s a lot of story squeezed onto the pages as well. A lot of things are going on, a lot of relationships are explored. This is great storytelling and there’s a lot of vision behind the events that come to fruition in the graphic novel, while leaving enough tantalizing threads dangling to ensure fans will come back for the next collection if they’re not following the monthly books.

One of the best things about the current Supergirl art is Jamal Igle, the penciler. He complements Gates’s scripts with stunning visuals and action sequences that take the reader’s breath away. Cat Grant’s sexuality oozes from the pages. Lois and Clark’s relationship is given depth in the way they’re drawn standing together. And Jimmy Olsen’s classic geekiness and naiveté stands out. The man just can’t draw a bad panel, or one that I wouldn’t want to go back and see again and again.

If you’re new to Supergirl, or haven’t read the strip for a while, I urge you to pick up Who Is Superwoman? and try it out. I think you’ll find the story and art to be among the best out there, and Supergirl in the hands of these two storytellers is an entrancing character.

First up today,  a trip over to YouTube….

A friend showed me this amazing dance troupe called LA LA LA HUMAN STEPS. They are based in Canada, and the DVD is called Amelia. The music is hauntingly beautiful remakes of Velvet Underground songs, and the dance is contemporary ballet.  And luckily, the entire performance is available to view on YouTube in 7 parts, and awesome quality.  I love dance; I still sit sometimes and daydream what it would have been like to take to the stage, and this is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. Watching it I was inspired to write, to sing, to laugh, to cry.

It’s also available for purchase here: La La La Human Steps: Amelia

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The crystal of the month is Rainbow Obsidian.

This crystal is amazing for grounding your energy without slamming you into the earth.  The rainbow effect can be viewed when the dark stone reacts with light, and gives gentleness to its power. Rainbow obsidian is excellent for use in meditations, absorbing negativity, and can be a powerful scrying mirror for advanced practitioners.

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The totem animal of the month is the Crow:

Wait, not that Crow. This crow:

Crows are thought to be the keepers of sacred law, and the messengers of the spiritual world. When Crow makes an appearance, change and transformation are entering your life quickly and with great energy. As guardian of ceremonial healing and magick, Crow guides you through altered consciousness, instills wisdom, and helps you to see what is unseen.

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In my spiritual news, I’ve been working on a Goddess meditation book and creating mp3 files for download. My friend AJ, owner of Forbidden Panel has been teaching me how to use a voice recorder and make myself sound all ethereal and wise. I am excited about the project, as I have yet to see anyone producing the type of work we are. Hopefully it will be complete by next summer.

Also, as some of you already know, I quietly offer online classes in Goddess lore and Magickal studies to those who ask. Over the past few months, so many women have been asking for the online option, I’ve decided to make it a standing feature of my resume.  I am currently finishing up the lesson plans for the new round of ONLINE CLASSES I will be offering through my website. Workshops will be in a variety of subjects including Elemental Magick, Ritual Planning, Meditations, and Goddess Study. I am working hard on formatting the chat rooms, and recording meditations – but I hope to have at least four classes up by the end of December.  More details coming soon!

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In other people’s spiritual news, astrologer and teacher Yolanda Valenzuela is now in California!   Yolanda is lifetime lover of astrology and the practical use of it’s language and art.  She is nationally known astrologer, writer, artist and Priestess. She will be teaching a workshop on creating RITUAL BOOKS here in Los Angeles. The workshop details are TBD as details are still developing. Fees:  $60 (+$6 material fee).  If you are interested, call 503.287.4248 and/or visit Yolanda’s website at http://cyclesandsymbols.com

Karen Tate, author of  Sacred Places of Goddess: 108 Destinations has a show on BlogRadio called Voices of the Sacred Feminine. Karen interviews famed women and men who discuss Goddess as deity, archetype and ideal, the rising interest in the Feminine Consciousness and Right Brain Thinking. Shows are live every Wednesday night, and previous interviews archived and are available for OnDemand listening.  This month alone Karen has interviewed Starhawk, Barbara Walker, and Layne Redmond. My favorite so far is the archived discussion of the Goddess Isis with Isidora Forrest.  Fun and educational listening!

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/voicesofthesacredfeminine

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Since reading Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart by Alice Walker (which changed my life in a way no other book has) I have been led to study shamanic medicine, and am looking to participate in a Ayahuasca ceremony. Through National Geographic I found Blue Morpho, a wonderful center for shamanic studies and workshops in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon.

Here is a blurb from the website: Blue Morpho specializes in shamanic workshops and spiritual retreats. We work with traditional shamans (curanderos, medicine men and women) who practice the ancient and mystical shamanic arts of the jungle. The shamans conduct ceremonies and rituals, many of which utilize the use of sacred visionary medicinal plants, designed to open consciousness and bridge the physical and spiritual world. These ceremonies are personally transformational, positively changing the life of the participant. Experience Spiritual, Natural, and Energetic evolution.

I am now currently saving  to take the trip to Peru next summer. However, I am also interested in finding shamanic teachers and Ayahuasca ceremonies/treatments in the US.  If you know of a practicing shaman you can confidently refer, please contact me!

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And now for my deep, dark secret: I have recently become a comic book nerd.

I’ve been reading Preacher Vol. 1: Gone to Texas written by Garth Ennis, with art by Steve Dillon and Glenn Fabry. Yes, I know that puts me about thirteen years behind the times, but what can I say – I was busy getting laid in high school, not reading comics. (hehehe just kidding Mom!) Anyhoo, it’s a tale that’s guaranteed to offend everyone in one way or another – and I mean toss-the-book-across-the-room offended – but it’s still awesome story-telling, hilarious banter, thoughtful premises, and very cool artwork. Folks in Hollywood have been arguing for years about the best way to bring it to the story to the big screen, Christians are still REALLY upset and offended by the book’s existence, and the tale has influenced an entire generation of underground culture. I am on issue #24 and loving it, so I advise you to check it out if you are in need of a horror/drama g33k fix, and don’t mind tons of violence and foul language in your reading material.

Here’s a synopsis for you:  Merging with a bizarre spiritual force called Genesis, Texan Preacher Jesse Custer becomes completely disillusioned with the beliefs that he had dedicated his entire life to. Now possessing the power of “the word,” an ability to make people do whatever he utters, Custer begins a violent and riotous journey across the country. Joined by his gun-toting girlfriend Tulip and the hard drinking Irish vampire Cassidy, the Preacher loses faith in both man and God as he witnesses dark atrocities and improbable calamities during his exploration of America.

You can pick up a copy here:   Preacher Vol. 1: Gone to Texas

Later ‘gators!

Marjane Satrapi, Chicken with Plums, 2004
This is not as long as Satrapi’s more famous works Persepolis 1 and Persepolis 2 but it carries the same emotional punch and beauty. It’s more of a short story that can be read over a few hours, with a final scene that takes you by surprise with its poetic beauty and tragedy. Chicken with Plums is the favourite dish of Nasser Ali Khan, a renowned master of the tar and a distant relative of Marjane’s. The story follows the 8 days Nasser lay in his bedroom in 1958 (11 years before her birth), intent on dying while memories of his past flooded his mind. Mixing fact and fiction, Marjane explores Iranian family life and culture through his story, with her customary incisive attacks on the Revolution and America/Britain’s damage to her country. Definitely one of those books you must read and share with your loved ones.