Last Month I Have Mostly Been Reading Graphic Novels
Sometimes I just can’t read books anymore. Something about reading becomes very oppressive. This is usually when I retreat to reading graphic novels instead - same amount of cerebral clout but more easily absorbed. I’ve recently discovered that Kinokuniya, the English language Japanese book chain in Bangkok, has stacks of graphic novels, half of which is manga but the other half of which is not only Men In Tights Doing Good Things but some of the more left field, intellectual graphic novels too.
The thing is, I have no idea about what to buy when it comes to graphic novels anymore. Unless it’s got Alan Moore or Warren Ellis or Frank Miller written on it, I am clueless as to its contents. So I literally judge graphic novels by their cover. Being completely without preconceptions is a really pleasant way of buying graphic novels, although turkeys are inevitably purchased. Being impatient, I like the speed of reading graphic novels. Because a graphic novel takes a couple of hours tops to read, I still get from one end to the other even if I don’t think it’s much good, whereas with a normal prose book I just put it aside.
The cinematic story arc that virtually every graphic novel adheres to means there’s a plot engine pushing the narrative along rapidly and there’s the simple fact of being able to turn the page every couple of minutes, plus you get to see the whole of what the writer was on about, not just the not-very-good beginning as with an uneven prose novel. The totality is important, I think, and it’s something that a back cover blurb is always useless at conveying, as they invariably describe the plot, which rarely has anything to do with the reading experience.
I also like the high production values and glossiness of graphic novels, which seem to be getting ever more opulent. Ooh, shiny.
That longwinded intro aside, here’s what I read last month:
But I Like It - Joe Sacco
I picked this up because of its R. Crumb-esque artwork. I had no idea who Joe Sacco was but it turns out he’s written some hefty political graphic novels like Palestine, which I’d like to get hold of. But I Like It is an odds’n’sods collection of Sacco’s work that wouldn’t fit anywhere else, and so it suffers from being a collection of shorts rather than one sustained piece. The main story is Sacco’s recollection of being in the van on a European tour with The Miracle Workers, and the other is about his love affair with the Stones. His style, both artistically and prose, is very similar to R. Crumb to my mind - and that’s no bad thing. He’s incredibly self-flagellating and self-obsessed too, with himself as the main character of most of the strips. If, like me, you can’t get enough about life on the road in rock’n'roll, you’ll enjoy this, but it’s hardly an essential purchase.
American Born Chinese - Gene Luen Yang
I wanted to read this since seeing a preview in publisher First Second’s catalogue last year. (I reviewed another of their titles here). It was worth the wait. Yang’s book does indeed tell the story of being a Chinese kid growing up in America, with the culture of his homeland still very much in his everyday life. The narrative segues in and out of the legend of the Monkey King, which is a Chinese legend of sorts - and also the impossibly outrageous Chinkee, who is the personification of every possible stereotype Americans have of the Chinese. The result is a riot of a book, one which mashes together numerous complex riffs on culture, myth and identity and plays it for laughs without losing the seriousness of these themes. Discussion of these sorts of ideas and cultural themes tends to get bogged down in earnestness and a fear of offending which makes for dull reading - Yang goes the opposite way and creates a genuinely fascinating, provocative and very funny book.
Sloth - Gilbert Hernandez
This is the one that I didn’t really get. It starts off with a good premise - a teenager wakes up after a year in a self induced coma back to his old life in smalltown America - but then it does something weird in the middle and it went straight over my head. So if someone can explain it to me, maybe I can re-read it and enjoy it. It’s written by one of the guys who wrote Love And Rockets, although I’ve never read that either.
Shenzhen - Guy Delisle
The sort of sequel to Pyongyang, Shenzhen is another travelogue from 3 months spent living in the city by French Canadian animator Guy Delisle. It doesn’t quite have the same impact as Pyongyang because it’s essentially the same book, but it’s still highly enjoyable. I reviewed both Pyongyang and Shenzen more fully on my travel website Travelhappy.
Other Splinters posts of interest:
- Graphic Violence Road To Perdition is the new g…
- Graphic Novels Redux
- Factory Records: The Complete Graphic Album
- Stop me and buy one
- Brrrrrrains
