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Showing posts with label Forbidden Planet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Forbidden Planet. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
Ethel Sparrowhawk’s Terrible Hangover
via The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log by Richard on 2/3/10
Ethel Sparrowhawk's Terrible Hangover
by Jemima Von Schindelberg and Steven Tillotson
A sad, somewhat bizarre and somewhat brilliant tale of a lonely, rather pathetic life here. This is the second part of the Ethel Sparrowhawk story, but everything you ever needed to know is either neatly summarised on the inside front and back covers or available in full online.
Ethel lives alone, with just a terribly sarcastic cat for company (but to be honest, the conversation isn't all that good). She's not only lonely, she's overlooked by all to the point of invisibility, working a crappy call centre job and living a life almost completely without happiness. And no, the nose is never explained.
(Ethel's job – not the best. From Ethel Sparrowhawk's Terrible Hangover by Tillotson and Von Schindelberg)
Having lost her dad in the first story, Ethel's surprised to discover that he had a sister. It seems her dad may not, from what we see in flashback here, and from the first issue, have been that nice a person and maybe that's one of the reasons Ethel's life isn't all that it can be.
After making contact with her Aunt, Ethel takes some time off work (easily done when your boss has no idea who you are) and spends a little holiday with Auntie Helen. Ethel has no idea how life changing this may turn out to be. But I'll be leaving that for you to work out when you have the pleasure of reading it for yourself. I'll just mention that sometimes, all that drinking can make even the quietest of people do amazingly spontaneous things. Although the hangover is a bugger.
(Yep, the cat isn't particularly good company for Ethel. From Ethel Sparrowhawk's Terrible Hangover by Tillotson and Von Schindelberg)
Ethel Sparrowhawk's art really worked for me, lovely stuff by Tillotson, everything it needed to be to convey all the loneliness and sadness in Ethel's life. Take a look at that first series of panels above and you'll get an idea of how Tillotson utilises white space and varying panel sizes quite wonderfully. But to be honest, everything you need to know about how lovely Tillotson's art is can be gathered from page 1, panel 1, with Ethel Sparrowhawk wandering windswept, alone and ignored through any modern shopping precinct you care to recall:
(Page 1, panel 1 of Ethel Sparrowhawk's Terrible Hangover by Tillotson and Von Schindelberg, lovely artwork by Tillotson)
Ethel Sparrowhawk's Terrible Hangover is available at many comic shops and from the Banal Pig blog. The first part of her adventures is available online here. Well worth a look and definitely worth your money.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Musetopia
via The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log by Richard on 10/19/09
Musetopia
by J. Homersham
Self-published.
There's really not that much I can say about Musetopia. Not because it isn't good, merely because it's a very simple, very visual 14 page mini comic. And when those 14 pages have just one panel gags on each page there just isn't that much to be said (unless you really want to get ridiculously silly and start really over-analysing something that's just meant to be simple fun).
Each page has a pun.
Each pun involves inanimate objects or fish.
Each pun, when you think about it, seems to involves some intimacy or relationship issues.
And each pun, every single damn one of them will make you smile.
Nicely drawn and funny. Now see for yourself:
Musetopia is available from here.
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Monday, October 19, 2009
At last – comics for real Manly Boys!
via The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log by Richard on 10/14/09
The Manly Boys Annual
by Steven Tillotson & Gareth Brookes
An Appalling Nonsense / Banal Pig Production
Imagine Viz crossed with those horrible "Boy's Books Of Doing Lots Of Things Your Dad Thinks Are Cool But You Will Hate" that seem to infest the bestseller charts at Christmas. That's The Manly Boys Annual by Steven Tillotson and Gareth Brookes. Both gents have appeared on these pages before with various issuings from Gareth here and the great Banal Pig Landscape Anthology here.
And if you can't tell from the cover above it's all designed with it's tongue (and a few other organs) pressed firmly in cheek….. Everything in here is meant to offend at least someone so let's start with something taking the piss out of the army life. (Bear in mind that the last time we ran anything on the FPI blog of mine that dealt with army life it was Kyle Baker's Special Forces and we still regularly get some fantastically venomous hate mail over that from some wonderfully patriotic American chaps. But let's see if the British can at least spell their swear words right in the comments….)
(Manly Boys advice to prospective soldiers everywhere. Join up, see the world, meet interesting people. Kill them. As the old joke goes.)
And after that, how about a little harmless word search? What could possibly be offensive about that? Oh. Okay. I see what they mean now. That's not very nice at all is it?
(Not the wordsearch you used to do back in school. But maybe you just went to the wrong sort of school you nasty little oik you.)
All bloody good fun. Perfect for those days when you're recovering from the latest round of fagging in the boy's dorms. Of course, there are comics in there as well as the informative and illuminating articles. And they're just as likely to amuse….
All in all it's a very nicely done piece of fun from Gareth and Steve. Available from both gentlemen's websites – that's here and here.
And remember children, as Gareth and Steven kindly tell us:
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Monday, October 12, 2009
A Manga Merchant Of Venice – Shakespeare would approve.
via The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log by Richard on 10/8/09
Manga Shakespeare: The Merchant Of Venice
by William Shakespeare, adapted by Richard Appignanesi, illustrated by Faye Yong.
It perhaps seems strange at first – this idea of Manga adaptations of Shakespeare's works. But the bard was always a populist writer, crafting entertainment for the masses rather than the high culture it is sadly seen as today by most. And thus a comic adaptation makes a certain amount of sense. A Manga adaptation even moreso with it's visual language especially appealing to a younger audience who find Shakespeare inaccesible and difficult. Our school days were marked by reading Shakespeare in class, bored beyond belief as one child after another butchered and tortured the words in flat monotone. It kills the work for most children. And the only way it actually achieves the original intent is when it's appropriated by popular culture once more. Readers of my age may remember studying Romeo & Juliet and only ever being excited by it when the teacher let us watch the Zeffirelli film version. A few years ago Baz Luhrmann redid it in beautiful hyper technicolour and managed to make it sexy and exciting once again. So if we want to introduce readers to Shakespeare the idea of adapting him using Manga is inspired.
But only if it's well done.
And thankfully this Manga adaptation of The Merchant Of Venice captures the drama of the play beautifully. I had visions on getting this book that it would be some butchered, cut down, modernised text to go with the Manga visuals. But that fear is dispelled almost immediately as Antonio steps forth and speaks with Shakespeare's words. Certainly it's been cut down and made to fit the 200 pages but it's an intelligent and sympathetic adaptation, keeping every nuance, every emotion and getting over every moment of drama and comedy.
(Love. It's always about love. But what price is Antonio prepared to pay to see Bassanio happy?)
For those that missed Merchant Of Venice when it was butchered by your classmates at school, the basic story goes thus;
Bassanio, a gentleman of Venice, with all the looks but none of the money, is in love with beautiful Portia, a rich heiress whose late father has set her multitudinous suitors a simple test of character to prove themselves worthy of his daughter's hand (and her not inconsiderable) wealth. Needing money to make the right impression and win Portia's hand, Bassanio has to borrow from Antonio, a merchant whose fortunes are tied up at present in his goods across the seas. With no cash flow, Antonio approachs Shylock, the Jewish money lender for a loan. Shylock, angered and bitter at Antonio's treatment of him and his kind, makes a simple loan, interest free, but whose sole terms demand the forfeiture of a pound of Antonio's flesh if the loan cannot be repaid. Meanwhile, Shylock's daughter is in love with another of Venice's Christian gentlemen and will be moved to elope with him (and a goodly part of her father's fortune). Shylock, thus angered, finds the perfect opportunity for revenge when the seas prove to be too much for Antonio's fortune. A pound of flesh is required…..
(Shylock and Antonio make that famous deal, a pound of flesh is promised and both Shylock and Antonio are tainted by their words.)
It's meant to be one of Shakespeare's comedies. Yet there's an awful lot of intense drama in Merchant of Venice. And with Shylock we have one of Shakespeare's most memorable characters. His initial cruelty and sinister nature is tempered through the book as we see the good Merchants merciless baiting of him. And his torment at losing his daughter fuels his hatred of his tormentors until, by the end of the tale, there's more than a hint of sympathy for dark Shylock and the good gentlemen of Venice are somewhat tainted by their words and cruel actions. Like most great works, light and dark are not always what they initially seem. And this adaptation does an incredibly good job of getting over the spirit of the play very well indeed. The initial reluctance on my part on seeing that the characters had been recast as Light Elves and Dark Elves proved groundless, since the fantasy appearance is supported ably by the strength of Shakespeare's words and story.
The art by Faye Yong is a huge improvement on the last time I saw her work in Murphy's Law. It's tighter, darker and far more suited to the tale than I would have thought. She illustrates her pages with style and dynamism, and utilises the stereotypes of the Manga image to convey every emotion necessary and there's even room for some well placed chibi/super-deformed characters to emphasise the comedic moments.
Based on this first exposure to Self Made hero's Manga Shakespeare I can see myself eagerly coming back for more. It's a modern, updated and most importantly, immediately accesible way to disseminate the bard's works to a younger generation. Hopefully we have teachers across the land adopting these texts to hook our children into something truly wonderful. I'd love to hear from anyone out there who has used them, or anything similar in the classroom, since I really feel they could prove an incredible asset to learning. And anything that encourages reading of some of the greatest works of literature is to be applauded and encouraged.
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Monday, October 5, 2009
Alan Moore’s playing logic games with Dodgems
via The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log by Joe on 10/4/09
Alan Moore, Melinda Gebbie, Kev O'Neill, Steve Aylett, Graham Linehan, Josie Long and others have teamed up to create a new underground journal, Dodgem Logic, which sounds part grassroots, non partisan campaigning and advice, part entertainment and with a touch of the old 70s Punk era DIY ethos about it which I find rather appealing, starting off with the Great Bearded Wizard's hometown of Northampton but with a section specially designed to insert local interest features so it can be applied across the land.
(the cover to the first issue of Alan Moore's Dodgem Locic, published by Tony Bennet's fine Knockabout press)
From the description (excuse the lengthy pasting from the description, I don't normally do that, but I'm not going to try to paraphrase it and beside, it sounds pretty damned cool: "Drawing upon an overlooked and energetic pool of local talent as well as numerous friends and co-conspirators from comic books, the arts or entertainment, Dodgem Logic sets out to provide a splash of subterranean exotica in a bleached-out cultural and social landscape. Published every other month by counter-culture veterans KNOCKABOUT, Dodgem Logic is a forty page full-colour spectacle that, in addition, has an eight-page local section in each issue, thus inviting other areas to publish regional editions by providing their own inserts.
As cheap and beautiful as a heartbreaking teenage prostitute, Dodgem Logic has a cover price of £2.50, with its content similarly tailored to the fiscal toilet-bowl that we are currently engaged in sliding down. Regular columnists provide delicious, inexpensive recipes, wide-ranging medical advice, simple instructions for creating stylish clothing and accessories from next to nothing, guides to growing your own dinner by becoming a guerrilla gardener, and, in the first of Dave (The Self-Sufficient-ish Bible) Hamilton's environmental columns, a bold experiment in living with no money. The same approach to helping readers deal with socio-economic meltdown and a blitz of repossessions is there in upcoming features on the present-day resurgence of the squatters' movement, or in our communiqués from the Steampunk/ Post-Civilisation gang on how to start rebuilding culture and society before those things have broken down completely and our children are reduced to battering each other to a bloody pulp with their now-useless X-Boxes in a dispute over the last tub of pot noodles.
Not only seeking to give practical advice on getting through a rough stretch, Dodgem Logic is also committed to alleviating the attendant sense of anguish and despair by brightening the world with the astonishing cartoon-work of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen's sublime Kevin O'Neill or that of underground legend Savage Pencil; the musings of Father Ted, The IT Crowd and Black Book's own Graham Linehan or of the nation's sweetheart, the implacably positive Josie Long; even a delirious commemoration of the lunar landing's anniversary by the masterful Steve Aylett. In addition to a variously-hosted women's column launched by Lost Girls co-creator and erstwhile underground cartoon artist Melinda Gebbie, Mr. Moore will himself be contributing a lead feature on the history of underground subversive publishing from its origins in the thirteenth century, along with various illustrations and words of advice. All these and many other sterling features, including a free CD of magnificent home-grown Northampton music over fifty years, will be contained in the historic premiere issue, sporting an hallucinatory front cover by digital artist Tamara Rogers and debuting this November. Wake up and smell the fairground ozone! No ramming!"
(thanks to Leah Moore and John Reppion for the heads-up)
Friday, October 2, 2009
Harker; BICS, Annotations and Issue Zero…
via The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log by Richard on 10/1/09
I like Harker, the crime comic by Roger Gibson and Vince Danks. To see how much you merely have to trawl the FPI archive – start here. Well, this weekend at the British International Comics Show Vince Danks and Roger Gibson will be selling their hearts out, with (hopefully) issue 8 of Harker and copies of the first collection – The Book Of Solomon for purchase.
But whilst I mention them, did you also know that Gibson has now written up annotations for ever issue so far and they're all up on the Harker&Critchley blog?
Or what about the completely free download of issue zero of Harker?
Harker – quite brilliant stuff. Give them your money.
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How To Date A Girl In Ten Days
via The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log by Richard on 9/29/09
How To Date A Girl In Ten Days
by Tom Humberstone
Self published
In just a few pages Tom Humberstone took me back to my youth, to stumbling, angst-ridden, fumbling relationships that took place more in my head than in reality. And when you read it, which you should, you'll feel just the same. Humberstone captures exactly what it is to be young and desperately looking for love.
As you can gather from the title this is the tale of Humberstone's ten days of dating one particular girl. Humberstone's not had much luck in the dating game, and from the start you can see why – tentative doesn't begin to describe how he goes about it. A chance meeting leads to much agonising over exactly how to approach the girl, even whether he should bother or not. This is so like reading a comic where I'm the star – it's almost painful at times to see Humberstone's absolute antithesis of smooth at work. But the pain does make the pleasure so much sweeter…. even if it is only temporary.
(I love this page so much – because I can remember living that page when I was younger. Humberstone nails every little fear, every little nagging doubt and utterly nails the amazing moment of pure bliss …… we kissed.)
But even though How To Date… seems, on the surface, to be just a tale of a short near-romance it's about so much more. It's about living life with a freedom and an abandon that allows for these things to happen. It's about going out, it's about being young, thinking too hard about what you're meant to be doing, about the moment and wondering why you never seem to be able to find it. And more than anything, it's about friendship. True, lasting friendship.
Humberstone's friends in this are the reason he goes out, the reason he gets in touch with the girl, the reason he dates and, when it goes wrong, his friends are there to pick up the pieces and say all the right things. Friendship matters. And never moreso than when you're 20-something and careering through love and life.
The beauty of How To Date A Girl In Ten Days is found in it's honesty and it's truth and the fact that we can all recognise the characters that Humberstone writes about. I had my girl, I was just as terrible as Humberstone and I am thankful to this day for the friends that were there at the end of the phone, whatever the time, to rescue me from whatever disaster my love life spewed up. It's that recognition that makes Humberstone's book such a great read. Try it and I guarantee you'll recognise everything here as things that have happened in your life. And you'll be glad that someone as talented as Humberstone managed to get them down on paper better than you ever did.
(Everyone needs a friend like Astrid. Well, every awkward, self-obsessed 20-something with no confidence anyway.)
The art shifts through various styles throughout the book and too be frank, it doesn't always work. Reading it, I couldn't help but play compare and contrast and found I much preferred the thicker line of the third part – it seemed more confident, less scratchy and just nicer to look at. But if Tom would have done the whole book in the scratchy style of the first two chapters, I wouldn't have minded – it's just the inclusion of the better style of chapter three that points out the failings of the earlier artwork.
The other problem I have with How To Date a Girl In Ten Days is that there are times when Humberstone's narrative wanders – not because the story fails – just the structure. Too often the narrative wanders because you really struggle to read a page – the captions and the speech bubbles and thought balloons seem to sit vaguely on a page, meaning you have to almost choose your own path through the page – it's possibly meant to indicate the randomness and flow of conversations and thought processes, but there are better ways to do it – ways that don't interrupt the flow of the emotional narrative.
(Humberstone's tighter (and better) art style kicks in in the last third of the book – but his delicious way of detailing an oh so familiar conversation is still spot on.)
But perhaps that seems like picking too much fault in the book. Not something I really wanted to do – because How To Date A Girl In Ten Days is, for all it's faults, a perfect nostalgic look at youth, at the wonder of friendships, at the sheer joy of chasing love and the misery of rejection (and, lets face it, the rather enjoyable wallowing that comes with it). There's so much to love in the storytelling, in just the raw emotion, that criticising it on a pure technical aspect seems a touch harsh.
Suffice it to say that I recognised all the faults and did not really care all that much – the emotion and the journey through Humberstone's life (or at least 10 days of it) were quite enough to make me want to be that age, that wonderful age of instant love and near-instant loss all over again.
How To Date A Girl In Ten Days is available through Humberstone's website (there's also a lot of preview material there – but don't read too much – buy the damn comic and enjoy it as a whole.)
Richard Bruton would like to dedicate this one to Deb Hackett. His Astrid. Who was there everytime I needed her to listen to how crap my love life was. Thanks Debs.
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Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Bryan Talbot’s Steampunk menagerie – welcome to Grandville
via The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log by Richard on 9/28/09
by Bryan Talbot
Jonathan Cape
"An anthropomorphic steampunk detective thriller" – Bryan Talbot.
Which pretty much sets the scene for Grandville quite nicely. Talbot's no stranger to steampunk, having given us the trailblazing, way ahead of it's time Luther Arkwright, but Grandville takes it a step further and mixes his beautifully rendered steampunk visions with the anthropomorphic illustrations of nineteenth century French illustrator J.J. Grandville and the retro-futuristic inventions and architecture of fellow Frenchman Albert Robida. And, like Talbot says in his frontispiece, "Not to mention Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Rupert The Bear and Quentin Tarantino".
That triumvirate may seem a little at odds with each other, but here in Grandville Talbot actually pulls it all together rather well. This isn't, as you may have worked out, something as deeply serious as Luther Arkwright, Tale Of One Bad Rat or Alice In Sunderland – this is pure fantastical rollercoaster ride stuff – manic races through London streets, vicious gunfights and a plot that fair races along the meticulously detailed cobbled streets of Grandville.
(Detective-Inspector LeBrock getting his Tarantino on. From Bryan Talbot's Grandville.)
Grandville is a world populated almost exclusively by walking, talking animals. The only humans here are found in France; simple things that could have just walked off the pages of a Tintin album, they're disparagingly called "doughfaces" by the French: "a hairless breed of Chimpanzee that evolved in the town of Angouleme". Yes, Angouleme; site of France's prestigious comics festival – Talbot throws these comic in jokes our way all the way through the book, never to the detriment of the tale, but if you know your comics you'll be smiling at some of the wilder ones. Except for poor, drug-adled Snowy Milou of course, having his opium dreams of crabs with golden claws and being on the moon "with the doughface". Then it's just melancholic and rather touchingly sad.
(Oh, Snowy, poor, poor Snowy. Here in Grandville he's just another tragic drug victim dreaming of all the things he might have done in another life.)
Here in Grandville France is a major world power, having only relinquished their hold on Britain a few decades back. The new Socialist Republic Of Britain is a minor player in world affairs, hated in France for the atrocity that was committed on the Robida Tower in Paris in the name of British anarchists fighting for independence from France.
Detective Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard, aided by his rat assistant Detective Ratzi, finds himself involved in the investigation into the murder of Raymond Leigh-Otter, respectable diplomat. And the trail of the crime will take LeBrock to the highest levels of French society and a conspiracy in the heart of Grandville that goes all the way back to the Robida Tower atrocity.
(LeBrock finds that the folks of Grandville are non too keen on the English.)
Along the way we get all of the influences Talbot was talking about; Rupert crops up early, as does Sherlock Holmes, when LeBrock does his best Holmes impression at the murder in Nutwood that starts the whole investigation off. It's brilliantly done, perfect establishing stuff – with LeBrock's instant genius detective credentials established. (And there's even a Rupert cameo in the background.) Once we're over in Grandville the action kicks up a gear and the Tarantino aspects kick in, just like Talbot promised, guns, knives, explosions – the works.
(Detective-Inspector LeBrock's welcoming committee. Cue eight pages of perfectly choreographed violence from Bryan Talbot.)
As you'd expect from Talbot the art is meticulously detailed, although at first glance it's easy to be taken in by the big and bold figure work, with his characters tending to dominate the page. But take a while on a second and third reading to look beyond the characters and look at the whole page – some of the backgrounds are beautifully detailed works in their own right. And then there's the design; from the beautifully retro cover to the "art-nouveau steampunk" endpapers and very playful Grandville font and you have a very satisfying package indeed.
Grandville may not be Talbot's best work, and some may be disappointed at it's lightness, but take it as it's intended; as a bold, brash detective thriller that's over far too soon and you'll find a very fast, highly entertaining and just out and out good thriller.
Grandville will be published by Jonathan Cape on 15th October.
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Monday, September 28, 2009
Great Deeds Against The Dead
via The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log by Richard on 9/27/09
Great Deeds Against The Dead Issue 1
by Rob Jackson
Self-published
The first part of Jackson's new supernatural horror story two-parter is a horror of the psychological kind rather than an all out gore-fest. Much the better type I've always found. And Jackson's creeping tale of lost love, old age and voices from beyond the grave works so much the better for it's low key stylings.
Tisdale Carnegie is an ageing artist seeking solitude and isolation following the death of his beloved wife, Eleanor. A suitable house is found, but it's a house with a past and old, dark secrets; something Carnegie discovers as he starts painting again and finds his new portrait of Eleanor talking to him. Is it his mind or is it the house or is it something more? It leaves Carnegie in even worse shape than he was when he moved in, teetering on the verge of madness, which is when his agent comes round to collect a couple of signatures. Events seem to be conspiring against the agent, and a storm traps him overnight in a house that seems intent on driving him away. It seems there's something very, very wrong with Carnegie's house.
(See, there's definitely something wrong with the house. From Rob Jackson's Great Deeds Against The Dead.)
From here it all gets creepier and darker. The agent meets a couple of Psychic Adventurers in the village pub who are looking into the house; describing it as "mentioned many times in the dark literature of the supernatural". Meanwhile Carnegie's paintings are talking to him again, confusing him, telling him that his agent's been ripping him off, explaining how there's an angelic lawyer waiting to take up his case against the agent. And all they need's a bowler hat to get started. Yes. A bowler hat:
(Avoiding the heaven question and requesting the bowler hat; could it be that Carnegie's Eleanor isn't all she seems?)
So, what's the voice that Carnegie's hearing? – It might be Eleanor or not, but it's very doubtful that the voice is a heavenly one. In fact, all the clues are pointing down instead of up. And what's the secret of the house? Where do our psychic adventurers end up? Questions questions. No more answers from me. Go and read it yourself – there's nasty goings on and a mysterious appearance at the very end that will need answering in part two.
Rob's pulled off a very nice psychological supernatural tale here. The dark doings are dark indeed, and there's some clever subtle moments in the story and the art all the way through. You know it's going to be good when the first page sets it all up so well (below) when Rob perfectly runs through the events of Carnegie's life up to moving in, portraying the grief, loss and confusion of Carnegie as life just begins to rush past, with him standing as the confused observer:
(First page of Great Deeds Against The Dead by Rob Jackson – very nicely summarises events and sets up what is to come.)
All in all it's a very impressive first issue and I'll be looking forward to the second issue to find out exactly what's going on. And maybe I'll find out what the bubble gum machine thing on the cover is as well?
Also included is a 8 pager; Colonial Amusements which starts out as a travelog strip like Jackson's done in the past but, if I'm reading it right, goes somewhere far sadder and darker. And there's a nice, light "Why I Draw Comics" single pager in colour on the back.
Great Deeds Against The Dead issue 1 is probably the nicest and most enjoyable of Jackson's works I've seen so far. Get it from Rob Jackson's website shop.
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Saturday, September 26, 2009
Donkey Head issues 1 & 2
via The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log by Richard on 9/23/09
Donkey Head issues 1 & 2
by Daniel Baker
Self published
When you describe your comic as "envisaged as William Blake does Tintin" you're really setting the bar quite high. And although I can see what Daniel Baker's trying to do with Donkey Head and why the William Blake, Tintin and clear line references do sort of apply, it's still some way off where it really wants to be. This is not to say it's not a success. Just that aiming so very high is almost a guarantee of failure.
Donkey Head tells the tale of Eric, a young man, brought up by his grandma, after first his mom, then his dad abandon him. The story starts with the appearance of George, a man with a donkey's head who will lead him on a dark and mysterious journey to find his father.
(Eric, meet George. George has a Donkey Head. And that's not going to be the strangest thing you're going to see on the journey you're about to embark on. The bottom two panels are part of the apparantly disconnected events from Eric's childhood. From Donkey Head # 1 by Daniel Baker.)
The world Eric finds himself in immediately stops making sense and he's plunged into increasingly surreal and disturbing scenes; venturing into a huge supermarket he's taken by George down a staircase to a room full of hoarded detritus being sucked up by a huge hoover. (Told you it was surreal). Hoovered up with the rest of the floor clutter, George and Eric find themselves in some Faustian pit of everyday objects, the assembled supermarket trash dancing around them, releasing it's tin can and plastic bag souls to the air. It's a confusing but enthralling couple of issues, full of as much symbolism as you want to read into it. Like it says on Baker's website:
It is a world composed of our collective nightmares, and dreams, a kind of hell, but it has no logic in its relation to our world (it is more like a drain into which our unwanted or forgotten ideas and fantasies have been emptied). The two figures of Eric and the donkey-headed man travel over alien landscapes: luminous pools and grey deserts; piles of discarded machines; rivers of black gold; through which half-familiar characters, false leads, mirages and multiplying narratives are threaded, playing out their own perverted games, missions and storylines.
As with much so called 'magic realism' the fantasy element is a device, to allow a new imagining of the familiar. It intersects the main narrative line with political commentary, historical retellings, cultural ghosts and monsters, utopian ideals, and fantasies of an afterlife, drawing on a rich heritage from Dante's 'Divine Comedy', through Swift's 'Gulliver's Travels', to David Lynch.
Except, within these two issues, very little of that has actually happened. This is really two issues of surreal setup, introducing us to our characters, then dropping them into the nightmare world they're going to be journeying through on their quest to find Eric's father. There's a great sense of expectation and anticipation through the pages, sufficient to have me wanting more. As Eric and his guide are sucked through the worlds, I felt myself being dragged along with them, intrigued as to where Baker is going to take us on this journey and thoroughly enjoying the view on the way.
Similarly, Baker's split page technique – the surreal journey takes place on 3/4 of his page whilst beneath it, runs a strip rooted firmly in the reality of Eric's previous existence, looking at his life to this point; the abandonment of both his parents, his virtual adoption by his grandma who seems increasingly at a loss to deal with her new role and slowly but surely is losing her grip on her own reality as Eric journeys through a place completely cut off from his reality. One wonders at what point the two distinct narratives will begin to merge, another sure sign that Donkey Head had my attention all the way through. It's definitely made me think hard about the symbolism and nature of the reality on display in both strips.
(Baker's art, whilst never really getting to the Herge-esque, is still sufficiently well done to be able to get over the sense of the surreal and threatening that's needed. George's disappearance from reality, casually fitting into the background reality is particularly well done. And underneath, there's the mundane yet somehow relevant story of Eric's childhood.)
It's skilfully and entertainingly done stuff, at least in terms of the writing on show. Blake meets Tintin? Not so sure. A few more issues will be needed to see the validity of that claim. Artistically however, the comparisons to Herge's line are a little hopeful. Baker's not a bad artist at all, but I struggled to find the clear line he was promising. Again, not really a criticism of Baker, just a case where the self-hype can't live up to the reality of the work. The art is in Donkey Head is well crafted and expressive stuff. There are moments where Baker nails the surreality of the situation Eric finds himself in – the shot of George literally disappearing from reality into the background is really impressive – but there are also moments where Baker finds himself struggling to achieve artistic representation of the ideas.
Donkey Head is available from Daniel Baker at the Donkeyhead.org website. Two issues so far, full of strange and bizarre delights, and certainly well done enough to make me wonder where it's all going.
Richard Bruton.
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Largo Winch – The Heir
via The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log by Richard on 9/24/09
Largo Winch Volume 1 – The Heir
by Jean Van Hamme & Philippe Franq
Cinebook
(Comprises the original Volume 1 The Heir and Volume 2 The W Group)
I'm rather approaching Largo Winch the wrong way, I first read Volume 3 and now I'm here with Volume 1. But it really doesn't matter, in much the same way that it doesn't matter what James Bond film you start with – the key elements are so easy to pick up and, thanks to Cinebook collecting each of their volumes with two original volumes, you get one complete story in each of these Largo Winch thrillers. And like I said in that review of Volume 3:
Largo Winch is an absolutely cracking thriller. Incredibly cinematic in it's plot and pacing and essentially it's a great James Bond movie but without the ridiculously overblown set pieces that rather take something away from the essential brilliance of Fleming's books. It's a much underused way of writing genre thrillers, intrigue and planning over action, plot and characters over car chases and it's a style I've always loved.
All you need to know to really enjoy Largo Winch is the neat little summary on the back cover:
"No family, no connections, anti-establishment, womanizer, wanderer, iconoclast and fighter, he inherits at age 26 the W group, which is worth $10 billion.
Largo Winch"
Just like Volume 3, I found Volume 1 to be an absolutely engrossing bit of escapism, full of all the thrills and complex plotting I'd enjoyed first time around. This time it's the story of how Largo came to inherit his adoptive father's $10 billion dollar W Group (which, these days is the equivalent to buying Marvel Comics twice over with a spare $2 billion). As you might expect, it's packed with action, exotic locations, fights, car chases, intrigue and more than a little corporate wheeler dealing and business speak.
(One of these men around the boardroom table wants Largo Winch dead. And the others just want his company. From Largo Winch: The Heir)
Largo is the adopted son of Nerio Winch, the man who built up the $10 billion W Group and has kept Largo's existence secret from the world for 25 years to give him a chance to be normal and a chance to train for the massive undertaking of controlling the W Group. This story deals with Largo's inheritance following his father's death and the lengths that someone around the boardroom table will go to to keep him from taking his place as head of the W Group. It starts as it means to go on, with Largo attacked in Turkey, thrown in jail, set-up by one of the board of the W Group. From here, it's off to the boardroom in New York, where Largo's about to find out just how honourable the presidents of his fathers company can be. And then it's off on a rollercoaster of an adventure as Winch sets about proving his credentials to the board, showing them he really is the man to head the W Group and in the process, flushing out the murderer amongst them.
(Suave, sophisticated, knowing, anti-establishment and looks great in a suit. Swoon. Largo Winch sets off to prove his worth to his board. From Largo Winch: The Heir.)
It's elegantly done, a real page turner of an adventure with Van Hamme carefully setting up many disparate plot threads across the world and cleverly and seamlessly tying them all up at the book's end. The pace is never allowed to flag for a moment, with Van Hamme cutting between action and embellishing scenes to maintain the pace. And it all just works quite brilliantly. In a book of this sort you may have expected the action to take centre stage, but you'd be surprised; Van Hamme is so good at plotting his set-pieces that I actually found myself enjoying the board-room battles more than the out and out action sequences – but in essence, the way Van Hamme writes them, these complex boardroom stand-offs are just as tense, just as volatile and just as exciting as any car chase. And that's all part of what makes Largo Winch such an enjoyable piece of escapism. Similarly the art by Franq is a joy of tight, controlled dynamism, action sequences and boardroom confrontations are full of tension, the scenery and backgrounds to the pages are truly beautiful, as are the many women who fall for Largo's charms.
(Just because I've focused on the boardroom battles so far with the artwork, I wouldn't want you thinking there's no action in Largo Winch – there's plenty, and it's all as beautifully drawn by Philippe Franq as this scene)
( And what is any truly great piece of escapist thriller action with a Bond-like leading man without beautiful women? And Philippe Franq does draw some very beautiful women. But then again, he draws some very beautiful men as well.)
Largo Winch is wonderfully good, old fashioned escapism. But it's also very cleverly done, a thriller with a brain. Perfect stuff. It's my favourite of all the Cinebook releases I've seen so far. I'm off to track down Volumes 2 & 4 right now – all 4 volumes are available here.
Richard Bruton.
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