Goodness Gracious, great stacks of comics!!
Alright, I have officially gone nuts for comics.
It all started with Alan Moore's "Watchmen" (see my review here). The fantastic art along with the mature, elaborately crafted plot opened my eyes to an art form which I had stopped indulging in since I stepped out of primary school.
There is a world of comics out there though, which do not cater to kids alone. And I have sampled a fair amount of these in the past couple of months. Hopefully will be able to sample a few more in the future. Of course, being in the US has the advantage of being able to use the fantastic public libraries here. But I know I'll end up buying a boat load of these deeply satisfying comics when I'm back home in India. And these comics dont come cheap.
Although many of these comics stay within the super hero genre (like Alan Moore's Watchmen, Swamp Thing series, Top Ten series, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series; Kurt Busiek's Astro City series), these are not the usual tales of crime fighting like Superman or Spiderman (not that these are any less worthy, they arent the all-time best-selling comics for nothing). For example, Kurt Busiek's series contains stories set in Astro City which is home to many crime-fighting super heroes, some with super-powers, others are athletic humans who fight crime through ingenuity and skill. But the stories do not revolve around these super heroes. Instead, the series focuses on telling the tales from an ever changing perspective. There are stories told from the innocent victims point of view, the regular people who were going about their own business when some super villain decides to stage some mayhem in their vicinity. There are stories told from the view point of observers of the mega-events. This series is about the lives of people living in a society which is protected by super heroes, and threatened by super villains.
But graphic novels are not limited to this genre. Take Art Spiegelman's wonderful two-volume retelling of his parents surviving the holocaust in "Maus". The uniqueness of this book is in that it chooses to depic the Jews as mice, while the Germans are cats. All other races and ethnicities depicted in the comic are represented by animals. This deliberate cartoon-ification of a hard-hitting story sometimes softens the blow, and sometimes makes it even harsher. The all black-and-white artwork is free of any fancy angles and is focussed on telling a tale Art believes requires no further inflection.
Art Spiegelman has possibly been the greatest inspiration to the modern serious comics writer and artist than most others. Alan Moore's inspiration lies in focussing on the story, making it the basis of everything rather than only focussing on the art or the drawing.
It all started with Alan Moore's "Watchmen" (see my review here). The fantastic art along with the mature, elaborately crafted plot opened my eyes to an art form which I had stopped indulging in since I stepped out of primary school.
There is a world of comics out there though, which do not cater to kids alone. And I have sampled a fair amount of these in the past couple of months. Hopefully will be able to sample a few more in the future. Of course, being in the US has the advantage of being able to use the fantastic public libraries here. But I know I'll end up buying a boat load of these deeply satisfying comics when I'm back home in India. And these comics dont come cheap.
Although many of these comics stay within the super hero genre (like Alan Moore's Watchmen, Swamp Thing series, Top Ten series, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series; Kurt Busiek's Astro City series), these are not the usual tales of crime fighting like Superman or Spiderman (not that these are any less worthy, they arent the all-time best-selling comics for nothing). For example, Kurt Busiek's series contains stories set in Astro City which is home to many crime-fighting super heroes, some with super-powers, others are athletic humans who fight crime through ingenuity and skill. But the stories do not revolve around these super heroes. Instead, the series focuses on telling the tales from an ever changing perspective. There are stories told from the innocent victims point of view, the regular people who were going about their own business when some super villain decides to stage some mayhem in their vicinity. There are stories told from the view point of observers of the mega-events. This series is about the lives of people living in a society which is protected by super heroes, and threatened by super villains.But graphic novels are not limited to this genre. Take Art Spiegelman's wonderful two-volume retelling of his parents surviving the holocaust in "Maus". The uniqueness of this book is in that it chooses to depic the Jews as mice, while the Germans are cats. All other races and ethnicities depicted in the comic are represented by animals. This deliberate cartoon-ification of a hard-hitting story sometimes softens the blow, and sometimes makes it even harsher. The all black-and-white artwork is free of any fancy angles and is focussed on telling a tale Art believes requires no further inflection.
Art Spiegelman has possibly been the greatest inspiration to the modern serious comics writer and artist than most others. Alan Moore's inspiration lies in focussing on the story, making it the basis of everything rather than only focussing on the art or the drawing.Spiegelman inspired graphic novels have been written by writers like Daniel Clowes (Ghost World, David Boring), Chris Ware (Jimmy Corrigan) and Bryan Talbot (The tale of one bad rat). These stories deal with mature subjects like sexual abuse, dysfunctional families, mid-life crises etc.
Moore has inspired another set of writers to remain in the fantastic realms and still ground their work with some astonishing writing. The Fables series by Bill Willingham is one such example. This series has as its premise the concept that Fables (like Red
Riding 
Hood, Snow White etc) truly exist in lands far far away. But something happened, an unknown adversary launched a great war on the fables lands and the characters of these fables were forced to escape and they now live among us. These characters (at least the humanoid ones) now live as humans, and they have their own governance which keeps their existence a secret from common humans (called the Mundy's or the Mundanes a la Muggles). The stories are interesting in that though the premise is based in children's stories, the treatment is more adult. It makes for a gripping read.
Another series which blows the mind by its wonderful writing, and often historically based stories, is Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. This series is simply incomparable for its unique storylines and its rootedness in classical literature, myths and mythologies of everything from Greece to Persia to Africa, and also on true human history. The series is also unique in that its not concentrated on its main character, the Sandman or Morpheus, the Dream Lord, as much as you would expect. Sometimes he is peripheral to the story. But he is also the focus of the story in strange, haunting ways. Its hard to say much about the Sandman series without going into a lot of details, and I will keep that for another day, another post.
Moore has inspired another set of writers to remain in the fantastic realms and still ground their work with some astonishing writing. The Fables series by Bill Willingham is one such example. This series has as its premise the concept that Fables (like Red
Riding 
Hood, Snow White etc) truly exist in lands far far away. But something happened, an unknown adversary launched a great war on the fables lands and the characters of these fables were forced to escape and they now live among us. These characters (at least the humanoid ones) now live as humans, and they have their own governance which keeps their existence a secret from common humans (called the Mundy's or the Mundanes a la Muggles). The stories are interesting in that though the premise is based in children's stories, the treatment is more adult. It makes for a gripping read.
Another series which blows the mind by its wonderful writing, and often historically based stories, is Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. This series is simply incomparable for its unique storylines and its rootedness in classical literature, myths and mythologies of everything from Greece to Persia to Africa, and also on true human history. The series is also unique in that its not concentrated on its main character, the Sandman or Morpheus, the Dream Lord, as much as you would expect. Sometimes he is peripheral to the story. But he is also the focus of the story in strange, haunting ways. Its hard to say much about the Sandman series without going into a lot of details, and I will keep that for another day, another post.
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