Now Read This!

By Gail Simone, Dale Eaglesham & Val Semeiks (DC Comics/Titan Books)
ISBN 1-84576-232-0

One of the interlinked miniseries that form the protracted prologue to the Infinite Crisis publishing event, this book deals with a select band of super-criminals and their mysterious, anonymous leader who resist the mobilisation of the DC villains into an unstoppable organization.

Said Super-Mob, calling itself “The Society” determines to wipe out these independents and the result is an exceptionally cool caper tale where, since the Good Guys are Bad Guys, the best lines don’t get scooped up by the antagonists, and for once you can start your read genuinely not knowing who’s going to be breathing come the final curtain.

Gail Simone’s script is full of canny plot-twists and strong, credible characterisation, the art is smooth and dynamic, and the situation is refreshingly believable. Also invaluable are the “previously on” and “scorecard” sections that bring edited highlights and identifying cameos from other sources to the mix so that non-fanboys can keep the ninety or so characters in mind without suffering a debilitating embolism.

This is a great little book, and shows how modern, superhero comics can and should be done.

© 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

 

By Dave Gibbons, Ivan Reis & Marc Campos (DC Comics/Titan Books)
ISBN 1-84576-231-2

It’s sad to say that sometimes even the most talented creators have bad days. This tie-in to the DC Infinite Crisis publishing event features all the space-faring components of the company’s current continuity, butting heads as a galaxy-wide war breaks out in the chaotic period leading up to the crisis itself.

Despite the best efforts of all involved the uneasy mix of political intrigue, cosmic conflict and evil soul-sucking demons proves too much for the likes of Adam Strange, Hawkman and Hawkgirl, Captain Comet, the Omega Men, Starman, the Green Lantern Corps and just about every other hero who’s had to suck hard vacuum in his/her/its career. The resultant morass of histrionics, ray-blasts and fist-fights is actually a chore to wade through by the end.

One more thing, and this I fear I’ll be saying an awful lot in years to come: I don’t much care for fashions or traditions in narrative and publishing, but I do think that some things should be treated as Givens. So when I get to the end of a book I expect there to be at least some semblance of a resolution to the narrative. I don’t like being told it’s not over yet and I need to read another book for an ending – especially when that succeeding book hasn’t been published yet.

Is that so unreasonable?

© 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

 

By Marjane Satrapi (Jonathan Cape)
ISBN: 0-224-07440-7

In the sequel to Persepolis – the primitivist reminiscences of a girl whose childhood spanned the fall of the Shah and the rise of the Fundamentalist theocracy in Iran – Marjane Satrapi continues her life-story, but concentrates more fully on the little girl growing into a woman. This idiosyncratic maturation unfortunately acts to somewhat diminish the power of simple, unvarnished observation that was such a devastating lens into the political iniquities that shaped her life, but does make the narrator/illustrator into a fully concrete person, as many of her experiences more closely mirror those of an audience that hasn’t grown up under a cloud of physical, political, spiritual and sexual oppression.

The story recommences in 1984 where the fifteen year old Marjane is sent to Vienna to (ostensibly) pursue an education. In distressingly short order the all-but-asylum-seeker is rapidly bounced from home to home. She is billeted with Nuns, distanced acquaintances of her family, a bed-sit in the house of an apparent madwoman and eventually is reduced to living on the streets, in a catastrophic spiral of decline before returning to Iran in 1988.

Her observations on the admittedly outré counter-culture European students, and her own actions as she grows to full womanhood would indicate that even the most excessive and extreme past experience can still offer a dangerously seductive nostalgia when faced with the bizarre concept of too much freedom too soon. When she returns to her homeland her adult life under the regime of the Ayatollah is still a surprisingly less-than-total condemnation than we westerners, with our agenda-slanted news media, would probably expect. The book concludes with her decision to move permanently to Europe in 1994.

The burgeoning field of autobiographical graphic novels is a valuable outreach resource for an industry desperately seeking to entice new audiences to convert to our product. As long as subject matter doesn’t overpower content and style, and we can offer examples such as Persepolis to the seekers, we should be making real headway.

© Marjane Satrapi 2004. Translation © 2004 Anjali Singh.

 

By Marjane Satrapi (Jonathan Cape 2003)
ISBN: 0-224-06440-1

The image of a child, the stylings of a child, the remembrances of a child have a captivating power to enthrall adults. Marjane Satrapi grew up during the Fundamentalist revolution that toppled the Shah of Iran and replaced him with an Islamic theocracy. She chose to relate incidents from her life with the stark direct drawings and sharp, unleavened voice of a child. Her simple, direct reportage owes as much to Anne Frank as Art Spiegleman when she relates the incidents that shaped her life and her identity as a thinking female in a society that increasing seemed to frown on that sort of thing.

Persepolis is the kind of graphic novel that casual and intellectual readers love, focusing on the content of the message and decrying or at best ignoring the technical skill and craft of the medium that conveys it. Yet graphic narrative is as much an art form of craft and thought as it is the dustbin of sophomoric genre stereotypes that many critics relegate it to. Satrapi has created a work that is powerful and engaging, but in a sorry twist of reality, it is one that comics fans, and not the general public have to be convinced to read.

© Marjane Satrapi 2003.