Summer Reading: World Graphic Narrative
Jul. 9th, 2011 12:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sanetAh, summer time! Time for fireworks, fresh strawberries, and catching up on all those comics, graphic novels, manga, manhwa, BDs and other things with sequential words and pictures I've been meaning to get to. So here's a quick round-up of three works in sequential narrative from around the world I'd recommend as summer reading. At least, for those with eclectic tastes!
20th Century Boys. Urasawa Naoki. San Francisco: Viz media, 2009. Vol. 1
I've only read the first volume of this multiple award-winning series so far, but already I'm asking the question a good story prompts: "So what happens next?!" Urasawa's dense, multi-stranded narrative shifts between a group of childhood friends in 1969 as they forms clubs, allegiances, and enemies, and their lives as adults in an alternate version of 1997, when the symbol of their youthful gang of heroes resurfaces in a world of cults and disease. Detailed, realistic backgrounds balance out the comic exaggerations of the character design in a way reminiscent of Tezuka, though in a more caricature than cartoony mode. I won't comment more on thematics or anything until I've read the whole series. But it definitely seems worth the read. I'm looking forward to MOAR!
Mijeong. Byung-Jun Byun. New York: NBM ComicsLit, 2009.
It's significant that this collection of South Korean manhwa short stories was published in English under a "ComicsLit" imprint. It's not at all like what I normally associate with manhwa -namely, sf and boy's love just like Japanese sf and BL only with even prettier boys (disclaimer: my reading of manhwa has clearly been genre-biased.>.<) Now, Mijeong is...literary. Cinematic, even. The title story was inspired by Wim Wenders' film Wings of Desire(remade into City of Angels), as a lyrical meditation on life by an invisible angel who can save a girl from a traffic accident but not relieve her emotional suffering. In fact, the major theme running through most of the stories is that of troubled young women and the men who can't help them. (There's way more to go into here than I can handle right now, but ask and I will speculate on changing gender roles in East Asia!) Matching the sense of emotional turmoil is an art style composed of sketchy lines, lots of intricate hatching, and one remarkable full-colour short in pen and watercolour washes. The result is a series of gritty, visually complex and yet elusive canvases that take some time to parse. It's very much unlike the quick-reading, clean-lined commercial manhwa I've seen so far. It does seem like the work of a new and somewhat inexperienced artist to me -narrative development is not Byung-Jun's strong suit here- but take some time over it, and you'll find something different.
Epileptic. David B. New York: Pantheon, 2005.
Epileptic is another comic that demands some time -but more because it's a friggin' long epic than because it's difficult to read. Originally published in French, this 360-page book tells the autobiographical story of David B. (nee Jean-Francois Beauchard) who grew up in the 1960s and 70s with an older brother who had epilepsy. David honestly depicts how each member of his family tried to cope with the unpredictability and uncontrollability of his brother's seizures: his parents sought "cures" from invasive surgeries to macrobiotic communes to exorcism, while he developed a fascination with drawing armies and armour to guard against an illness envisioned as a coiling knotwork dragon. The art is filled with bizarre, surreal images of bird-headed men and arcane iconography, all heavy-lined, crowding, almost claustrophobic. I definitely wouldn't call this "light" reading, nor is it for just anybody. But there's a great article (or critique) to be written here from a Disability Studies perspective, if it hasn't been done already!
20th Century Boys. Urasawa Naoki. San Francisco: Viz media, 2009. Vol. 1
I've only read the first volume of this multiple award-winning series so far, but already I'm asking the question a good story prompts: "So what happens next?!" Urasawa's dense, multi-stranded narrative shifts between a group of childhood friends in 1969 as they forms clubs, allegiances, and enemies, and their lives as adults in an alternate version of 1997, when the symbol of their youthful gang of heroes resurfaces in a world of cults and disease. Detailed, realistic backgrounds balance out the comic exaggerations of the character design in a way reminiscent of Tezuka, though in a more caricature than cartoony mode. I won't comment more on thematics or anything until I've read the whole series. But it definitely seems worth the read. I'm looking forward to MOAR!
Mijeong. Byung-Jun Byun. New York: NBM ComicsLit, 2009.
It's significant that this collection of South Korean manhwa short stories was published in English under a "ComicsLit" imprint. It's not at all like what I normally associate with manhwa -namely, sf and boy's love just like Japanese sf and BL only with even prettier boys (disclaimer: my reading of manhwa has clearly been genre-biased.>.<) Now, Mijeong is...literary. Cinematic, even. The title story was inspired by Wim Wenders' film Wings of Desire(remade into City of Angels), as a lyrical meditation on life by an invisible angel who can save a girl from a traffic accident but not relieve her emotional suffering. In fact, the major theme running through most of the stories is that of troubled young women and the men who can't help them. (There's way more to go into here than I can handle right now, but ask and I will speculate on changing gender roles in East Asia!) Matching the sense of emotional turmoil is an art style composed of sketchy lines, lots of intricate hatching, and one remarkable full-colour short in pen and watercolour washes. The result is a series of gritty, visually complex and yet elusive canvases that take some time to parse. It's very much unlike the quick-reading, clean-lined commercial manhwa I've seen so far. It does seem like the work of a new and somewhat inexperienced artist to me -narrative development is not Byung-Jun's strong suit here- but take some time over it, and you'll find something different.
Epileptic. David B. New York: Pantheon, 2005.
Epileptic is another comic that demands some time -but more because it's a friggin' long epic than because it's difficult to read. Originally published in French, this 360-page book tells the autobiographical story of David B. (nee Jean-Francois Beauchard) who grew up in the 1960s and 70s with an older brother who had epilepsy. David honestly depicts how each member of his family tried to cope with the unpredictability and uncontrollability of his brother's seizures: his parents sought "cures" from invasive surgeries to macrobiotic communes to exorcism, while he developed a fascination with drawing armies and armour to guard against an illness envisioned as a coiling knotwork dragon. The art is filled with bizarre, surreal images of bird-headed men and arcane iconography, all heavy-lined, crowding, almost claustrophobic. I definitely wouldn't call this "light" reading, nor is it for just anybody. But there's a great article (or critique) to be written here from a Disability Studies perspective, if it hasn't been done already!
