Too Cool to Be Forgotten and Shirley

Here's how this works: I finish reading something, and I tell you about it, and I try not to bore you to death. This time, reviews, of sorts, of Too Cool to Be Forgotten (Top Shelf, 2008) and Shirley (DC/CMX, 2008).



I came late to Alex Robinson, getting two of his better-known books in the last year or so while he was in the studio working on this strange little time travel story, where a fellow undergoes hypnosis in a bid to quit smoking and finds himself stuck in the past, given a new chance to never start in the first place... but is that the only "fix" to his own history that he can make?

I liked it very much, and I'm being hopelessly unfair to Robinson by finding quibbles, but what made Box Office Poison and Tricked so engaging was the effortless juggling of POVs among multiple protagonists. There isn't anything wrong with the comparatively slim Too Cool to Be Forgotten, and its remarkable evocation of 1980s high school is great fun, and we should certainly applaud creators who can avoid expectations so well (which brings me to the next subject, below), but, selfishly, I will impatiently wait for a new 600-page Robinson tome with a huge cast as soon as is feasible. Recommended.



What interests me most about Kaoru Mori is her exquisite artwork, especially in period architecture and costume, immersing readers in her Victorian/Edwardian romances through outdoor crowd scenes and huge parties. But the seven stories in this collection predate her better-known Emma by some time, during which Mori was (slowly) learning to draw more than just faces and bodies. Five of the stories are wish-fulfillment tales of a practically perfect in every way thirteen year-old who finds work as a maid, and the others are not-disagreeable short stories with maid protagonists. I don't know what her interest or fetish is, either.

Emma, itself, was a very frustrating read which I could only recommend on the strength of the gorgeous art, which is what led me to try this. I'd recommend this about as strongly as I would Gregory Maguire's umpteenth revisionist fairy tale. If I wanted a one trick pony, I'd buy one, and the next thing I sample from Mori better not have any more goddamn maids in it.

(Originally posted August 28, 2008 at hipsterdad's LJ.)

Storming Heaven and Box Office Poison

Here's how this works: I finish reading something, and I tell you about it, and I try not to bore you to death.



This is a collection of most of Frazer Irving's work for 2000 AD, including one Shaun of the Dead strip which actually appeared in a promotional comic. Not included are the long form stuff which has already been compiled, such as Necronauts, or the guest contributions to ongoing series. What is included certainly looks brilliant but is occasionally frustrating to read. John Smith's A Love Like Blood and Gordon Rennie's Storming Heaven are both too short to do justice to their high-concept plots, and oddly it's relative newcomer Simon Spurrier whose 30-page From Grace comes off best in this book, a fascinating little study of real evil borne of circumstance which reminded me of Gregory Maguire's Wicked, oddly enough. Recommended with reservations.



It took me forever, and a deeply discounted copy of Tricked, to try Alex Robinson. I should have sampled him earlier. He has a brilliant ear for dialogue, and in Box Office Poison, his first long-form story, he creates several incredibly vibrant, wonderful characters. I couldn't wait to find out what would happen to them. The story is quite sprawling at 600 pages, but generally it is about a number of post-graduates slowly making their way through life in New York City... one of them, Ed, takes a job assisting an aging cartoonist from comics' Golden Age who has been shafted by the company where he created a lucrative comic and film franchise. Is there a way for the old-timer to get the justice he deserves? This is threaded through a number of equally strong plots about noisy neighbors, ice skating, nowhere jobs, and I realize that sounds a little banal, but it's done with such style and such wonderful characters that you can't put this book down. Highly recommended.

(Originally posted March 11, 2008 at hipsterdad's LJ.)

Tricked and Different Ugliness, Different Madness

Here's how this works: I finish reading something, and I tell you about it, and I try not to bore you to death.



Released in 2005, I finally got around to this and enjoyed it tremendously. It's an incredibly dense and incredibly filmic look at six characters whose lives slowly begin to intersect, and some lies and "tricks" which some of them play as their paths start converging. I was a little disappointed by the climax, but this is perhaps the fault of my expectations, and perhaps because I was enjoying the story too much to want to see it end. Read nothing about this book ahead of time; everybody seems to want to give too much of it away.



Giveaways on the part of reviewers is perhaps also a trait of this book, one of the last to come from the Humanoids/DC deal, and which I picked up in Cincinnati in the spring of '07 and just reread. Marc Malés uses gorgeous linework, which reminds me of Chic Stone inking Kirby. The story is about a woman in the 1930s travelling to nowhere in particular with a dwindling purse, who meets a kind-hearted, generous man in the country who lives a hermit-like life, shunning human contact. Again, revelations about Helen's past and the identity of the man with whom she stays are given away practically everywhere, even on the back of the blasted book, but if you avoid those, the book is a genuinely satisfying read, and I enjoyed it even more this time around. Malés uses a brilliant little "camera" trick from pages 95-101 which shouldn't work in a comic, but took my breath away.

Both books are recommended.

(Originally posted January 14, 2008 at hipsterdad's LJ.)