More Graphic Novelishness

"Why are you doing this?" by Jason (2005)

There is a moment in "Why are you doing this?" in which the hero, who has just been framed by a mysterious stranger for the murder of his best friend, is taken in by an archetypally trusting single mother. "Did you do it?" she asks him, recognizing him from the news bulletins describing the killing. When he denies being the murderer she looks him deep in the eyes before deciding that he is worthy of her trust, and the panel frame fills with his cartoon-dog eyes, enormous and completely blank.

In a way, this emptiness seems to be Jason's central concern. His narrative is entirely, purposively conventional, extensively worked over by Hitchcock and innumerable mystery novelists, and as his characters naively go through the expected motions their hollowness is always self-consciously evident. The characters are obsessed with narratives, determined to acquire enough stories to tell at dinner parties to prove (finally and irrevocably) that they have not lived wasted lives. It is only in the striking last page that the emptiness of narrative moves completely out of the realm of unsatisfying woodenness and into a fully fledged argument about the troubled nature of our addiction to stories. In its denouement, we can finally see the importance of asking the question of Jason's title: the last words of his narrative are "What happened?" but we know by now that the real story happens in the 'Why?".

"Why are you doing this?" - ****


"Fantastic Butterflies" by James Kochalka

This is the first of Kochalka's books that I have read, and I may need to acclimate myself to his unselfconscious melding of mundane realism and the oddities of science fiction. I find a lot of the whimsy (including the title) somewhat cloying, but in the final analysis, I have to admire (sort of) an authorial consciousness so broad and so fanciful that it even grants a burst testicle some measure of subjectivity.

"Fantastic Butterflies" - ***


"Peculia" by Richard Sala

Peculia is described by its enthusiasts and publicists as a hybrid, merging the dry gothic comedy of Edward Gorey with a sexy campiness. The substantial middle ground revealed by this hybrid draws in some surprising and delightful associations, not least with P. G. Wodehouse. Peculia is a rich young woman of considerable abilities who rebels against her quiet, confined life of privilege (and, by association, against her excessively private ex, Obscurus). In each (too too) short episode, Peculia ventures forth to be met with macabre peril (often instigated and more often resolved by the emotionally conflicted Obscurus) before being delivered (or delivering herself) unharmed into the competent hands of her impeccable butler, Ambrose. The episodes seem slight, and aren't always overly concerned with resolving the more intriguing plot points immediately, but they are carefully structured in the old comics tradition of serials like "The Spirit." By the end of this volume, I was totally enthralled by this charming group of misfits, both villainous and heroic.

"Peculia" - ***1/2

Comics Bonanza

After a long hiatus (which I will excuse by invoking my dissertation work- I just turned in a chapter draft - and travel), I return in a flurry of comics-reading, thanks to Jeremy's generosity and extensive library. A few first reactions:

"Seaguy" by Grant Morrison and Cameron Stewart

This is a Dada world, a world that takes the conventions of heroism and reveals the mythological tendency towards absurdism and non-sequitur. Our "hero" (who finds it hard to conceive of himself heroically) pursues the love of the hirsute Amazonian She-Beard by aiding those in need (including an enslaved soft-drink and a megalomaniacal moon-dwelling pharaoh). At first the accelerated narrative and the delight in incompletion are unsettling, but eventually they become strangely delightful, yielding priceless dialogue like this one between Seaguy and a cynical snack vendor:
"No Pickled Orchid. We only have the Smokey Monkey, Duck and Nut or Bowler Hat flavors today."
"“Hmm. What kind of corn chip is Bowler Hat?"
"Harsh and ashamed...."

"Seaguy" - ****


"Crumple: the Status of Knuckle" by Dave Cooper

A squelchy exploration of the extremes of misogynistic paranoia. Cooper's self-awareness of this extremity is (happily) evident in every wince on his awkward hero'’s increasingly bruised face. A hybrid between a road trip narrative and a cult mystery, "Crumple" is inventive, but uncomfortable.

Crumple - **1/2

Shanghaied: "The White Countess"

I refer, of course, to the original, nautical meaning of the verb "shanghai" (and here I invoke the sainted assistance of the OED): "To drug or otherwise render insensible, and ship on board a vessel wanting hands." Perhaps this particularly springs to mind because I have just reached the point of Davie's abduction in my reading of "Kidnapped," but I tend to think that it was in fact inspired by the near-comatose state of boredom evoked by this tedious film. The movie is set in Shanghai at the particularly turbulent period just before the second World War, and we wait in vain (for a creaking, arthritic two hours and eighteen minutes) for the sort of politically-inspired anguish or even old fashioned adventurousness that time, place and cinematic precedent with both might seem to imply. But "The White Countess" manages to take the energy out of kidnappery; when someone is finally shanghaied the whole event seems to take place at an emotional crawl and have very few consequences. (It is interesting to note that MI:iii's Shanghai scenes also took place in a strange, claustrophobic lull in an otherwise, well, explosive and expansive adventure flick.)

How could so many talented people combine to produce this kind of cinematic sedative? Much has been made by defenders of this film (and even many of its critics) of the fine quality of the central performances. I can't see it. I have long been a devoted fan of Ralph Fiennes. What I normally enjoy about his performances, and about other Merchant-Ivory films, is the delicacy of the characterization, a pervasive sense of subtext that may have to do the literariness of the films' sources and the (somewhat) greater access to the interior life of characters we get in literature than on stage and screen. In "The White Countess," Fiennes is not in his normal, finely honed repressive mode, and his extroverted character (a blind, American ex-diplomat with a tragic past but a hopeful outlook) seems somehow messy, even hammy. It still makes me cringe to think of the scene in which he mimes riding a horse while at the race track. Eurggh.


"The White Countess" - **