Tamara Drewe

The visit of the movie Tamara Drewe to our local Art Theater reminds me how much I enjoyed the original graphic novel that inspired the film.

Posy Simmonds, additionally the author of Gemma Bovery, published her graphic novel in 2008. It was created from her long-running Guardian series of episodic cartoons based on Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd.

Tamara Drewe (the eponymous "heroine") writes a trendy newspaper column in London, featuring tales drawn from her own life among other topics. She's the catalyst for events that take off after she returns to the country on a visit--sporting a brand new nose. The book itself revolves around life in a writer's colony in Tamara's home town in the British hinterland. We meet the famous novelist and his wife, who run the facility. One writer, on sabbatical to finish his novel, chimes in with his presence and recounts the events. We encounter two young girls in the neighborhood, a fading rock drummer, and the requisite handsome, reclusive handyman/farmer. Told in multiple voices, the tale pops back and forth among the characters, creating a surprisingly complex story.

I don't think the story could have been expressed half as well if it were told only in text instead of graphic novel format. The images enhance Tamara Drewe. They're well drawn and quite realistic. (The author features Belted Galloway cows. They have white stripes around them and look like big oreos with "extra stuff".) The countryside is a true character. Lots of goats and cows and dogs and scenery.

Tamara Drewe is full of modern situations, appropriate slang, and adult , um, segments. The visual and textual elements meld together excellently, providing a multifacted reading experience. I'm looking forward to the movie, so I can compare and contrast the different emphases of storyline and vision.

A God Somewhere

A God Somewhere explores the story of the friend of a man who develops Superman-like abilities.  The story is grim and gritty.  Eric, the character who gets powered, drives the story, and his thoughts and philosophy inject questions of spirituality and morality into the story. It's interesting to see how Eric's beliefs gradually evolve following his change, as well as his relationships with his family and Sam.

It's a quick read, but the realistically developed characters and relationships add depth to the story. It's simple in some ways, but complex in others.  It's hard to explain, I suppose.  It's not hard, however, to note that I liked it and would recommend it to fans of Alan Moore or Frank Miller.

The Unwritten: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity

The Unwritten: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity collects volumes 1 through 5 of the Vertigo series, The Unwritten, by Mike Carey and Peter Gross.  It should appeal to fans of Neil Gaiman's Sandman or Bill Willingham's Fables series.  It's similar to those storywise, where reality and fantasy are blurred for the characters.  While I've only read this first volume, I expect more magic, mystery, unique storylines, and that brutality the both Gaiman and Willingham treated their characters to.  Try reading just the first issue in this volume, and see if you don't read the second.

If it sounds like I'm not really saying anything about this series, it's because I'm trying not to.  It's more enjoyable to get sucked into the mystery without any concrete expectations, but if you need more info, Under the Radar's review summarizes this volume fairly well.

Saga of the Swamp Thing

I'd been curious about Alan Moore's Saga of the Swamp Thing, but not interested. I couldn't figure why I'd want to read about some bog monster terrorizing people or whatever he does. I'd seen the pictures of the moss-draped creature with the odd, cut-off nose. I was sure he was some Toxic Avenger type of character that I wouldn't enjoy reading about.

Something changed my mind and I grabbed volume one of the Saga. I haven't found any absorbing books lately, so I've been reading graphic novels for a change of pace. Saga was on the shelf, and a variety of influences resulted in my picking up the book. Alan Moore has a fantastic resume, including From Hell, The Watchmen, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Promethea. Also, Neil Gaiman has noted in many forewords and introductions that Swamp Thing paved the way for his reinvention of the Sandman character, and I love The Sandman as well as Gaiman's novels. So, I thought I really ought to give Swamp Thing a try.

I wasn't let down, either. Volume one collects the first several comics of the series, and a few of these are devoted to reinventing the character. Swamp Thing was a scientist who had an accident and wound up turning into a monster. Moore's character learns new information about his origins, and there's even a few issues that hopefully foreshadow future stories--criminal scientists, demons, and malevolent beings. This character has the potential for some epic stories, and I can't wait for subsequent volumes of the Saga to arrive at the library. If you've read the stories already, please don't tell me anything about what's to come. I'm looking forward to reading them for myself.

Satisfactions of the Faithful

A contemplative and studious man, journalist William Lobdell spent many years reporting the "religion beat" on the West Coast.

In Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America--and Found Unexpected Peace, the father of four recounts his evolution from practicing Christian to a life "without a personal God in the equation."

Lobdell's faith took a dramatic turn during the sexual abuse scandals that rocked the Catholic church nationwide and which he covered.

The events coincided with his Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) training within a local parish and prompted continuous introspection.

He writes,

Faith is something that is triggered deep within your soul--influenced by upbringing, family, friends, experiences, and desires. It's not like registering to vote, checking a box to signal that you are a Democrat, Republican, or Independent. Christians often talk to those who have fallen away from the faith as if they had made a choice to turn away from God. But as deeply as I missed my faith, as hard as I tried to keep it, my head could not command my gut ... Faith can't be willed into existence. There's no faking it if you're honest about the state of your soul.

Graphic novelist Craig Thompson deals with similar issues of faith and its wrenching extremes in Blankets.

The book details growing up with devout parents; his conflicted feelings about religion; the typical teen angst of fitting in; and finding his first true love at a Christian camp for teens.

Jules Feiffer commented, "In the purest narrative form [Thompson] tells a highly charged personal story, crammed with pain, discovery, hijinx, penance, religious conviction, and its loss ... that which goes awry in life, goes well as art."

Man Up: Deceptively Simple, Tightly Focused

I arrived late(ly) to the genius graphic novelist Jeff Lemire, a fella from Ontario, Canada.

Lemire is the creator of the Essex County trilogy, a fictionalized version of his rural roots and a compelling parallel to central Illinois farm country.

New York Magazine ranks the third book in Lemire's trilogy as one of the best graphic novels of 2008.

Here is the complete list with links to titles currently in our catalog (all have been ordered):

1. Disappearance Diary by Hideo Azuma (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)

2. Bottomless Belly Button, by Dash Shaw (Fantagraphics)

3. Nat Turner, by Kyle Baker (Abrams)

4. Slow Storm, by Danica Novgorodoff (First Second)

5. Strange Embrace, by David Hine (Image)

6. Wonton Soup, James Stokoe (Oni)

7. Travel, by Yuichi Yokoyama (PictureBox), and Metronome, by Véronique Tanaka (NBM)

8. Fables, Vol. 10: The Good Prince, by Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham (Vertigo)

9. Paul Goes Fishing, by Michel Rabagliatti (Drawn & Quarterly), and The Country Nurse, by Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf)

10. Water Baby, by Ross Campbell (Minx)

Bizarro Noir: Ben Templesmith

I just finished reading Feral City, the first installment in the graphic series Fell, written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Ben Templesmith. Feral City compiles issues #1 through #8 of the original comic book run.

Comics Worth Reading writes:

Richard Fell, a cop with a mysterious past, has just moved over the bridge to the worst city ever. Each chapter, he investigates a crime, doing his job, even when he’s off the clock. Many of these cases are inspired by real-life, dementedly weird news clippings the author has seen ... [including] domestic murder, stranger murder, a vengeful suicide bomber, the interrogation of a disturbed killer, and a really disturbed child abusing parent. The book’s about the trade-offs that humans make to keep going in the face of an uncaring world that will do horrible things to its inhabitants.

Templesmith is the artist responsible for the cold and gory illustrations in the new-school vampire tale 30 Days of Night, penned by Steve Niles and translated (rather ineffectively) to the big screen by director David Slade.

After you've sat a spell with homicide detective Richard Fell, explore some of Templesmith's other projects, including Wormwood and other tales in the 30 Days of Night franchise.

Identity politics

I admit I've been a little slow to embrace the graphic format. Somewhere deep down, the term "comic book" is lurking and, with it, the idea that comic books are not real books. Of course, thanks to Michael Chabon and Jonathan Lethem, we know that, in fact, comic books often have a most positive influence on the lives of young people. Still, the prejudice lingers. Never mind that Art Spiegelman won a Pulitzer Prize for Maus: A Survivor's Tale (originally published in 1986) or that all the book clubs are reading Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel. Books are books and graphic novels are ... well, something else.

So it was only recently that I had to call on my second hand to count the number of graphic works I had read. Yep, number 6. That's as far as I've come. But this one had such an interesting back story, I just had to check it out.

Mat Johnson, the author of Incognegro, is a self-described "white-looking" African American. When he was growing up and feeling unhappily different, he wished his appearance could be put to use, that he could somehow serve as a "race spy" in the war against white supremacy. He later forgot those fantasies until his college days, when he learned about Walter White, the former head of the NAACP, who, in the early days of the twentieth century, went undercover, posing as a white man, to investitgate and expose the lynchings taking place in the South. That was when Incognegro began to take shape in Johnson's mind. Then, he reports, in 2005, his twins were born: one brown-skinned and one palest pink. "Two people with the exact same ethnic lineage destined to be viewed differently only because of genetic randomness. From there the story found itself."

The story begins with a narrow escape for the reporter who is publishing his "Incognegro" articles on lynching in a Harlem newspaper. Though he believes the work he is doing matters, he also longs for recognition, to see his real name in print. And, as a witness to lynching, he knows full well the price he will pay if ever apprehended. He resolves to give up the undercover life when news comes that makes it imperative that he become 'incognegro" one more time.


This is fast-paced and gripping historical fiction. The artwork is black and white, with a chiaroscuro effect which serves the bleak subject matter well. I did sometimes get a little confused, the characters seemed to look much alike and I found myself flipping back the pages, thinking, I'm sure that was an African-American, but now it seems like it's someone else and

I got it! Incognegro, written by Mat Johnson, drawn by Warren Pleece and offered to the reader in the only possible way: a real book in graphic format. Check it out - it's at your library!