Merry Wanderer of the Night:
graphic novel

To say I loved Essex County

is a gross understatement. This collection encompassed so much of what I love in stories. It clearly outlines the contrast between urban environments and rural environments. It clearly outlines the passage of time in one person's life. It clearly outlines the social aspects of tied to coming from a small place and having big dreams. The artwork is earthy while still maintaining the traditional black and white inking style comics are known for. The story is complicated and weaved, it constantly keeps you guessing. It's just beautiful.

It's the story of a young boy growing up in Essex County, Canada, trying to understand who he is and where he comes from. He loves to draw comics but he's having a difficult time adapting to life after his mother's death. It's the story of two brothers who love to play hockey even though it eventually tears them apart. It's the story of an old man and his nurse dealing with a deteriorating mind. And of course it's the story of these three stories intertwined.

Gah, I loved it.

To be fair, I knew I would love Essex County from the time I read Lu's review on Regular Rumination and was even more convinced when my comics professor handed me a copy and let me look at the artwork.

My favorite aspect of the graphic novel was the use of time and place. While in rural environments the drawing was looser and spikier. In urban environments it was clean and precise. I don't want to get into the story too much because there are many surprises to be found within these pages, but Jeff Lemire did an amazing job showing what it is to grow up in a place where you feel there is nowhere to go, to leave it and realize there is no place like home, and return to the place and realize it is not the way you remembered. I love that dynamic and it was captured in every aspect of this graphic novel.

Jeff Lemire is also a master at capturing expressions. I felt like I could read so much emotion in each character's face and that is really a talent I wish more comic artists had.

Just, please read Essex County.

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

David Small's father was a doctor who thought he could cure him through radiation. Instead the radiation made things worse and gave his son cancer. Rather than telling David his parents sent him into the operating room where David emerged voiceless after a vocal chord was removed. He thought the surgery would just be minor. David expressed himself through drawing and years later you can tell it paid of because the drawings in Stitches: A Memoir

are some of the most beautiful I have seen in any graphic memoir.

You can imagine how many emotions are portrayed in this book and what is truly amazing is how Small does this without words. He uses negative space and tiny changes in body language to tell the reader how each character is feeling. There isn't a lot of writing in this book but I came away from the story feeling like I knew the characters just as well as those in my favorite novels. Even though many pages were wordless I found myself looking at each panel longer than I would have had there been words. I really explored the intricacies of every drawing to help me understand the story. In some ways I liked the wordless panels more.

Anyone interested in memoirs or medical stories should definitely read this, but even if you're not interested in either of those things I still think this one is worth a try. It really transcends those two labels--by which I mean it's just a beautiful story. Small pulls you into his world much like he pulls himself into the paper he's drawing on. He doesn't judge anyone in his family for their choices, even though it would be easy to do, and manages to make you sympathize with all of them. In this way he acknowledges the private lives and thoughts of every person and in turn the importance of giving each human a chance for understanding.

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

This review is actually two reviews in one. I read I Saw You over the last couple months and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz last month. These two graphic novels could not have been more different, but I enjoyed them both tremendously.

I Saw You...: Comics Inspired by Real-Life Missed Connections

is an anthology edited by Julia Wertz which has short comics inspired by Craigslist's Missed Connections section. It is totally black and white and a couple of my favorite comic artists, Liz Prince and Lucy Knisley, were featured in the anthology. I must say that anthology was a bit hit and miss. The missed connections that actually happened to the comic artists tended to make better comics than the ones based solely off advertisements. It also felt like the same trope was repeated: old creepy guy after hot young girl. It seemed a little too easy. The comics that stood out made this one worth reading, and I love the "Me too!" moments I got when the artists talked about love. I'd say this is one to check-out from the library if you can, unless you're really interested in missed connections like me. If nothing else you'll learn a lot about comic artists you've never heard of before. I'll definitely look for Julia Wertz's look in the future, as her comic (on the cover) was one of my favorites.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz graphic novel could not be more artistically different from I Saw You. Skottie Young's artwork is extremely colorful and detailed. This is one example were the artwork worked perfectly with the story, always the happy medium in graphic novels. I read The Wizard of Oz when I was a kid but I don't remember it too well since I've seen the movie many more times. As far as I can tell the graphic novel sticks with the story of the book. The pictures add a lot though. Shanower is great at combining cute and creepy, which I think describes The Wizard of Oz extremely well. The Scarecrow was my absolute favorite character-- he is totally creepy but in this adorable cuddly way.

My only complaint about The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is it relied too much on the reader's presumed familiarity with the story. I'm familiar with the story and I still felt like there were some plot holes. Overall it's a good story and I felt the artwork added more to the story than the imagines in the film did. Definitely a must-have for any Wizard of Oz fan or anyone who enjoys Tim Burton-esque artwork and storytelling.

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank is a book I never wanted to admit I'd never read. I felt like it was something everyone read when they were much younger than me, thirteen or fourteen I figured. It's been on my TBR for a long time even though I've never owned a copy. Even though I'd never read the book, Anne Frank Huis was one of my must sees while in Amsterdam. Just because I didn't read the book didn't mean I didn't know the story. Unlike my experience with Dachau and The Book Thief, I was immediately overcome with emotion upon entering Anne Frank Huis. It's a totally different experience, and for me, a much more powerful one.

Anne Frank Huis does not have any furniture, but the walls are done like they were when the Franks hid there. In the center of the rooms are glass cases with artifacts from their time. What really got to me though, were the pictures of Anne Frank at the very beginning of the museum. She looks so happy.

Throughout the house there are quotes from her diary printed on the walls. It was as if she was telling her story to you, which I guess she was. The experience was also powerful for me because I had so many things in common with her. A love of reading and writing, nature, bicycles, and as a teenager I fought with my mother constantly and was extremely close with my father. When reading her diary I found it difficult to read the parts about her mother because I knew she would never get to experience the close relationship with her mother that I've had with mine.

I can't really review her diary, that seems unfair. It is slow in spots but overall a worthwhile read.

"The best remedy for those who are frightened, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere they can be alone, alone with the sky, nature and God. For then and only then can you feel that everything is as it should be and that God wants people to be happy amid nature's beauty and simplicity.

As long as this exists, and that should be for ever, I know that there will be solace for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances. I firmly believe that nature can bring comfort to all who suffer."

I purchased my copy of the diary at Anne Frank Huis and also purchased The Anne Frank House Authorized Graphic Biography

as a companion. It is an absolutely wonderful companion because it tells the before and after of the story and gives insight into what other characters' experiences were like.

The artwork is more traditional than I thought it would be, but there are some seriously disturbing images of Anne and her sister after they were found and sent to a concentration camp. I think I got a little more emotional looking at those images than I did reading her diary. The experiences are extremely different. While reading the diary I thought about how normal Anne's thoughts were for a girl her age: boy, friends, ambitions. That was what made it difficult, she represents the every girl, which makes you realize something like this could have happened to you. Reading the graphic biography gave me a lot more insight and history into her family, the experience of being in hiding, and what happened to the family after.

If you've never read The Diary of a Young Girl, I would highly recommend it and I would recommend reading the graphic biography after. It seemed to be a more fulfilling experience. If you've read the diary, you might want to try the graphic biography-- it might answer some of your unanswered questions.

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

Awesome Essays has returned, and with a graphic essay! Today I'm going to talk about Alison Bechdel's graphic essay Compulsory Reading. I think a lot of you will like this essay because you are readers. She starts the essay talking about how she hasn't read a novel for enjoyment in a long time and how she feels guilty about it, but then moves onto her early reading and how she felt she had to read a lot of classic novels because her dad told her to. She ends the essay on a different note, which is hilarious and true. You can read the whole thing on her website, Dykes to Watch Out For. Here is a funny bit from the beginning of the essay to start you off.

I obviously really like the subject of this essay as a reader and someone who believes that reading for enjoyment should be exactly that, enjoyment, and not an attempt to complete some lists of books "everyone has to read." I love the way Bechdel portrays the frantic search for a book after she realizes how long it's been since she read one. It seems like she is chased by a reading guilt ghost (don't we all have one of those?) and she can't escape the ghost until she finds the perfect book and finishes it. Of course, it's not enough to just pick one book, she has to make a stack of books to finish in order to assure herself she will not go this long without reading again.

There are a couple of questions this essay raises for me. Firstly, do any of you have a "reading guilt ghost" too? When you know you haven't read enough or feel like you haven't been reading the "right" books does it make you sweat a bit? How do you deal with that? Secondly, I've tried to show essays that take the idea of the essay to a different medium. This is obviously a graphic essay and I've also done posts about video essays before. Have some of you been surprised by how many forms essays come in?

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

Scott Pilgrim is 23 years old and has spent the past year trying to get over his last girlfriend. It looks like he is finally going to get over her when he starts dating a high school girl named Knives Chau. So... Scott is kind of a loser. The entire graphic novel is written in a video game style, with the specifics of characters listed as they appear on the pages. Scott is in a band and when they play the pages look eerily like the video game Rock Band. The entire book is basically Scott trying to progress to the next level, which includes finding out who this rollerblading, Amazon delivery girl Ramona Flowers is. Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life

is basically a celebration of all things twenty-something and the culture that surrounds that generation. The best character is definitely Wallace Wells, Scott's gay roommate, and even he kind of turns into a jerk at one point in the book (and he only gets a 7.5 rating at the beginning, so we know he isn't perfect). Bryan Lee O'Malley does a great job of summing up their relationship in two panels that show their apartment. Everything in the apartment has a label on it and we quickly find out that most of the stuff in there is Wallace's and Scott just uses it, including Wallace's socks.

Which is probably why I really, really loved it. The language was spot on and not gluttonous like the language in Juno. All of the characters are pretty unlikeable, Scott is a loser, Ramona is kind of an oddball, Knives is gullible teenager, and most of Scott's friends are mean, but as twenty-year-old you recognize that most of the people in your life fall into these categories too. It doesn't have anything to do with hipster culture, as many have said, because, let's face it, if Scott Pilgrim was a hipster he wouldn't have any friends and he would have much better taste in clothes. Bryan Lee O'Malley's drawing style is also not hipster enough to create a graphic novel about hipsters. It's not manga but it's not what we typically see from comic book artists today. It's almost more like a webcomic style--which I was totally on board with.

The book moves rather quickly and I suppose at time it might be a little too fast. If you didn't understand the language or world O'Malley assumes you understand the book would probably be difficult to get through. I can't speak to that, as I did understand it. If you're a college student I don't see how you wouldn't understand it, at least a little bit. I really can't speak more highly of the first volume in this series, so I will just end by review and hope you all give Scott Pilgrim a try.

I give Scott Pilgrim an A.

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

I've become obsessed with drawing recently. I used to draw all the time in high school and when I got to college I just stopped. I can't explain it. Luckily I just go Make Yourself Happy by Lucy Knisley while I was in Chicago from this great store called Quimby's Bookstore. Make Yourself Happy was a staff recommendation, and even though I couldn't really figure out what the book was about I really wanted to buy a graphic novel I'd never even seen before. So I got this one. Apparently Lucy Knisley is most well known for her graphic travelogue, French Milk

, which I've heard of but never read. Make Yourself Happy is a collection of journals from 2009-2010, which cover her life as a 24-year-old graduate student, published artist, and all around awesome person.

What I most enjoyed about Make Yourself Happy was Knisley's outright honesty. She loves She's the Man, Pride and Prejudice, she reads romance, she feels bad about herself, she's selfish, and she is lazy. Basically, she is a twenty-something girl living in Chicago-- which was an experience I could totally relate to. Knisley is easy to love because she's just like your best friend. She doesn't try to be hip, she doesn't try to be anything. I love the inner dialogue in the HourLies, which are a series of short comments for each hour of the day. They are two panels usually, and just show the most important things from that hour. These were great because they made me think back over the course of my day and realize how many observations I could have saved through writing or drawing, but didn't.

The longer portion of the book is a travelogue of a trip to Paris Lucy took with her boyfriend during the summer. She is totally paranoid in the beginning, attempting to plan outfits that will make her look romantic and beautiful, only to get to Paris and spend a lot of the time in her underwear (understandable). In the travelogue she includes found objects, like a written poem, as well as larger, more detailed drawings. The travelogue appears about 3/4 of the way through the book, which is perfect timing because we get a break from her regular routine and see something different, but we've also gotten to known her up to that point so can understand her more fully in this new environment.

I really loved Make Yourself Happy and I'm quickly becoming obsessed with Lucy Knisley's work, which you should check out at her website. Make Yourself Happy is self-published by Knisley and can be purchased from her website for $15. Worth every penny.

I give this graphic journal an A.

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

I picked up The Impostor's Daughter: A True Memoir

by Laurie Sandell on a whim during the Iowa City Book Festival. I was attracted by the bright colors and contemporary way of drawing, plus I was really pleased when I opened the book up and saw it was a graphic memoir instead of a written memoir. The story is about Sandell's father, an extremely intelligent man with a Green Beret, PhD, and thousands of unbelievable stories. When Sandell grows up she tries to live up to her dad's larger than life by traveling the world and then finally settling down as a celebrity interviewer. Through being an interviewer she discovers she is great at getting people to tell their stories, so she takes these skills to her father. Along the way though, she discovers that her father's stories were not real. And if they weren't real, then how real is she?

The Imposter's Daughter is a great story and I flipped through the pages at the speed of lightning to find out what wasn't true about her father and what was. Really, the story is unbelievable. I can't imagine going through my whole life believing one thing, and then growing up to find out my whole life had been a fraud. In some ways I think we all experience this, we grow up to find out our parents weren't always completely honest with us, but Sandell's life takes it to a new extreme. As far as good stories to tell, I think Sandell's is one worth telling.

But I didn't really think it was a great memoir. Sandell's character lacked depth, and I felt like I only knew her on the surface. She was young and loved her father, she grew older and a little wild, she settled down into a dream job, and then she fought with her family over finding out the truth about her father. The last phrase in the description is "who am I?" and I don't think I really know who Sandell is at all. And as a graphic memoir, my favorite parts of the book were the drawings she included from her childhood. Those said a lot more about her and were better vehicles than any of the drawings in the rest of the book. I often felt like the images were repeated on a page simply because she ran out of room for the text, and that's not what graphic memoirs should be. Each box should how us something new, a new emotion or feeling, and I think Sandell failed at that.

My general consensus is that it is worth reading because the story is wild, but I wouldn't go out and buy this one. I give it a C.

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

I finally read Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

after hearing nothing but praise of it for the past year. And the praise is deserved, because this graphic memoir is Awesome with a capital A. Alison Bechdel's story is one of growing up with a family who doesn't always appear to be what they are. Her clean home was full of antiques her father collected that made it appear to be a different time period inside than it was outside the door. Her parents were married by rarely spoke to each other, her mother spent most of her time acting in plays, and her father spent most of his time entertaining adolescent boys. Alison finds out about her father's homosexuality when she comes out in college as a lesbian. This creates a bond between them that is strange and hard to explain, but Bechdel succeeds in creating a story that helps make you sympathize with everyone in it, even with their flaws.

The drawing is fairly simple but as an almost photographic quality to it. The way she places objects and fills rooms with so many specific pieces gives it a snapshot feel. I love how she had boxes to point out things in the photos you might not see, or to give you a better understanding of what was going on. I also like how the story is Bechdel's own memoir, her internal story, but sometimes the dialogue contradicts that story. It's just another way of showing how unreliable memory can be, or how my memory is different from your memory. Bechdel is also completely honest about herself. She admits that she wanted to get a rise out of her parents by coming out as a lesbian, and that she was disappointed when she didn't even though her primary concern should have been her deeply depressed mother.

This is a great graphic memoir that deals with a difficult and confusing subject. It's different from other coming out stories because it not only deals with Bechdel's own discovery of her sexuality but with the discovery of her father's hidden sexuality. It's also a story of how easy it is to not know the members of your own family. At one point in the story Bechdel illustrates how everyone in the house was in a different room doing a completely different thing. I know my family does this all the time, and I'm sure most families do. Does anyone care what is going on outside of their room? Probably not.

I give this graphic memoir an A.

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

A couple of week ago Ron stopped by to talk to us about what makes a good graphic novel. It seems like a lot of you out there agreed with Ron's thoughts and some of you were looking for a good place to start with graphic novels. Ron compiled a great list of some of his all time favorites. I've read about half of these and I can vouch to their greatness!

Boiling the medium down to just a few recommendations is…impossible, but I’ll do my best to provide an interesting and diverse list. Even so, superhero comics will comprise a healthy portion of the list because they are so integral to the medium. I’ll also try to mix ongoing series with singular, one-shot works. Away we go—

Watchmen/The Dark Knight Returns

These two works are closely linked despite being vastly different when it comes to content. Watchmen is the arch-comic, the comic of comics, not only because of its brilliance, but it’s also a comic about comics. This is something the movie didn’t adequately capture. Writer Alan Moore spins a “Golden Age” story out of control, warping it into a self-reflexive mirror to the superhero genre, and artist Dave Gibbons subverts classical style, yet doesn’t seem like a carbon copy of it. This is a perfect comic.

In The Dark Knight Returns, Writer/Artist Frank Miller redeems a laughable Batman by infusing him with eighties pop-culture sensibility. The story sees Bruce Wayne as an old man, forced to once again become Batman in order to stop a brutal crime wave in Gotham City. The work, while whitewashed in eighties action movie veneer (Miller’s Wayne owes more to Clint Eastwood than Adam West), also explores the enduring nature of the character and his relationship to other heroes in the DC universe. It’s a rip-roaring read, but it’s also Miller at his cleverest—there’s a density to the work that he rarely has been able to recapture.

(Further reading: [Moore] The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen I & II; From Hell; [Miller] Batman: Year One; Daredevil: Visionaries Volume 2; Sin City.)

Criminal

Ed Brubaker is one of my favorite writers, and this is the reason why. Criminal pulls on the pulp origins of early comics as well as film noir and blends it into one outstanding package: contemporary but timeless stories about the criminal underworld. The tropes may feel familiar, but a good story, especially a crime story, isn’t “predictable” so much as it is inevitable. If there’s one thing this series has in spades it’s that sinking feeling.

(Further reading: Captain America; Sleeper; The Immortal Iron Fist; Gotham Central.)

Asterios Polyp

This is one of the most formally experimental pieces that I’ve ever read. Writer/Artist David Mazzuchielli uses everything at his disposal to construct a fascinating character study of a dead-beat architect named Asterios. It’s a vibrant book, story-and-art-wise, with each character constructed in interesting colors and character-specific fonts. It’s simply a pleasure to behold.

(Further reading: City of Glass.)

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
This is an amazing work, something you’d lend to non-comics to get them hooked on the medium. It plays simply at first, but unfolds beautifully, each chapter adding a layer of complexity to the story. The art is outstanding, too, and lends to the credibility of the story itself, about a death in the family and so much more. The story will resonate with any reader, and that’s the highest praise I can give it.
(Further reading: Dykes to Watch Out For.)

Daredevil Volume 2 #16-19, 26-50, 56-81

This run of issues comprises Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev’s run on the book, a run that is simply outstanding. The most common phrase associated with the series is that, “Daredevil spends as much time out of his costume as he does in it,” which is a simple way of saying that the run is unusual within the genre. It’s more than that, though. Bendis’ characters speak in dialogue closer to David Mamet’s theater aesthetic than “word balloon banter,” and he fractures the timeline brilliantly to deal with heavy thematic concerns about the real power that a hero holds. Maleev’s art is also outstanding. He brings gritty realism to the book, and employs specifically cinematic techniques to convey the story. It’s a terrifically exciting body of work.

(Further reading: Powers; New Avengers; Ultimate Spider-Man.)

Scalped

This book is similar to Criminal (I could see them shelved together, yes), but offers a unique slant on the crime genre. Instead of portraying the underbelly of a city, Scalped digs into an Indian reservation in the Dakotas in which a sleazy FBI agent tries desperately to bring down the corrupt man who runs the rez, Lincoln Red Crow. The best part of the series is that it doesn’t pull any punches, everything writer Jason Aaron throws at the reader means something, and either pushes the plot forward dramatically or tells the reader something important about a character. The stakes in this book are incredibly high.

(Further reading: The Other Side; Wolverine: Weapon X.)

As I said, great list! Be sure to check out Ron's previous post and his blog Entertainment Etc.

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

Today I have a little something different. Last week when I wrote my review for American Born Chinese I couldn't help but think to myself What do I really know about any of this? I've reviewed a decent amount of graphic novels on here, and I read them quite a bit as a kid, but I still feel incredibly awkward reviewing them. I am under the impression that this is the sentiment from a lot of bloggers and readers who are interested in the graphic novel but don't know how to look at it critically. To try and remedy this here and for other people, I asked my graphic novel enthusiast friend Ron to give his thoughts on what exactly makes a good graphic novel and what he looks for. Please check out his thoughts!

In its simplest form, a graphic novel is a bound collection of comics between floppy covers. It may be part of a series, about six to eight issues, a standalone story, or an omnibus edition, which contains about thirty issues of a single series. Pinning an exact definition down for the term is tricky—there isn’t a concrete set of terms to define things within the medium. For example, in front of me sits Brit, a series of one shot issues—bound like graphic novel collections. But we’ll push the hardcore ontological stuff to the side for now and just focus on sketching out the graphic novel in broad terms.

The real key to understanding the graphic novel, and comics, is to understand that neither of them are genres. They are mediums, like film or books or even video games. All movies aren’t action films, nor are all comics about superheroes. So, like films and books, there’s something for everyone. Last week, I got my brother hooked on Brian Wood’s series, DMZ, which isn’t about superheroes at all, instead a second American civil war. While superheroes may have the highest profile in the industry (for example, Captain America’s death makes news) there are many individual genres to choose from.

Reading a graphic novel is also something that needs to be decoded by the reader. There are general guidelines to reading a graphic novel, determined by the positions of captions, panels and bubbles on the page. From both the written and artistic perspectives of the medium, a good graphic novel should never confuse the reader within the page or delay him or her from moving to the next panel in a clean transition. This is of course assuming you’re not dealing with a book that’s intentionally breaking these rules, just like in postmodern fiction.

But, as avid readers, it’s not all about reading the story from cover to cover and shelving the book. Graphic novels can be analyzed just like the rest of literature, but it may take some getting used to. Though comics are the synthesis of words and images, the brunt of the analysis comes from the image itself, like in film. It uses a very similar visual vocabulary, the borders of the panels act in ways similar to a film frame. If a character takes up most of the panel, it suggests power, the same way it does in film. If the panel is canted, it suggests similar unease. The comic differs from film in that it’s static images, not fluid cuts on a single frame. There is a larger context to panel design in how they work as a whole on the page.

The filmic analogy, however, doesn’t capture the breadth of actually analyzing a graphic novel: the words are important, too. Most of the text in a graphic novel is dialogue, that’s the way it should be—cluttering the page with explanations of the action is redundant, poor storytelling (postmodern and meta considerations aside).

Further mish-mashing mediums, the words even have power beyond their literal meanings. Bold words indicate important or stressed words, but the author doesn’t supply an emotional indicator afterwards, like “sadly” or “angrily.” The words don’t just sit on the bottom of the page, like filmic subtitles do. Different fonts can also hold different meanings. In David Mazzuchelli’s atounding Asterios Polyp, each character “speaks” in a unique, creator-designed, font, suggesting their different voices on a symbolic level. Comic book dialogue is unique to individual readers; it’s active reading.

This dense toolbox gives creators a lot to work with, so readers need to be diligent in identifying the particular tropes a writer or artist is employing. Some creators, like Alan Moore, will use everything at his disposal to construct the comic, while others, like Frank Miller, only use tools to highlight important elements in more standard stories. But much of the time, stories can be absorbed without worrying about postmodern dialectics within the work, or analyzing it as closely as English majors are wont to do. Once the medium is unlocked, the most important thing is to pinpoint interests. Like zombies? Grab the zombie book. Like superheroes? Your choices are plenty. Like Vikings? We’ve those, as well. So next time you find yourself near a comics outlet…stop in and have a look.

A little too serious for my own good,

RON.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us Ron! Be sure to check out Ron's blog Entertainment Etc.

I read American Born Chinese all today, which I've been trying not to do with graphic novels anymore but I just couldn't help it today. It was so nice outside and I just wanted nothing more than to take a break from the paper I've been writing, grab my bike and head out to the pond to read this outside. It was great break book too, I found myself laughing within the first few pages. This is kind of a multi-plot novel you might say. The main story is about Jin Wang, a Chinese-American boy who is just starting at a new school. He is totally American, but when he gets introduced to his class everyone laughs at him because of his name, the way he looks, and his interests. He at least makes a friend when Wei-Chen comes to his school from Taiwan. Another story is happening with Danny, a white American teenager trying to fit in, but his Chinese cousin Chin-Kee visits him every year, resulting in mocking so horrible he has to transfer schools every year. And then the final storyline is about The Monkey King, who denies he is a monkey and wants nothing more than to be human. How these three stories intersect is really unexpected and something I think would be hard to carry out in a non graphic format. You'll have to read the book to figure out how that is though.

This is one of the few full color graphic novels I've read, and I personally think I really prefer black and white images. That being said, I really enjoy the American pop art feel this book has. It's very youthful and fun, which is fitting since the book is mostly about struggling Chinese-American youth. I thought this gave the book a nice fluidity and it also worked to put me in the mindset of a kid struggling with fitting in. Chinese-American or not, I think that every kid struggles with fitting in and there were moments in this book where I really felt that same feeling in my stomach I had when I was in third grade. The action of this novel, the escalation of emotions, the desire to punch someone in the face for being a jerk to you all was all easy to relate to and I found that Jin Wang was one of the easiest characters to like I have ever found. Even when he was kind of an ass, because you knew why he was acting that way. And that made him human.

While I really enjoyed the ending of this book, I think it all happened a little too fast. I wish Gene Yang would have drawn out the excitement and suspense a little longer, and there were plot strands I didn't think got tied up. Maybe they were less important parts of the novel, but they left me feeling a little unsatisfied. And I so wanted to be satisfied by this book! Especially on page 163 where Jin says the following: "My mother once explained to me why she chose to marry my father. 'Of all the Ph.D students at the university, he had the thickest glasses,' she said. 'Thick glasses meant long hours of studying. Long hours of studying meant a strong work ethic. A strong work ethic meant a high salary. A high salary meant a good husband. You concentrate on your studies now, Jin. Later, you can have any girl you want.' I was forbidden to date until I had at least a Master's degree." To me, these four panels say so much. They connect Jin's parents to us even though we never meet them, we can see how Jin feels about what his parents think is important, we can see the social tension between them, we can see Jin's desire to be different, to be independent. Moments like that were when his book really shined for me.

I wish I could show you all of the awesome parts of this book, but I can't. To get a sense of the style you should check out the video below in which Gene Yang talks about American Born Chinese and some images from the book are put together for you to enjoy!

This graphic novel earned a B.

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

I loved Persepolis when I read it last summer, so when I saw Chicken with Plums

I knew I had to give it a try. I actually didn't realize Marjane Satrapi has a few different books out so now I'm interested to take a look for more from her. Chicken with Plums is a graphic memoir about the death of Marjane's uncle. Her uncle chooses to starve himself to death and the story weaves through his last eight days of death. It's a powerful story that deals with suicide, the reasons for it, and the affects it has on those around the person. Basically, with suicide, there are no easy answers.

I'm a big fan of Satrapi's black and white images and the easiness of the scenes. They are easy to understand and the book can be read quickly, although I've enjoyed going back through the pages and picking up new things. I particularly enjoyed the images (although they are very erotic-but I didn't like them because I'm a pervert, although let's face it we all kind of are) of her uncle's obsession with Sophia Loren. It brought some comedic relief to the story but was also a great comment on the loneliness of fantasy. Her uncle dives into his fantasy as he tries to pull himself away from the frustration of his wife breaking his tar (Iranian lute) over her leg.

You kind of hate her uncle for being an ass to his wife and a little self-obsessed, but at the same time I think we've all been there. It's so hard to gain perspective from the inside and things always seem worse than they actually are. Overall I think this was a great read, although I didn't like it as much as Persepolis.

The graphic novel earned an A.

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

Have you ever felt like no one liked you but you were obviously right about everything? Yeah, I think we've all been there. Ban Tanaka, the main character of Adrian Tomine's Shortcomings seems to be a little stuck in his beliefs. This short graphic novel chronicles his life through three, or possibly two and a half, relationships. First, his girlfriend Miko, an intelligent Japanese woman with a great interest in film. Miko feels a little competitive though when the young Autumn starts working at the movie theatre that Ben manages. She is young, white, and punk, which is apparently Ben's type. She takes the opportunity to leave California where she and Ben live and take an internship in New York. The two have been fighting a lot and the leave on bad terms. While Ben is lonely in California he has a few failed romances and crushes, even though he and Miko are technically still dating.

The best character in the novel, however, is Ben's best lesbian friend Alice Kim. Alice is a grad student for life who is basically just staying in school for all the hot young girls. From week to week she bounces around from girl to girl, and maybe gets some homework done in between. All the while she is pretending to still be straight (at 29) so her religious Korean family will remain mildly calm. Ben and Alice's relationship is what Will and Grace could have been. They eat at a diner while Ben gripes about his girl problems and Alice pokes fun at him, but her jokes always say a lot more about Ben than he says about himself.

The story moves quickly, but is so believable. I have never seen drawing like this before. The frames are so lifelike I felt like I was watching a movie. The dialogue is also beautiful, saying more in what isn't said than what is written. It's amazing how simple black and white drawing with speech bubbles can say so much about race, love, heartache, egotism, and friendship. And those are just the things that come off the top of my head. Ben's character is similar to what you might find in a Nick Hornby novel (which is a compliment). He is annoying and self obsessive, but you kind of love him because you know you are the exact same way. The storyline is simple, but that is what makes this graphic novel work. This is definitely a must read in my opinion.

This graphic novel earned an A.

Sidenote: This novel appears to have been published with different colors of covers. The image I have is brown, but my actual copy is green. I think I have also seen a lavender one?

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

For those of you that missed it I found out about Emma: Volume 1

last week, the post is here. It is a manga, or graphic novel, by Kaoru Mori.

The story takes place in London during the 19th Century. Emma is a maid for an old widow who used to work as a governess. The widow appears somewhat classless in the story, which allows her to encourage Emma's interest in her old student, William Jones. William Jones is a member of the gentry whose father is set on him marrying a higher class woman, but William wants to marry for love and he loves Emma. It's a little cheesy, love at first sight, but the rest of the story is so great that I didn't think much about it.

Willliam Jones is very extreme in how much he cares for Emma, which I feel is more characteristic of a manga than of a Victorian romance novel. He will do anything to please her and buys her glasses because she cannot see out of hers. When he is walking in London he is always looking out for Emma, and since it is a manga he always sees her.

What I love most about this graphic novel is not the romance story though, it is the attention to traits of the Victorian society. In chapter three William Jones has a friend visit. His name is Hakim and he is Indian royalty. His entrance is a little eccentric, he arrives with a herd of elephants and belly dancers, later taking William on an elephant ride. While I felt that was a little extreme I did like how much it showed the interest of British people in the East. I think Mori made Hakim's entrance so extreme to show how the Victorian people had exotic ideas of the East.

In another scene Hakim and William are at the library and they find a book with photographs of scantily clad women. Hakim is not impressed and William makes a comment about the people in India not wearing clothes. Things like this made it interesting for me, it is very different from a Victorian novel but deals with a lot of the same issues. If I had to compare it to a none graphic novel, it kind of reminded me of Leonard Woolf.

To William's surprise, Hakim is also falling in love with Emma. Actually, everyone is falling in love with Emma (because it's manga). William goes to get a note to send to her and the girl at the counter says that several people have come to send a note to the exact same girl. Since it is a series there was no resolution left at the end, so if I want to find out more about the Hakim, William, Emma love triangle I suppose I will have to snag the second volume! Overall a good read if you're interested in Victorian history but are looking for something different. There is also a television show called Emma - A Victorian Romance Season 1

based on the manga.

Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: CMX (September 20, 2006)
Language: English

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.