Review: Best American Comics 2013 edited by Jeff Smith

Someday I'll learn to stop looking at The Best American Comics series. As someone who loves comics but has exhausted her patience for violence against women as shorthand for meaningful commentary the series often exhausts me.

Beginning with an excerpt from what I would argue was Alison Bechdel's weakest book and ending with pinups on the moon the 2013 TBAC was the first collection that didn't make me seek out at least one full book. My view may have been colored by the inclusion of Craig Thompson's Habibi, a work I absolutely loathed. Just seeing Habibi in the credits made me set the pre-release copy aside for weeks. (Typing the phrase Craig Thompson's Habibi makes me want to stop writing this review.)

Whatever, we move on. There's a ton of sexualized violence toward women on display. I'm sure it's very profound to visualize the wife as something you can literally dismember to make full use of but haven't we worn that tired song out yet? How many rape fantasies do we really need to commit to paper? I'm starting to think the easiest way to get into TBAC is to depict as much sexual violence as a PG-13 rating will permit. Or go farther, but give them a few milder pages to include.

With Kate Beaton as the cover artist TBAC is trying to have it all ways. Look girls! A book not solely concerned with rape and mutilation! It's true that Kate Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant is always welcome. In this context it seems even more unlike the rest of the field. Eleanor Davis offers a post apocalyptic setting for Nita Goes Home. It's possibly the most interesting of the group as it pits a self indulgent artist against her family of origin. Even as she strives to relate to them she continues to condescend. Their paths have taken them to different realities. Nita, who has the easier existence, is the more mentally fragile. Derf Backderf is included for a few pages from My Friend Dahmer, a book I considered reading but skipped. An exploration of the young serial killer is probably of interest to many readers but I'm not one of them. Backderf uses a style suited to the 1970's in his almost loving exploration of their shared childhood. Let's just say Backderf isn't the only person to grow up with a serial killer and leave it there.

I enjoy much of Laura Park's work, but the included piece, George (about a man who treats terrorism as a hobby) isn't my favorite. It's slight and sometimes clever. It's a moment in time without weight. However, Park is worth checking out as an artist. If you were going to take only one suggestion from this year's TBAC she'd be my choice. I know there are better comics out there, Park is proof. I wish the series would lift it's gaze from the exploitation of women's bodies and produce a collection designed to trigger the mind instead of the traumatic past of a reader.

Review: Are You My Mother by Alison Bechdel

DNF books rarely get a review from me. If I didn't finish it, I can't really assess how it all comes together. I've read books that made choices I found inexplicable at page 50 which made perfect sense by page 350. In the case of Are You My Mother nothing could happen in the remaining pages to overcome the first 143. I don't even know how to talk about Are You My Mother without committing class warfare. Bechdel is not really talking about her mother in Are You My Mother, she is talking about herself.

The first 143 pages deal almost exclusively with Bechdel's emotional turmoil over writing. Her thoughts on therapy are covered extensively as are her therapy sessions. Theories are trotted out and highlighted as though Bechdel is taking notes for a midterm. In the world of Are You My Mother everything is required to hold deeper meaning. I once had a relative say to me, completely serious, that my cousin's headaches were caused by his mother hitting the brakes too hard in the car while pregnant. If (he went on at length) she had been a softer and more cautious driver then her son wouldn't have headaches. Bechdel's book is exactly like that. (In the case of my relative, I thought his son's headaches were probably due to an excessive intake of beer.)  Bechdel considers every injury, every thought, every dream to have a message from the universe inside. This is not terribly far from tin foil hat territory for me and this is where the class warfare comes in. Bechdel doesn't just seek a therapist. Once committed to therapy she embarks on a study of the field. She transfers into analysis. Therapy (and her therapists) become the security blanket she clutches against the rest of her life. Nothing, judging by the first 143 pages of Are You My Mother, could ever be as fascinating to Bechdel as thinking about herself is. The luxury of this both in terms of time and energy is staggering.

Not finding Bechdel's time on the couch as fascinating as she does made me think I was not the market for this book. Are You My Mother could have strong appeal to women of a certain income level and assumptive entitlement. Bechdel's issues with her upbringing are her own. Whatever works for her in her life is her business. As a reader I needed a narrative to carry me through Are You My Mother that simply didn't exist. Certainly I sympathize with Bechdel seeking enlightenment in the great works of philosophy and literature. So do we all. The fact that her deepest revelations come from The Drama of the Gifted Child (a book I loathe) and Dr. Seuss' Sleep Book is telling. After six weeks struggling to finish Are You My Mother I have to walk away. My relationship with the book is probably toxic for us both. I don't wonder what God is trying to tell me when I scratch my arm. I get a band-aid and keep pruning the hedge.

Review: Tina's Mouth by Keshni Kashyap and Mari Araki

There is absolutely nothing wrong with giving a pre-order as a gift. I think (if the release date is close enough to the holiday) that it extends things. It creates a little epilogue to the season. Tina's Mouth is being released (or re-released?) on January 3rd, so that's great timing. Or terrible timing if everyone is in their post holiday belt tightening phase. Either way, I almost passed up an advance copy of this book because of the marketing. (I'm glad I reconsidered.) Remember a few weeks ago when I was joking that any graphic novel written by a non-caucasion gets compared to Persepolis? Yes. That joke isn't funny anymore. As a bonus, the main character here is American, so they also throw American Born Chinese out as a reference. I totally missed a career in marketing.

If You Like Indian Food, You Will Love Tina's Mouth! Or perhaps Look Out Bollywood! Tina Is In Town! Maybe even Like Maus, But Without The Genocide! It's so hard to choose. How do you market a graphic novel without highlighting that it is by a non-caucasian and that other non-caucasions have written successful books too?  I mean, you could focus on the story but that's just crazy. Who wants to read a coming of age story about a young teen girl caught between societal expectations and her own emerging sense of self?

Oh.

Everyone does?

Maybe marketing wasn't for me after all. Good thing I took this high paying blog job. Moving on - Tina's Mouth is the tale of a young teen who is assigned the task of keeping an existential journal. I was a young teen once, and I was really into existential texts. I think there is a certain kind of girl who runs from Glamour into the waiting arms of Camus and Sartre. Both ask What Kind of Girl Are You? but only one includes a handy picture guide to self hatred. Setting aside the conceit that Tina is writing to a dead philosopher, this is a classic tale. Tina has lost her best friend, she isn't sure she fits in, everyone seems really into boys and who is she going to be, anyway? Examining the rise (and fall) of her high achieving siblings, Tina takes steps toward her own self definition by becoming engaged in school activities. This leads her to new people and new experiences.

While depictions of drug use, booze and (off camera) teen sex might freak a few parents out, let's be real about what our kids are exposed to. (I can tell you right now which tweens of my acquaintance will be flying like kites very soon.) Tina suffers some self induced and externally induced humiliations without turning them onto herself. It is not her fault her first kiss has been co-opted into a school sanctioned assault. Tina stands up for herself and her personal boundaries. Tina takes very identifiable teen experiences and uses them as the building blocks for her eventual self discovery. It's easy to tell kids to be true to themselves, it's harder to show them how to figure out who they are. Tina is a great role model and a great read for tween to twenties.

Review: The Rogue Republic by William C. Davis

Holy info dump, Batman.

The Rogue Republic should have worked for me. On paper, it's a perfect date. A pre-Civil War conflict between the North and South, conflicting European rule, and a dispute that did not (unlike the Civil War which, let's be clear, was totally about slavery) concern itself with owning other people. In practice, it was a hard to follow snooze. Davis clearly knows a great deal about his subject and as clearly prefers to talk to those of like mind. This is not an accessible dip into a little known aspect of American history. The Rogue Republic reads like a government policy paper. People you don't know wander in and out of the text with either too much or not enough context. There is an overwhelming feeling that there will be a test at the end.

Obviously, there are people who like their history dry and dense. I'm not one of them. I want my information in full technicolor with fun facts flying at me. (However, 3d glasses are totally optional.) This was a mismatch of reader and book. On the plus side, Davis will tell you everything you wanted to know about his characters and a bit you didn't. (Four single brothers buy a 40 year old black women and the author wonders why? Really? Cooking, cleaning, and... Slavery means never having to say she's pretty.) So, back to the plot. Or events.

I suppose your feeling about the rebellion will depend on where your sympathies lie. The conflict is ostensibly over land rights, corruption, bribery and jurisdiction. It was also involved a group of American settlers frustrated at the haphazard oversight by their Spanish (then French, then not so clear) territorial owners. It was also (never simple, is it?) a conduit for the American government to gain control over a large area of the Americas under diplomatic discussion. Was it part of the Louisiana Purchase? Was it not? Before the term Carpetbagger was coined, the Spanish experienced the power of an American with a land dispute and access to firearms. Interesting in it's events, well researched and carefully presented, The Rogue Republic is likely to satisfy a different reader than I. Just be sure you've got a spare number two pencil.

Review: The Lucky Ones by Mae M. Ngai

Are you tired of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother yet?

It would be interesting to see what Mary Tape would make of Amy Chua's book. While both women's belief in the power of education brought them media attention, Mary Tape was trying to give her children as Western (for lack of a better term) an experience as possible. It is through the records connected to Tape v. Hurley that author Mae Ngai really brings to life the matriarch of this early San Francisco family. Using public records, Mary's photographs, and the few private sources available, Ngai uses the story of the Tape family to tell the story of Chinese America.

Through the Tapes, Ngai shows how the early push for full citizenship rights by California's Chinese emigrants challenged the white idea of what Chinatowns were. Copying the architecture from popular 'ethnic' exhibits, offering 'chinese' food, the emigrants defined generations of lives after them. This early middle class had to find (and defend) their place when white America had not quite decided how to treat them. Tape v. Hurley predates Brown v. Brown more than fifty years resulting in a ruling that "Respondant here has the same right to enter a public school that any other child has." It's never that simple. Despite living a life identical to their white counterparts, the Tape children were refused their right to a public education. The Tapes did not relent until a new school was created on the edge of Chinatown.

A self made and successful business man, Joseph Tape diversified his interests and made the most of opportunities that presented themselves. Mary, a talented photographer, left a wealth of information in the form of her photos. Early pioneers of San Francisco and Berkeley, many of the Craftsman homes they built for their family stand today. Then, as now, these talented pioneers push white America to recognize that there is no distinction between us. Their family saga is America's, and their details could stand in for so many emigrant families trying to achieve the promise of America. It is a shame that so much of what the Tape family faced still exists in our national conversation.

The Lucky Ones is a family saga in another sense of the phrase as well. Its the sort of family story ABC used to run miniseries about in the late 1970's and early 1980's. Emigrant parents of uncertain background, affluent children determined to set their own course. The Lucky Ones is more than an important story, it's a good read. Set your book club up with this one and leave the Mommy Wars to burn themselves out.