Review: It Was the War of the Trenches

It Was the War of the Trenches, by Jacques Tardi, 2010, Fantagraphics, 120 pages, $24.99

This is a series of short stories about French soldiers during World War I.  It is the third book by French artist Jacques Tardi that Fantagraphics has translated and published in the U.S.  The first was West Coast Blues, a crime story about an everyman on the run from two hitmen that I quite liked.  The second was the surreal farce You Are There.  And due out in September is The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec: Pterror Over Paris / The Eiffel Tower Demon, released to coincide with the new Luc Besson-directed movie.  This one seems to be a very personal work, one that occupied a large chunk of Tardi's time (it was begun in 1982 and completed in 1993).

A quick and easy way to get a handle on the book can be found in the fact that the two blurbs on the back cover are from Art Spiegelman and Joe Sacco.  The book reminds me of Spiegelman's work because it draws from a similar well of aggressive unpleasantness: Spiegelman calls it a "devastating crater of a work . . . a kaleidoscope of war's dehumanizing brutality."  The book also is impeccably researched and puts the reader into the shoes of the soldiers in the war, not unlike how Sacco's non-fiction investigations unearth all of the buried details of his chosen topics: Sacco says that "it can be compared to the work of the artists who actually served in the trenches."

Everybody dies in this book.  It's sad, gory, brutal, depressing, visceral, and overwhelming.  It brings those poor soldiers back to life and, instead of celebrating any victories or glorifying any heroic acts, just shoots them in the gut all over again and leaves them to die in the mud and filth of no man's land.

It's an impressive work of art that floods the reader with a feeling of hopelessness.  How Tardi managed this feat without having participated in the first world war is really quite amazing.  It is worth reading.

READ MORE: Here is a ten-page excerpt, Tardi's foreword, and a video/slideshow preview.  Here is Tom Spurgeon's interview of publisher, editor, and translator Kim Thompson, and here is an Inkstuds podcast interview of Thompson.

BUY IT: From Fantagraphics here or from Amazon here: It Was the War of the Trenches

RELATED: My posts on other books published by Fantagraphics:

• All and Sundry, by Paul Hornschemeier
• Billy Hazelnuts, by Tony Millionaire
  
• Blazing Combat, by Archie Goodwin and many others
  
• Bottomless Belly Button, by Dash Shaw
• Chance in Hell, by Gilbert Hernandez
• Ganges #2, by Kevin Huizenga
• The Lagoon, by Lilli Carré
• Love and Rockets: New Stories #1, by Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez
• The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book, by Joe Daly
• West Coast Blues, by Jacques Tardi

Disclaimer: Fantagraphics sent me a review copy of this book.

Review: On the Odd Hours

On the Odd Hours, by Eric Liberge, 2010, NBM, 72 pages, $14.95

This is the third in a series of comic books that NBM has co-published with the Louvre museum (the first was Nicolas De Crecy's Glacial Period; the second was Marc-Antoine Mathieu's Museum Vaults, which I thought was fantastic and reviewed here; forthcoming books include Bernard Yslaire and Jean-Claude Carrière's The Sky Over the Louvre and a book by Hirohiko Araki). After Museum Vaults, I was really looking forward to reading On the Odd Hours. Unfortunately, it did not live up to my expectations. It's not terrible or anything -- there are actually two very neat ideas in here, and Liberge surely gets points for trying something different -- but problems with the story, the storytelling and the coloring seriously hampered my enjoyment of the book.

The story is about a young deaf punk named Bastien who stumbles into the role of being the night guard at the Louvre.  The first neat idea in the book is that the art comes to life during the "odd hours" of the night, and only Bastien and his mentor-predecessor know how to communicate with it and treat it properly.

For the most part, the plot follows a fairly standard trajectory:  Bastien is asked by the current "guardian of the odd hours" to become his apprentice, Bastien sees some of the art come to life and (sort of) rejects his new calling, Bastien's life falls apart, Bastien accepts his position as the new guardian, and the artwork accepts him and all appears to be well.  Add in that Bastien starts out an angry person who can't control his temper, but grows to become a better person as he finds his place in the world, and you could have a tidy little story.

But Bastien's personality issues are not actually resolved at the same time that he accepts his position; he ends up lashing out, hitting a patron of the museum, and getting fired.  Bastien then uses (abuses?) his new powers to let all of the spirits of the artwork out of the museum so that they fill Paris with strangeness, startling everyone and forcing his boss at the museum to re-hire him and give him room and board at the museum so that Bastien will bring the spirits back inside.  It's an awkward fourth act that takes up a significant chunk of the book, and it makes it seem as though Bastien hasn't actually grown at all -- he's still kind of an ass, but now he's a more powerful ass.

Aside from the plot, I had other problems with the book. The coloring somehow manages to be both psychedelic and unrelentingly dull. It's as though the comic has been placed at the bottom of a puddle that has a sheen of oil coating it, so that every page has weird rainbow colors floating on top of a dim gray-green color. I could understand if this technique was only used during the scenes when the artwork came to life -- it would accentuate the fantastical events and set them off from the rest of the book. Unfortunately, the entire book is colored this way, which both diminishes the impact of those scenes AND doesn't help with the somewhat confusing storytelling.  Here's one example:

Now that you've looked at the coloring, take a second look at the placement of the captions on that page.  Notice how several of the captions intrude on other panels?  If used properly, this lettering technique can connect a sequence of panels, so that a reader's eye looks at Panel A, sees the caption from Panel B breaking the borders of Panel A, read the caption, and then looks at Panel B.  Unfortunately, in this book many captions connect two panels that are not meant to be read one after the other (Panels A and C, for instance).

Below, I've added green arrows that show you the correct way to read the page, while the red arrows show you an incorrect sequence that at first appears to be correct because of the placement of the text boxes (click to enlarge):

On a single page, there are at least four places where the eye could be led astray by the text boxes.  The layout is already fairly complex, and this problem really makes it difficult to follow.  This occurs throughout the book, and hurts the storytelling.

I did say that there were two neat ideas here, however.  The second neat idea in the book is how it shows deaf characters using sign language:

This is a technique that I have never seen before, and it is really quite cool.

The idea that art comes to life during those dead times of the night when most people are asleep, that art needs to be listened to -- I like that idea. Unfortunately, this book flunks the execution. I'll still look forward to any future books in this series, but I'll try to keep my expectations a little lower.

READ MORE: Here is a three-page excerpt.

BUY IT: From Amazon here: On the Odd Hours

RELATED: My reviews of other comic books published by NBM:

• Give It Up!, by Peter Kuper
• Mijeong, by Byun Byung-Jun
• Museum Vaults, by Marc-Antoine Mathieu
• Nocturnal Conspiracies, by David B.

Disclaimer: This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.

Reading Riel #2: One Cover and Two Maps

This is the second in a series of posts about Chester Brown's Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography.  Click here to see all of the posts in this series.

Now that I've gotten the introduction to this series of posts out of the way, let's dig in to the real meat of this book: the cover!

That's the cover to the 2006 softcover collection over there.  I've got a few thoughts about it.  First, it's a nice, striking image, simple yet dynamic.  Second, it's the first time we see Riel, and it presents him in a somewhat ambiguous light: is he defiantly facing the oncoming storm, or do I detect a bit of fear or concern in his posture?  And his cloak and scarf are swept back behind him by the wind, looking almost like the cape of a superhero.  Third, this might be a preview of the setting for this story.  It's going to be outdoors in the wilderness, and cold.  Canada, baby.  Fourth, there is some heavy symbolism going on here.  A storm's a-brewin', and Riel has nowhere to hide from it. Trouble is on its way, and although he sees it coming, he might not be completely prepared for it.  He's also alone on a rocky mountaintop.  This does not bode well for our hero.  One final thought: the hardcover version is black-and-white, while my softcover version adds that nice golden color.  I like the color (especially the very subtle difference in shade between Riel and the mountain-top), which really makes the image pop.  The color is also used on the spine for the title and author, set against that dark gray background, which really helps the book catch the eye when it's on your shelf.  Smart design choice.

All right, I think I'm ready to open the book.  And in case I didn't know that this book was a critical darling, the first thing I see are five pages chock-full of glowing quotes from various publications, along with the following statements: NOMINATED FOR EISNER, IGNATZ, AND LIBRIS AWARDS.  WINNER OF TWO HARVEY AWARDS: BEST WRITER AND BEST GRAPHIC ALBUM OF PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED WORK.  Yup, I can say now that I have HIGH expectations for this book.

We also get a page listing Brown's other books: Ed the Happy Clown (1989), The Playboy (1992), I Never Liked You (1994), and The Little Man (1998).  If you've read any of these, I'd be happy to hear your opinion of them in the comments.  Also, since Louis Riel ended its serialization back in 2003, I wonder what Brown has been working on recently.  Anyone know?

Next comes a foreword, written and hand-lettered by Chester Brown.  I like the decision to hand letter the foreword.  Nice move for a book that is both a serious literary work AND a comic.  Brown notes that the book includes both an index and a bibliography (again: serious work here, don't you forget it).

He also gives us two keys to the book, one about the story and one about the art.  First, he tells us that he isn't going to deal with Riel's entire life, but has instead "mostly concentrated on Riel's antagonistic relationship with the Canadian government . . . ."  Sounds like a smart decision, since trying to construct a dramatic narrative out of a person's life is always a difficult task.  Focusing on a particularly important conflict will give a nice arc to the story.  The second key is that while he loves Hergé (The Adventures of Tintin), his "main visual inspiration" was Harold Gray's Little Orphan Annie:

(click to enlarge)

Interesting, and certainly something to keep in mind as I write about the book.  Maybe I'll spend a future post going into how the art in Louis Riel draws from Little Orphan Annie.

And after the forward comes two maps!  I admit it, I'm a sucker for maps.  If you asked me to choose between two books that I had never heard of, and one had maps in the front and one didn't, the one with the maps has a definite edge.

The first map is of Northern North America in 1869, and shows how the land was divided up into "Land that Britain claims to own," "Rupert's Land -- which the Hudson's Bay Company claims to own," "Canada," and "The United States of America."  It also includes a caption that gives a little history of Rupert's Land.  It's nuts to realize that a fur-trading company used to control a huge swath of what is now Canada.  What, doesn't Canada have spices or particularly nice silk?  Finally, the map points out that the location of the "Red River Settlement," the U.S. city of Pembina, and the Canadian cities of Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto.

What's particularly interesting about this map is that it helps to set up what I expect are some of the conflicts in the story.  First, it's clear that who controls the land is going to be important.  There is a lot of land here that is not listed as "Britain's land" or "Hudson's Bay land," but only land that those two entities claim to own.  My guess is that those claims will be disputed.  It also shows us the distance between the main Canadian cities and the Red River Settlement.  Since I already know Riel was out on the western frontier of Canada and rebelled against the Canadian government, it's neat to see this issue depicted spatially.  Of course he's going to  rebel -- he's way out there on the frontier!  How could they hope to control that area back in 1869?  And don't they know that "he who controls the furs controls the universe"?

Here's map 2:

(click to enlarge)

This map isn't as detailed as I would normally like, but, like the first map, it's helping to set up a major conflict in the book: there are English parishes and French parishes in the Red River Settlement, and I'm thinking that those two groups didn't get along so well.  There also the little line of a river winding down to the U.S.A. and Pembria, and a "Stone Fort."  Perhaps, significant?  Just maybe...

Thus, in addition to orienting us by showing us where the action is going to happen, Brown has already given us a lot of information about the sort of political and social problems that the book will be dealing with, and in the space of only two pages, simply by using hand-drawn maps and captions.  These two pages are a nice example of the power of the comic book medium to effectively and efficiently communicate ideas.

NEXT: Onward to Part One of the book!

FURTHER READING: Here is the Wikipedia entry for Chester Brown.  Did you know that "in September 2008, Brown entered politics as the Libertarian Party of Canada's candidate for the riding of Trinity-Spadina in the 2008 federal election."  What's a "riding," you ask?  A Canadian electoral district, silly!  (No, I didn't know either.)

BUY IT: From Drawn & Quarterly here or from Amazon here: Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography

Reading Riel #1

Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography, by Chester Brown, softcover collection published in 2006, Drawn & Quarterly, 280 pages, $17.95

Let's try something a little different here: I'm going to read Chester Brown's Louis Riel and write a series of posts as I read it.  My goal is to dig deeper into: (1) the story; (2) the art; and (3) why I am or am not enjoying it.

Also, I'm not going to presume anything, but if anyone feels like reading along with me (whether you've read this before or not), go for it.  Weigh in with a comment.  Maybe we can get a little book club-type discussion going.  I'll bring the stinky cheese plate if you bring the margarita mix.

But before I get into the book proper, I thought I should tell you what I know about it, so that you have a sense of what sort of baggage I am carrying with me as I embark on this project.

First, I'm embarrassed to admit that I know next-to-nothing about Chester Brown.  He's the author of the long-running series Yummy Fur, which I have not read.  And he's Canadian.  That's all I know, unfortunately.  But hey, that's one reason why I sought this book out.  Gotta start somewhere.

Next, here is what I know about Louis Riel: zip.  I'd never heard of him before hearing about this book.  From the back of the book, I know that he helped to lead a rebellion on the western frontier of Canada back in the 1800s.  It sounds like he is a pretty important figure in Canada's history, and as with Chester Brown, I feel like I should know more about him.  Sadly, my history classes here in the United States never covered him, to the extent that they acknowledged the existence of Canada at all.

As for the book, I know that it's considered one of the best comics of the 00s by many critics and reviewers.  It was originally serialized from the late 90s through the early 00s, and collected into hardcover in 2004.  (That's why  I completely missed it and only learned about it recently: like many people, I quit reading comics for the most part from around 1996 through 2006.)  It was published by art/literary comics publisher Drawn & Quarterly, which is pretty much a surefire stamp of quality.  Note: D&Q is a Canadian publisher.  I would guess that D&Q considers this acclaimed book, by a Canadian about a famous Canadian historical figure, as the jewel in its crown.

So that's what I know.  Unless you have already read this book, you are probably in the same boat as I am.  Let's all LEARN together.

NEXT: I talk about the cover and the introductory material in the book.  Exciting, right?  You will be able to find all my posts on Louis Riel here.  (Thanks to Tom Spurgeon for that idea.)

READ MORE: Here are the first six pages, and here is an interview with Brown about the book.  Also, a lot has been written about this book, but after I'm done with it the first place I'm going is over here, where comic critics Jeet Heer and Tom Spurgeon discuss the book.

BUY IT: From Drawn & Quarterly here or from Amazon here: Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography

Short Reviews: Jan's Atomic Heart; West Coast Blues; Refresh, Refresh; and Give It Up!

Here are four quick reviews of comic books that I read recently:

1) Jan's Atomic Heart, by Simon Roy, 2009, New Reliable Press, 56 pages, $5.95

Tucker Stone's review alerted me to the existence of this book, and I went to SPX on the lookout for it. It's about a guy in the future whose consciousness has been placed in a robot body while his real body recovers from a car accident. Unfortunately for him, the robot body has some hidden problems. It's a fun, fast read, and Roy's art is great. He does an excellent job creating an beat-up near-future, and his story is engaging and has an interesting mood to it. I'm looking forward to his next project.

Here are the first twenty-two pages of the book. Here is an interview with Roy on the Inkstuds podcast and another interview at Comic Book Resources (it also has a long excerpt).

You can buy it from New Reliable Press or from Heavy Ink.


2) West Coast Blues, by Jacques Tardi, adapted from the novel by Jean-Patrick Manchette, 2009, Fantagraphics, 80 pages, $18.99

This French noir comic is about two hitmen targeting an average shmoe. He's married with kids and a boring job, spending his vacation at a crowded beach, and all of a sudden two dudes in Speedos are trying to drown him. There's some good humor, like the hitmen's inability to find their mark as he wanders around Paris, and some grisly violence. It's nothing revolutionary; just a well-crafted piece of genre entertainment. I dug it.

Here is a ten-page excerpt, and here's Jog's review of the book.

You can buy it from from Fantagraphics or from Amazon here: West Coast Blues

Disclaimer: This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.

3) Refresh, Refresh, by Danica Novgorodoff, adapted from the screenplay by James Ponsoldt, based on the short story by Benjamin Percy, 2009, First Second, 144 pages, $17.99

I didn't read Novgorodoff's first graphic novel, Slow Storm, which was apparently about a firefighter and an illegal immigrant in a small town in Kentucky dealing with a tornado's impact. This one is about three boys in a small town in Oregon dealing with their fathers leaving to fight in Iraq. It's a solid story, and Novgorodoff's straightforward art is a good fit. One particularly interesting character is the local armed forces recruiter, a young vet who also has to deliver the news to the town's families when their loved ones have died in Iraq. That's some serious internal conflict right there. My only issue with the book was that it was a little predictable. I mean, it's about three boys hoping to hear from their fathers, and being forced to grow up too quickly while they wait for the dads to return. What do you think is going to happen? Other than that, it's good.

Here is an eleven-page excerpt. Here is an interview with Novgorodoff about the book.

You can buy it from the publisher or from Amazon here: Refresh, Refresh

Disclaimer: This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.


4) Give It Up! and other short stories by Franz Kafka, by Peter Kuper, 1995, NBM, 64 pages, $15.95

A friend from work lent me this after I mentioned that I liked comics; it's very interesting to consider that something like this might be this person's only exposure to comics. Anyway, Peter Kuper adapts a bunch of short stories by the fun-loving Franz Kafka, and lots of yuks result. Just kidding, lots of powerless people are beaten down by society, government, and other powerful people. I mean, look at that cover (taken from an interior image). That's a cop with a gun barrel nose, telling our lost protagonist that no, he won't give him directions. Yikes. Kuper obviously loves the source material (he later adapted Kafka's The Metamorphosis) and his style is perfect for it. The art and tone of the book kind of reminded me of Art Spiegelman's Prisoner on the Hell Planet, by the way. This originally came out in 1995, but it looks like NBM recently republished it in softcover.

Here is a four-page excerpt and here's another excerpt.

You can buy it from NBM or from Amazon here: Give It Up! and other short stories by Franz Kafka

Disclaimer: Fantagraphics sent me a copy of West Coast Blues, and First Second sent me a copy of Refresh, Refresh.

Review: Britten and Brülightly

Britten and Brülightly, by Hannah Berry, 2009, Metropolitan Books, 112 pages, $20

This noir mystery starring a depressed private investigator first caught my eye with its distinctive, stylish art. The story holds its own, however, making this one of the most enjoyable comic books that I have read this year.

Drenched in rain and secrets, Britten and Brülightly tells of "researcher" Fernández Britten's efforts to crack the case of the dead fiancé: the police say suicide, Britten's client believes it was murder, and so Britten is off to hunt down clues scattered across 1940s England, accompanied by his partner Stewart Brülightly.

This is twenty-five year old English author Hannah Berry's first book, but it sure doesn't feel that way. The writing is assured, with character, dialogue, and plot all working together to drive the mystery along. Berry even throws in some light comedy, mostly through the wisecracks of Brülightly, who -- did I mention this? -- is a teabag that resides in Britten's pocket. It's an off-the-wall idea, but it somehow works; Brülightly's existence gives us a little more insight into the workings of Britten's mind, gives Britten someone to bounce ideas off of, and marks this book as something more than your average genre piece.

(click to enlarge)

And Britten is quite an interesting character. Berry has said the following about him: "Often in noir the hero is hard-bitten but manages to wear it on his shoulders like a lead mantle. I quite like the idea of having a character that was eventually broken down, if not unhinged, by events. Hopefully it’s given him a more fallible, human face." That certainly comes across, and he does feel like a human, a person, as opposed to either a blank slate or a bundle of detective clichés. Plus, he's fascinating to look at, with those dark circles around his eyes and that huge schnozz.

Berry's art really is terrific. I got a real feeling of the shapes inside of the people and things in her drawings, wearing their slightly cartoony outer shells. Plus the colors are beautiful and help to contribute to the overall tone of "dour foreboding," as Berry called it.

(click to enlarge)

That's just a gorgeous painting, if you ask me. Berry also does some fun things with form, like on the page below:

She could have drawn the bottom shot in one big panel instead of slicing it into three panels, but this way she can show that the conversation is taking place over time through the almost imperceptible movements of the people in the scene (notice the waiter walking through all three panels, and the one customer who moves his head slightly?). That's just neat, smart comic-booking.

Or on this next page, where she shows Britten's taxi ride from the city to the country from his viewpoint in the four panels in the center row, all four linked by the wispy, foggy streaks from looking out through the glass window:

(click to enlarge)

Good stuff.

It seems like once a year a comic from Britain washes ashore that is both a wonderful book and is totally unlike anything else. Last year it was Tamara Drewe. This year, it's Britten and Brülightly. I highly recommend this book.

Want more? Here is a twelve-page preview, and an eight-page preview, and that interview with Berry from June of 2008 that I mentioned above.

Buy it from the publisher here or from Amazon here: Britten and Brülightly

Related:

• My review of another book published by Metropolitan Books: Ari Folman and David Polonsky's Waltz with Bashir
• My review of Posy Simmonds's Tamara Drewe

Disclaimer: This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.

Review: Second Thoughts

Second Thoughts, by Niklas Asker, 2009, Top Shelf, 80 pages, $9.95

Swedish artist Niklas Asker's first graphic novel is a quiet book about floundering relationships that harbors an intriguing message about the impact of people's choices upon their lives.

This slim book features a young writer named Jess and a young photographer named John, both living in London and both unhappy with their girlfriends.

I won't get into it more than that because I don't want to spoil anything, but I should point out that the book is certainly more than just another angsty, youthful twenty-somethings trying to figure out their lives kind of thing (although it might appear that way at first). The book's seemingly simple plot actually contains a slyly-executed twist that adds an extra layer of meaning to the story.

(click to enlarge)

Asker's black-and-white art compliments his story well. He does a couple of interesting things messing around with perspective, but for the most part the art is straightforward and unassuming, allowing the characters and the story to be the focus.

(click to enlarge)

I'd also like to point out that I love the cover. It's a fantastic design, and in real life the colors are slightly warmer than on the computer, so the piece conveys a really interesting mood. It's quite eye-catching. Asker definitely has artistic chops -- his illustration work displayed on his website includes some really cool stuff:

(click to enlarge)

I wouldn't mind seeing him really let loose on his next book -- he has the imagination and talent to really pull off something fantastic. But if you are in the mood for a story with understated art and an interesting idea executed well, check this one out.

There is a lot of material out there if you want to learn more about this book. Here are the first fourteen pages, and you can follow the development of the book at the Second Thoughts blog. You also might be interested in Asker's blog, which provides an interesting window into the world of a working comic book creator in Sweden. And finally, here's an article on publisher Top Shelf's relationship with the Swedish comics scene.

You can buy this book from Top Shelf here or from Amazon here: Second Thoughts

------
Related: My reviews of other Top Shelf comic books:

• Jeff Lemire's Essex County volume 3: The Country Nurse
  
• James Kochalka's Johnny Boo: The Best Little Ghost in the World and Johnny Boo: Twinkle Power
  

Disclaimer: This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.

Review: The Museum Vaults: Excerpts from the Journal of an Expert

The Museum Vaults: Excerpts from the Journal of an Expert, by Marc-Antoine Mathieu, 2008, NBM, 62 pages, $14.95

Whenever I visit a museum, I get distressed by my inability to see everything on display. I simply do not have the time and energy to take it all in. Do I spend time in each room, reading about every piece of art on the wall, or do I race from room to room to try to see as much as possible? By the end of my day at the museum, I'm typically exhausted and ready to head home, and have only seen a fraction of the museum.

But what if I had nothing else to do for the rest of my life but explore the museum? Would that feeling of being overwhelmed ever dissipate? Could I catalog and internalize it all?

Marc-Antoine Mathieu's excellent The Museum Vaults is part of a comic book collection co-published in France by Futuropolis and the Louvre museum. The other books in the series are Nicolas De Crécy's Glacial Period, Éric Liberge's Odd Hours, and Bernard Yslaire and Jean-Claude Carrière's The Sky Over the Louvre. NBM has published Glacial Period and The Museum Vaults in English; hopefully the others are coming soon. The collection was produced as part of the Louvre's exhibition on comic books that will run until April 13, 2009. (Thanks to Heidi MacDonald at The Beat for the link.)

The story concerns Monsieur Volumer, an expert tasked with evaluating and indexing the collections of a museum so ancient that the original name has been forgotten. Volumer, accompanied by his assistant Leonard, soon learns that the subbasement area housing the collections is enormous almost beyond comprehension. As his days underground become months and then years, Volumer visits room after room filled with the odds and ends of the museum, always learning, searching, and cataloging.

Each chapter opens with a splash page and a caption stating the name of the particular location and how long Volumer has been underground ("Day Thirty-Three: Technical Galleries"; "Day Forty-Six: The Flooded Gallery"; and so on). A helpful staff member typically appears to guide Volumer through the gallery and explain what makes that room unique and important. In the scene excerpted below, Volumer (in the hat) examines "The Repository for Molds," located in the eighth subbasement, on Day Two Hundred Twelve of his journey:

(click to enlarge)

This is one spooky museum, if you ask me. Thank goodness each area contains a member of the staff to show Volumer around. Because of the style of the art and the oppressive, dark setting, I almost wondered if Hellboy was going to pop up. But we never meet an antagonist, never encounter any dangerous beasties -- this place is just huge, like an ancient wonder of the world, something beyond the ken of modern men and women. That in and of itself is kind of terrifying.

The art does a terrific job of conveying the scope, as well -- some of these underground chambers are stories tall. Here is one of my favorites:

(click to enlarge)

Volumer learns that the eye "constitutes but one part of an ensemble the size of which we cannot fathom. The fragments stored in the storage areas 11 and 12 correspond to a hand. Storage 9 contains fragments of a shoulder, and so on."

Dude.

Beyond the exploration of this fantastic world, the book clearly has something to say about the nature of museums. Many of the galleries that Volumer visits involve the theme of the importance of original art: in the restoration workshop, the staff acts like surgeons, delicately touching up a painting; the staff member in the department of copies discusses the once prized practice of copying and laments the debasement of the genre. Mathieu is raising the question of why museums exist. Why is it important to see original art? Why not just view a copy? Why collect pieces of art and put them on display for the public? It's an interesting undercurrent of the book.

I thoroughly enjoyed getting lost in this book. Track this one down.

Here is a preview. You can buy it from NBM here or from Amazon here: Museum Vaults: Excerpts from the Journal of an Expert

[edited to add:]

I just found this interesting interview with Mathieu. It mentions his sense of humor, which I neglected to discuss in my review -- I should have mentioned that there are parts of this book that are funny and playful, in the midst of all the oppressive weighty stuff.

Review: Three Shadows

by Cyril Pedrosa, 2008, First Second, 272 pages, $15.95

I caught quite a one-two punch this week when I followed up Gilbert Hernandez's Chance in Hell with Cyril Pedrosa's Three Shadows. As you can see from my short review of Chance in Hell, I was pretty much knocked on my ass by its relentless depiction of cruelty and depravity. Here, I had a better idea of what I was getting into -- I knew that Three Shadows was about a family dealing with their child's terminal illness -- but it left me feeling almost as desperate.

It's almost uncanny, actually, how the two books dovetail to scare the sh*t out of a parent. One is a nightmarish vision of what can befall an innocent child living in the world, the other is the dreamlike journey of a parent trying in vain to prevent the death of his child. Either way, your greatest fears as a parent get a good working over.

The two books contrast in other interesting ways. One is a tightly-focused and structured story while the other is a wandering tale of adventure. One has simple, straight-forward art that wastes no ink, the other is sumptuously illustrated with loosey-goosey lines that veer from gorgeous cartoony detail to almost abstract expressionism. And yet both succeed in telling compelling stories and getting the reader to connect on a visceral level with the characters.

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Three Shadows is a beautifully-drawn book and Pedrosa is clearly someone to watch. But man, after reading these two suckers back-to-back, I'm in need of a happy fun puffball of a superhero story.

You can read an eleven-page excerpt here or buy it from Amazon here: Three Shadows

Review: Tamara Drewe

Posy Simmonds's Tamara Drewe (Mariner/Houghton Mifflin, 2008, 136 pages, $16.95) is an off-beat drama that strolls along like a leisurely walk through the English countryside, at least until people start dying.

The story takes place over the course of four seasons at a writer's retreat on a farm, where the arrival of hot young columnist Tamara Drewe and her rock star boyfriend disturbs the affairs of the couple that owns the farm, their handyman, a writer who farts around in one of the guest houses, and two of the local high school girls. The men are captivated by Tamara while the high school girls obsess over her boyfriend. People sneak around, screw around, get engaged, break off engagements, and dance around wearing pilfered dresses. It's your typical English relationship drama.

The book is not a typical comic book, however, as most of the pages have large chunks of text dispersed in and around the artwork. It's more comic book than illustrated novel, though, and the text does not interrupt the flow of the story. The art itself is quite nice to look at, with solid cartooning that perfectly conveys the emotions of the characters, and plenty of shots of beautiful British boonies.

(click to enlarge ... did you think I meant something else by "beautiful British boonies"?)

The story does sort of take a left turn near the end, but although those events are surprising, they don't feel altogether out of place, perhaps because Simmonds does such a good job creating real, believable people, and the action flows naturally from their decisions.

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This is an accomplished, well-crafted work. I very nearly picked this as one of my top ten comics for 2008, and I recommend seeking it out.

By the way, Simmonds originally serialized this story at the Guardian's website, and you can still read the whole thing here. (Interestingly, it looks like Simmonds has reworked quite a bit for the print version -- I compared one randomly-chosen page from both versions, and found differences in colors, facial expressions, and dialogue.) You can buy the book from Amazon here: Tamara Drewe

Disclaimer: This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.

Review: Nocturnal Conspiracies

Nocturnal Conspiracies (NBM, 2008, 120 pages, $14.95) is the most recent work by French creator David B. to wash up on American shores. It's a comic book dream diary, and as such, although there are some interesting incidents and it works as an excellent showcase for Mr. B's striking artwork, it feels a little slight.

The book's full title is Nocturnal Conspiracies: Nineteen Dreams from December 1979 to September 1994, and it really is just that: David B. has transcribed nineteen of his subconscious exploits onto the page. Each episode seems like an accurate depiction of a dream, if that is possible. Some of the dreams run in a relatively straight line for several pages and feel like short stories, with proper beginnings, middles, and ends. Others jump from one strange environment to the next weird encounter to the next off-kilter adventure, often in the space of a few panels. Almost every panel includes David B.'s narration, informing the reader what the heck is going on and helping to link each sequence together.

Most of the dreams involve violence and are peopled by armed members of dangerous groups: gangsters, terrorists, gestapo agents, armed soldiers, khmer rouge, and straight-up "killers" are all featured. There are lots of chases, lots of hiding from the bad guys. It's all a little spooky and paranoid.

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But even though Nocturnal Conspiracies does what it does very well, I didn't love it. I'd rather read a (graphic) novel, something with a plot and characters that develop over the course of the book. I believe that this originally was published from 1999 to 2000 in three volumes as les Incidents de la nuit, which means that David B. was creating this at the same time that he was working on what would become his widely-acclaimed book Epileptic. That was a pretty heavy memoir of his childhood, detailing his brother's epilepsy and his own retreat into fantasy and art. I would think that making Epileptic was incredibly draining, and I wonder if Nocturnal Conspiracies was the result of the creator just needing to let off some steam.

But that is not to say that you shouldn't read this -- it's definitely an interesting and unique work of art. It looks like David B. just wanted to let his pen to run as wild as his dreaming mind, freed from the strictures of the narrative format, freed from actually consciously thinking up stories at all, depicting everything as he remembered dreaming it.

And even though it's not exactly what I'm looking for in a comic, I still found a lot to enjoy about it. For instance, I really dug dream seventeen, which included both this page:

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and this one:

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It's obvious this guy is a major artist, but this didn't feel like a major work. Mostly, it just made me excited to read his next book.

See a preview here. You can buy it from NBM here or Amazon here: Nocturnal Conspiracies: Nineteen Dreams From December 1979 to September 1994

By the way, it looks like publisher NBM just started up its own blog. Definitely worth checking out.

Disclaimer: This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.