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| Friday, January 26, 2007 11:30 AM |
| Comics I Stole from EverMike |
 by Fëanor |
Man, was this a great haul. I loved all of these. Looks like I'll be diving into EverMike's collection again soon... (Btw, I apologize for the frequent use of the word "brilliant" in this post and in most of my posts and most of my conversations lately. It's my new favorite adjective. I blame those Guinness commercials.)
The Prisoner: Shattered Visage - A lengthy self-contained graphic novel continuation of the fantastic '60s psychological spy series. If you haven't seen the show, you need to go out and get all the DVDs and watch them straight through right now. Only then can you read this book, because otherwise it will make no sense at all. The concept of this book is that the Village (a sort of forced retirement home for spies) has been closed down and cleared out and the last Number Two has written a memoir/expose about everything, which was carefully purged of the most sensitive material, but is still pretty explosive, and a best-seller. Number Two has essentially been on lockdown for a bit, but Number Six is still on the island, at the Village, now even crazier than before, if possible, and Two wants to go back to have some kind of revenge on him. Meanwhile, a spy couple in a deteriorating relationship gets caught up in all of this. The woman, in a parallel of Six's story, has just retired, and her superiors would like to know why, as would her husband. There's lots of intrigue and death until ultimately everybody ends up on the Island in the huge climactic finale, with explosions and everything. Anyway, I confess myself a bit puzzled by the details of the story; there's a lot of spy stuff going on, and everybody has a different secret plan that they're not telling anybody else about, and they're all working for somebody, but it's not who you think, and it's all very complicated. But ultimately I liked the book very much because it's very smart and very much in the style of the show. In fact, it's loaded with references, both in words and in images, to the original series - sometimes even to specific episodes and scenes. The book is very visual, and you really have to take your time looking over every panel, because important things can happen in the corners. And besides that, the art is beautiful, and the dialogue is super smart. In short, highly recommended for any and all fans of "The Prisoner."
UPDATE: I wanted to add that there's some neat stuff going on in here about the meaning of "freedom" and "imprisonment." The suggestion is that many people are imprisoned without realizing it in their daily lives, a suggestion which is cleverly made visually via the repeated motif of bars across the panels. Another implication is that "The Village," at least as a concept if not as a physical place, will continue to exist for a long time.
Three Fingers - Imagine a parallel universe where cartoon characters are actual real living creatures who live in segregated parts of town - sort of like in Roger Rabbit, but more dark and realistic. Now imagine that they had risen to stardom and prominence in the '30s, '40s and '50s. Now imagine that somebody did a sort of "Behind the Music"/"True Hollywood Story"-type documentary about it all, and that had then been converted into an illustrated book. That's what Three Fingers is. It's also brilliant and hilarious and deeply disturbing. All the names are changed, but you will recognize all the characters in the story: Dizzy Walters, Rickey Rat, Buggy Bunny, Rapid Rodriguez. The main scandal and controversy of the story comes about because Rickey, the most famous toon of all, the one who came first, happened to be born with three fingers. And other toons, in order to make it themselves, felt - or were made to feel - like maybe they needed only three fingers, too. And then... Well, you just have to read it. The book strives for the tone of a sort of academic documentary, complete with vintage photos, interviews with those involved, and stuffy narration. The illusion breaks down occasionally when you run into grammar errors and typos, but all-in-all, it's great stuff.
The Authority #1 - A straightforward, linear action thriller from Grant Morrison? What's happening?! I'm scared - someone hold me. Well, okay, I'm exaggerating a bit there; the man has written this kind of thing before, I've just never read it. Anyway, this is less issue one, and more issue zero; just a teaser of what's to come. It's set in the present. Storywise, a few characters get introduced, we learn that there's a gigantic thing at the bottom of the ocean, and then it ends. Which is irritating, because now I feel like I have to get the next issue to see what happens. That's how they get you, I guess. Btw, it's worth noting that this is apparently a relaunch of a series created by Warren Ellis.
300 - Frank Miller's tight, terse, and frankly perfect five part series (soon to be a major motion picture!) about the Battle of Thermopylae, an incredible real historical battle in which an army of 300 Spartans (combined, for a while at least, with a small allied army from other Greek city-states) stood against a vastly superior Persian army and somehow held them off for a very long time, killing many, before finally being defeated. The book is epic in its visuals and scale (it's all 2-page spreads), but not in its length; it's carved down to only the most essential bits. No word or image is wasted. The art and writing are typical Miller - utterly fantastic and brilliant. Part one is good, but part two is where the series really hits its stride, and then you get to the final part, part five... People, part five is a masterpiece. The entire series is beautiful, breathtaking, and completely absorbing, but every spread of part five could hang in an art gallery, and every word is moving and thrilling. 300 is absolutely a must-read. I need to own it. EverMike told me it was his favorite work by Miller - which with Miller is really saying something - and I think now I might agree. |
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Jim Genzano's books on Goodreads
