I picked up a copy of Peter Kuper’s graphic novel adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness for a few reasons. I’m a fan of Kuper’s work, which I admire for its ability to express strong emotions in a terrifying way, which seemed fitting for this project. I’ve read Conrad’s novella and appreciate many things about it, including its unique framing structure. And Apocalypse Now, which was inspired by Conrad’s book, is one of my favorite movies. I found this retelling riveting, spooky, and considered. I guess that last word is sort of a strange thing to say, but Kuper’s version brought something new to the material for me. Perhaps it was the illustrated strife between natives and invaders, or the intensity of this Kurtz’s having “gone native,” or maybe it was the monstrous depiction of what happens to one when one travels far enough up the river. Either way, I loved it.
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I read Dave Cooper’s Mudbite some years ago, lost my copy, and so I was happy to find it again and reread it. I love Dave’s work! It’s so insane. Mudbite is especially fun because it contains two stories that you read by flipping the book back and around. It’s hard to pick a favorite between “Mud River” and “Bug Bite.” The former, starring Eddy Table, who I love so much I have a figurine of him on my desk, is probably my favorite; little Eddy’s bottom ride on the lady is just so hilarious! But the latter had me literally loling, too, with its crazy twists and turns and creepy critters. Anyway, this book is a two-for-one that will make a Cooper devotee out of anyone.
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Art Spiegelman’s Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*! is perfect for those who want to remind themselves that a masterpiece starts as something less than that. A reprint, with an expansive new introduction, of work published early in his career, this collection contains the seeds of what will become the author’s greatest work: Maus. From a one-page strip version of Maus to the arresting “Prisoner on the Hell Planet” in which he grapples with his mother’s suicide, these are the experimental steps that were required for Spiegelman to create the first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize. Oversized, colorful, dazzling.
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Although I was aware of Hilma af Klint’s work, I didn’t know much about her until I read The Five Lives of Hilma af Klint by Philipp Deines. The oversized book features five chapters of visual biography of the artist’s life, from her privileged upbringing to her spiritual journey to her secret queerness. I recommend this book to anyone who is an artist, who wants to feel inspired by a woman who wasn’t “discovered” until long after her death.
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I decided I was only going to read books with pictures in them this year, but I made an exception for David Lynch’s Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity. It’s such a special, delightful, inspiring book. Narrative is irrelevant. Making sense is beside the point. What you get out of it is what you bring to it. This assemblage of fragments, stories, and word pictures combine into a coherent consideration of how to think about life, art, and craft. My favorite part is when he talks about Mulholland Drive’s box and key and says, “I don’t have a clue what those are.” The truth is something greater, less tangible. I loved this book.
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I hoped I’d like SFSX (Safe Sex) Volume 1 by Tina Horn because there was a lot to like here: the San Francisco Bay Area where I grew up, an exploration of a futuristic world in which kink is pathologized, a peek at what’s behind the walls of Kink.com. But the enterprise fell flat. The story lacked a central character with depth and nuance with which I could connect. I also felt like the attempts to psychoanalyze the whys behind kink were underdeveloped, as if declaring oneself pro-kink was enough. A comic should be more than a political statement; it should be a narrative into which one can get swept up. So not a hit for me.
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I loved Chantal Montellier’s Social Fiction. It’s a feminist 1984, a dark vision of the search for love in the midst of a dystopia, a collection of comics in which being human is a crime and death lurks around every corner. Despite the bleak subject matter, Montellier’s dynamic art rockets through time and captures the beauty of what perseverance looks like when independent thought and freedom have been criminalized.
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I loved Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic the first time I read it, and probably more so this time. There’s a lot to which to relate: being raised by parents better at intellectualizing than parenting, growing up in a house with a chilly atmosphere due to faulty marital underpinnings, discovering the lone way with which to connect to a parent is through books. One thing Bechdel does particularly well is refusing neat characterizations: of people, of motives, of the truth. Over and over again, she insists upon putting the contradictions on the page, of interrogating her own narrative. This book is brilliant. I love it.
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It’s probably been 25 years since I first read Scott McCloud’s Reinventing Comics. Having recently reread his Understanding Comics, I was curious to see how the sequel read all these years later. While some of the technical references are stuck in 2000, the fundamental ideas are as invigorating and stimulating as ever. What surprised me was how little comics have evolved in the way McCloud suggested they might—at least to this point. In fact, the opposite seems to have happened. Mostly, the dynamic picturescape McCloud foresaw has been the dominion of gaming. Meanwhile, comics have been born again in a new upcropping of brick-and-mortar stores that folks like me enjoy frequenting to buy printed comics over which we pore to be transported into interactive worlds that exist only in our own minds. A thought-provoking read!
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Ducks by Kate Beaton is a graphic memoir about the author’s experiences working in the Canadian oil sands. The art is simple, the dialogue is spare, and the story follows a straightforward track as Beaton moves through various work locations and circumstances. I wanted to like this book and respect all Beaton went through, but the images, tone, and delivery fell flat. Maybe it’s a Canadian thing? The most harrowing parts—in which Beaton is sexually assaulted—were underdeveloped. For me, this was a miss.
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I’ve read Lynda Barry’s One! Hundred! Demons! before, but I wanted to read it again because I find it so inspiring. My first encounters with Barry’s work were with Ernie Pook’s Comeek, and I’ve been a fan ever since. I love One! Hundred! Demons! for a variety of reasons: the work is beautiful, the stories are moving, the message is about persevering regardless of what anyone else’s thinks or what happens to you. My favorite strips in this series are the ones focusing on her childhood, how maligned she was yet kept insisting that she might one day have something to say. I read this slowly so I could savor how precious these artworks are.
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This year, I decided to read only books with pictures. In February, I read seven books. (You can find those books and my short reviews here.) My favorite book was Mimi Pond’s Over Easy, a fascinating look at a San Francisco Bay Area diner scene of days past. My least favorite was Manu Larcenet’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, which was a disservice to the source material and narratively disjointed.
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I’ve read Julie Doucet’s work before and liked it, but My Most Secret Desire didn’t quite work for me. It is very strange, and I like strange, but this book is primarily a series of renderings of freaky dreams. Dreams in which she has a penis or is pregnant with something weird or odd people do frightening things. Is this the female unconscious or just chaos? I felt it leaned heavily into grotesque without any accompanying insight.
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I don’t usually read superhero comics, but I picked up The Saga of the Swamp Thing 2 and then realized I needed to read The Saga of the Swamp Thing 1 first. I chose this series because I was dazzled by the art and also because I’m aware that Alan Moore is considered a comic book god. I liked parts of Book 1—I mean, it’s weird as fuck—but the story feels fragmented, and I think I had a hard time having an emotional connection with a plant, aka The Swamp Thing, which, by his (its?) own admission, is what he is. Anyway, I can never follow these action driven plots with so many characters. A mixed bag experience for me, I guess.
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