{"id":28588,"date":"2023-09-06T08:00:10","date_gmt":"2023-09-06T08:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=28588"},"modified":"2023-09-06T10:18:51","modified_gmt":"2023-09-06T10:18:51","slug":"flood-a-novel-in-pictures-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2023\/09\/06\/flood-a-novel-in-pictures-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Flood! – A Novel in Pictures"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Eric Drooker<\/strong> (Dark Horse)
\nISBN: 978-1-61655-729-4 (HB) 978-1-59307-676-4(PB)<\/p>\n

Far too infrequently in comics (and everywhere else) something truly different, graphically outstanding and able to subvert or redirect our medium\u2019s established forms comes along. Generally, when it does, we usually ignore it whilst whining that there\u2019s nothing fresh or new in view.<\/p>\n

Happily that\u2019s not what happened with Eric Drooker\u2019s Flood! <\/strong>– A Novel in Pictures<\/strong> when it was first released in 1992. A New York City native, he\u2019s a profound and legendary left-leaning activist, thinker and creator of street art who attended Downtown Community School in the East Village and studied sculpture at Cooper Union before becoming a designer and illustrator.<\/p>\n

His covers for The New Yorker<\/strong> are unforgettable, as are his ferociously expressive, eye-catching pieces in The Wall Street Journal<\/strong>, Heavy Metal<\/strong> and World War 3 Illustrated<\/strong>. His drawings and paintings – especially from his far too few graphic novels – were used in videos for Faith No More<\/strong><\/em> and Rage Against the Machine<\/strong><\/em>. His animated film Howl<\/strong> was the culmination of extensive collaboration with poet Allen Ginsberg (Illuminated Poems<\/strong>, Howl: a Graphic Novel<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

Drooker\u2019s political stance and creative influences make his pictorial narratives (like Blood Song: a Silent Ballad<\/strong>) both contentious and greatly favoured by a readership ranging far beyond the usually cloistered and comfortable confines of the traditional comics community.<\/p>\n

He won an American Book Award, Inkpot and Firecracker Award, and the artwork for Flood!<\/strong> has been inducted into the Prints & Photographs Division of the American Library of Congress.<\/p>\n

Drawing on his earliest influences and following the Depression Era-traditions of artists and printmakers such as Frans Masreel, Lynd Ward, Otto Nuckel and Giacomo Patri, Drooker\u2019s first graphic novel<\/a> was produced in linocuts and spot-colour: three discrete section chapters created between 1986 and 1992. You only need to look at the news to see that the subject matter has never been more immediate or telling\u2026<\/p>\n

These symbolic, spine-tingling observations and tumultuous progressions are generally dispensed without words as lone protagonists – or perhaps alienated, excluded victims – struggle to survive and find meaning in a world that just don\u2019t care. The Man in View restlessly moves past centres of employment that shut down when you\u2019re not looking, trudging cold, mean, directionless streets and alleys at the bottom of canyon-like skyscrapers or riding bleak subways while the pitiless skies look down and just keep spitting more and more rain\u2026<\/p>\n

Following a damning indictment of the modern world and warning of the social apocalypse to come from Luc Sante in his trenchant Introduction<\/em>, the journey into oblivion begins with \u2018Home<\/em>\u2019 <\/em>as a simple worker discovers he\u2019s no longer wanted. Slowly making his way back to the little he still possesses, he witnesses the city and his life in a new way\u2026<\/p>\n

That peregrination takes him below the city in \u2018L<\/em>\u2019<\/em>: into the tunnels trains share with lost, abandoned and forgotten people who have been reduced to their most primal elements\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2018Flood<\/em>\u2019 <\/em>then brings us to a lonely garret where an artist and his cat toil to finish a treasured prospective masterpiece while the waters rise all around them. The deluge is here and everything\u2019s about to change forever\u2026<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time for one final excursion out into the submerging city\u2026<\/p>\n

This is a disturbing parable of immense depth and potency; made all the more effective by Drooker\u2019s intense visualisations. We all know the consummate power of images over words, but they also impart greater liberty as the reader\u2019s mind is free to attribute as much meaning to the narrative as their own experiences will allow. The result is sheer poetry – and what\u2019s increasingly looking like prophecy\u2026<\/p>\n

Flood! – A Novel in Pictures<\/strong> is in its fourth edition now; the latest from Dark Horse being a deluxe (167 x 235 mm) hardback in black-&-blue-&-white which includes a revelatory conversation with the artist as first seen in Comics Journal<\/strong> as a much longer \u2018Interview with Eric Drooker<\/em>\u2019<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Conducted by Chris Lanier and supplemented with a superabundant wealth of sketches, full pages, roughs and illustrations it adds great insight to what has gone before and sets us up nicely for Drooker\u2019s even more impressive follow-up second work – Blood Song: a Silent Ballad<\/strong>. At the moment neither is available in digital editions but hope, like great art and timeless stories, springs eternal\u2026<\/p>\n

Terrifying, lovely and irresistibly evocative, this is a nightmare vision you must see and will always remember.
\nText and illustrations of Flood! – A Novel in Pictures \u00a9 1992, 2002, 2007, 2015 Eric Drooker. All rights reserved. Introduction \u00a9 2001 Luc Sante. Comics Journal interview used with permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Eric Drooker (Dark Horse) ISBN: 978-1-61655-729-4 (HB) 978-1-59307-676-4(PB) Far too infrequently in comics (and everywhere else) something truly different, graphically outstanding and able to subvert or redirect our medium\u2019s established forms comes along. Generally, when it does, we usually ignore it whilst whining that there\u2019s nothing fresh or new in view. Happily that\u2019s not … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Flood! – A Novel in Pictures”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[81,255,105,111],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-books","category-environmentalism","category-mature-reading","category-satirepolitics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-7r6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28588"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28590,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28588\/revisions\/28590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}