Graphic Novel Reviews
New to graphic novels? Start with:
or these:
- Watchmen – Alan Moore
- Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes – Neil Gaiman
- Castle Waiting – Linda Medley
- Marvel 1602 – Neil Gaiman
- Marvels – Kurt Busiek
- Pride of Baghdad – Brian K. Vaughan
- Salamander Dream – Hope Larson
For more mature readers
- Fables: Legends in Exile – Bill Willingham
- Transmetropolitan: Back on the Street – Warren Ellis
Teen Graphic Novel Reviews
The Color of Earth - Kim Dong Hwa
The Color of Earth follows Ehwa as she blossoms from a clueless 7-year old to a doubly-smitten 15-year old in rural Korea. Townfolk gossip that Ehwa’s mother is promiscuous because she runs the local tavern by herself. Ehwa believes that men are all rude because taverngoers constantly make suggestive remarks to her mother. Meanwhile, Ehwa’s mother wittily shuts down comments that overstep bounds and tries to teach Ehwa that men can be kind, even objects of desire. Ehwa discovers this for herself when she meets a young monk. Ehwa and her mother, best friends already, bond even closer as both foray into new love.
Kim Dong Hwa’s story is poetic and rich with metaphors that tightly link people and nature. People are associated with flowers, each with different symbolism – Ehwa a hollyhock, her first crush a tiger lily – and throughout, flowers represent love and longing, the characters bearing bouquets to their loved ones and planting flowers to carry messages. Rain falls with emotional events, and to signify the passing of time.
People appear stylized, reminding me a little of Osamu Tezuka (Astroboy) without the huge manga eyes, while the natural settings and elements are rendered in exquisite detail. As Ehwa ages, she is drawn more realistically, though equally expressive. Many full-page spreads cast Ehwa, small, against a vast, beautiful scene. Other scenes, where dialogue or expression is more important, have white backgrounds. Both feel natural.
This coming-of-age story is a charming first chapter of a trilogy – I will definitely be looking for the next two volumes.
The Color of Earth is available from these libraries:
San Anselmo
The Good Neighbors: Kin - Holly Black & Ted Naifeh
The Good Neighbors: Kin, written by Holly Black (Spiderwick
Chronicles) and illustrated by Ted Naifeh, explores family loyalty and betrayal
through midwest teenager Rue, whose father is fingered after her mother and one
of his students disappear. From the beginning it is apparent that Rue and her
mother are of a different breed: faeries.
Black creates an intriguing modern world in which faeries, invisibly
mingling with the public, are plotting their resurgence. Rue, in denial, must tackle both her family issues
and her rapidly emerging faerie heritage.
I love Ted Naifeh’s illustrations for the Courtney Crumrin series, and appreciated his style again in The Good Neighbors. The entire volume is black and white, with lush greys enriching, though sometimes muddying, the beautiful line art. All the characters are visually distinct (despite most looking alt), even the background panoply of faeries. Naifeh captures expressions photographically. He skillfully illuminates Black’s text, highlighting or building underlying meanings.
Minor inconsistencies in Rue’s perceptions bothered me – she quickly connects a passing conversation with a faerie at her high school to an unrelated mystery, yet somehow didn’t notice that her mother never aged and had no apparent family. The story catches, yet feels slightly hollow, the interactions and plot clearly setting up the world for future volumes. That said, I expect this world to be worth exploring, and plan to read the next book.
The Good Neighbors: Kin is available from these libraries:
San Anselmo, Marin City, Mill Valley, San Rafael
The Joker - Brian Azzarello
Despite disliking Brian Azzarello’s main work, 100 Bullets, because I like Batman so much I decided to try his recent graphic novel, “The Joker.”
Told from the perspective of a not-too-bright hack criminal named Jonny who decides to get in with Joker to move up in the criminal world, the story follows the Joker as he tries to regain control of “his” city after inexplicably being released from Arkham Asylum. Again inexplicably, Joker keeps him around as a driver and general thug. As they rampage through Gotham, Jonny’s made to feel like he’s growing closer to Joker, but the reader who knows anything about Joker senses something coming. Despite seeing how Joker treats others (e.g. Joker skins a former accomplice the first night he’s released), Jonny forges a relationship with him and eventually saves Joker’s life. That becomes a turning point in their partnership; Joker cannot let others feel that he owes them anything. Joker doesn’t treat anyone, even his compatriots, like humans. He just lets them come along for the ride if they want.
The artwork shifts between extremely angular black outlines (people’s facial muscles look jagged) and almost beautiful, detailed but soft, pencil sketches under watercolor-esque washes of subdued color. I couldn’t detect a trend for when or why it transitioned, but it felt natural in most places.
I think Azzarello intended to show how whacked out Joker is even from the perspective of someone who doesn’t mind killing and stealing, but at the end I felt like, I already knew that. The comic was enjoyable enough, and I particularly liked the switch-offs between art styles, but didn’t seem to do much new with Joker’s character. Although produced separately, Azzarello’s Joker has a similar feel to Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight: completely, yet calmly and almost brilliantly, crazy man with a knife.
The Joker is available from these libraries:
Corte Madera, Fairfax
Watchmen - Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
The standalone masterpiece of Alan Moore (V for Vendetta) and Dave Gibbons, Watchmen was one of the earliest graphic novels in the current tradition of dark stories and multi-dimensional, psychologically-affected, "human" superheroes (e.g. Miller's The Dark Knight). While Watchmen has been called "unfilmable" due to its interweaving storylines, supplemental documents, and analogous comics within the comic, a movie adaptation is due for release in spring 2009.
Watchmen contemplates the effects of authority and power on individuals' personalities through an alternative history when America was protected by masked heroes--normal citizens who costumed themselves to enforce justice. Forced to retire by their distrustful (Cold War-era) government and fellow citizens, the former vigilantes attempt to resume normal life. At the novel's opening, they are drawn back into each others' lives when Rorschach, the sole holdout "mask", alerts them to his theory that a mask-killer is on the loose.
Alan Moore opens with the question: Who will watch the watchmen? The question's value grows apparent as we observe their personality changes, the evolution of the crimefighters' stances on morality and duty, and their retired lives. What identity do the vigilantes have uncostumed? How much should be compromised for the greater good? Do the heroes do more good or ill for the world?
Watchmen transcends the traditionally stigmatized comics medium and is recognized as a classic by all. If you read only one graphic novel in your life, read Watchmen.
Watchmen is available from these libraries:
San Anselmo, Belvedere-Tiburon, Civic Center, Corte Madera, Fairfax, Novato, Marin City, Mill Valley, Point Reyes, San Rafael, Sausalito, South Novato
Shortcomings - Adrian Tomine
Adrian Tomine’s graphic novel Shortcomings develops from its characters’ flaws and explores the many forms of deceptions within relationships. Shortcomings follows hyper-critical, insensitive Ben Tanaka from his failing relationship with his Asian girlfriend who suspects he prefers white women, through his lame theater manager job, interactions with his sole friend, and his attempted relationships with white women after his girlfriend leaves for an internship in New York.
The satisfaction from reading Tomine’s work, including Shortcomings, stems from Tomine’s honesty and willingness to tell stories with imperfect characters that end with regret, unfulfilled potential, or simply a period. His characters sometimes act frustratingly emo, yet still seem plausible and true, and allow him to examine the pale tragedies of daily life and normal people’s mistakes. Shortcomings finishes with a tone similar to the movie Closer.
As always, Tomine’s artwork is superb, combining fine lines, swaths of solid black, and varieties of cross-hatching for a realistic but minimalistic style. He isn’t afraid of drawing lines, creases, and baggy eyes on his young characters.
Older teens and college students will probably relate to this book better than younger teens. If you enjoy this book, or just Tomine’s drawing style, I recommend his short story collection Sleepwalk for further reading.
Shortcomings is available from these libraries:
San Anselmo, Bolinas, Civic Center, Corte Madera, Fairfax, Mill Valley, Stinson Beach
The Professor’s Daughter - Joann Sfar & Emmanuel Guibert
Written and illustrated by two French artists, The Professor’s Daughter tells a whimsical Victorian love story wherein Imhotep IV’s mummy comes to life and falls in love with the daughter of the archaeologist who found him and brought him to England. During their courtship, Imhotep and Lillian, who bond over their controlling fathers, make some hasty and foolish decisions that land them in trouble with the law. Imhotep’s father (Imhotep III) launches an ill-advised rescue attempt and brings the story to a surprising and exciting close. The characters and their interactions are dynamic, believable, and well-developed for such a petite graphic novel. Pharaoh Imhotep III’s interactions with Queen Victoria are pricelessly ridiculous. Lillian in particular is an enjoyable character—she has little compunction about breaking rules or social standards, and her lack of surprise at live, coherent mummies seems to exemplify the Victorian era’s fantastic expectations and dreams.
The brief tale is illustrated with a combination of pencil / ink and watercolor, allowing artist Emmanuel Guibert a wide range of soft shapes and fine details. Guibert’s watercolors express lighting and mood beautifully. Some sections of the book use a limited and mostly subdued color palette, tinting everything shades of brown or green, while others, especially as the book climbs to its climax, use a bigger combination of colors. Both the story and the drawings are delightful.
The Professor's Daughter is available from these libraries:
San Anselmo, Larkspur, San Rafael
The Plain Janes - Cecil Castellucci & Jim Rugg
After Jane closely survives a terrorist attack in the city, her family migrates to the safety of the suburbs. She copes with her mother’s ever-increasing fear and paranoia and her search for friends by writing letters to comatose “John Doe,” another survivor of the attack. Jane’s values changed after the attack, so rather than befriending the popular crowd at her new school as she would previously have done, she aims to break into the ‘reject group’—a wannabe jock, a know-it-all nerd, and an overly serious drama girl—funnily enough, all named Jane. Initially unreceptive, the Janes accept Jane as she drafts them into her guerrilla urban art project to beautify the suburbs, make people smile, and convince herself and everyone else not to succumb to fear. However, the community responds with alarm, believing that if the artists can conduct mischief undetected, terrorists can attack.
The Plain Janes introduces DC Comic’s new line of comics for girls, Minx comics. Cecil Castellucci tells a nice story that includes the requisite young adult elements—coming of age, forming relationships, fitting in—as well as themes especially relevant to 2008 America—coping with fear, living in a society and time strongly affected by terrorism, and finding and expressing your individuality while seeking acceptance. Jim Rugg’s art is pleasant, stylized, and just right to convey Castellucci’s story. Each character’s appearance is easily distinguishable from the others. Jane’s friends fulfill stereotypical roles, yet Castellucci has individualized each slightly—the athlete is mostly a benchwarmer, the science geek doesn’t have a studiously-informed, emotionally-devoid, jargon-filled response to absolutely everything, and the dramatist who uses a Cyrano de Bergerac monologue for a Grease audition takes glee in being grounded like a "normal teen." Jane herself is decently fleshed-out, and although she comes across self-centered and spoiled, reading her story and watching her learn and grow is enjoyable. The Plain Janes isn’t earth-shattering, but may help you pass a pleasant hour.
The Plain Janes is available from these libraries:
San Anselmo, Belvedere-Tiburon, Corte Madera, Mill Valley, Sausalito
About the Reviewer
I’m a 24-year old graphic designer who loves reading comic books. Here, I’ll try to direct you to interesting, thought-provoking, and beautiful comics and graphic novels.
Although I’d read a few graphic novels here and there, it wasn’t until Watchmen, by Alan Moore (see review above), that I leapt headlong into the world of graphic novels. The characters were ‘superheroes,’ but not the immortal and flawless figures I associated with comic books, and the story explored deep questions using visual and written parallels. My tastes run more towards alternative comics, and I particularly enjoy DC’s Vertigo line, which is "aimed at the mature, literate reader" and hopes to "push the boundaries of traditional comics".