Review: Unforgotten by Tohby Riddle

This is a somewhat atypical graphic novel. Instead of a full narrative, the images are used to illustrate what is essentially a poem. The fairly simplistic text furthers the narrative of the images along without really integrating into them. I'm not certain the text is needed at all.

There's a deep sense of history in Unforgotten, mixed into a dreamlike state for the angels to move through. Riddle has created a lovely mixed media rumination about caregiving. The message is portable to caregivers, parents or protestors. It is not easy to care for others, to work toward good. Self care suffers. The caregiver's needs can be invisible against the chaos and clamor of the needy.  Eventually, we all need external care to move forward. A lovely but not essential book.

Review: Rage of Poseidon by Anders Nilsen

Go get this. Now.

I loved Rage of Poseidon. Loved. It. Anders Nilsen uses a beautiful silhouette art style to bring a modern reality to the ancient gods and goddesses. His writing is sparse but evocative. In some cases I wished for a bit more to flesh out a concept or character, but I never wished for less.

From the punk rock defiance of Prometheus to the rise of the Nazarene, the gods and goddesses of Nilsen's world struggle to find themselves in a world that has forgotten them.  Does that sound twee? Ok, it's not like what-if-god-was-one-of-us coffee house strumming. Nilsen's work is grounded in reality, in human motivations and change. Minerva's inability to understand the Nazarene at war with her longing to believe. An abusive father apologizing with video games. Finding yourself in a terrible place but not regretting the way you got there.

Keeping this book from getting the attention it deserves is an overly designed presentation. The book is bound, accordion style, as a single sheet. Hold it wrong and the contents cascade out across the room. What works as a limited run art piece doesn't translate as a mass market presentation. I don't want to worry about keeping my book secured on the shelf, I want to consume it, commute with it, share it. A book that demands as much to manipulate as it does to consider is an art statement. Art is inherently exclusive. Rage of Poseidon deserves more than that. I almost ignored this exceptional graphic novel.  I'm glad I went back for a second look.

Review: How Not to Be a Dick by Meghan Doherty

She had me at the title, I confess. How Not to Be a Dick is a book that begs multiple purchases. How many people in your life need this lesson? Really, it could be a blank book you fill in yourself and still seem value added. 

This book was pulled from my hands and passed around the local middle school within moments of receipt. (How Not to Be A Dick is almost certainly sold at Urban Outfitters. Let me Google that… and… called it!)

So, setting aside the clever title is there any value here? I’d argue yes. Covering situations as basic as overindulgence in (ahem) soda pop and as complex as toxic relationships, Doherty offers useful information with a light hand. The clean layout has an early 1960′s feel deliberately borrowed from school primers. Mixing text with illustration, Doherty’s characters trade off situations in an effort to avoid the gendering the advice. Forget all the Fun & Puberty books pushed on tween and teen readers. Far more important than yet another graphic about tampon insertion is a book that addresses social anxiety, setting boundaries and calling out racist humor. 

How Not to Be A Dick is the book that fits multiple gift giving needs. Hipster teen? Dick at work? You’re good to go. And remember these words:

The first rule of not being a dick to others is: Don’t be a dick to yourself. – Meghan Doherty

*This review was originally posted at Love In the Margins.

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: Art And Sole by Jane Gershon Weitzman

* A version of this review first appeared at Love In The Margins.

Strictly speaking, Art & Sole doesn't fit our concept. That said, if you spend very long in romance circles you will find that shoes are an amazingly frequent topic of conversation. If we made a word cloud, Zappos would dominate. I don't know what it is about the shoe. Cinderella, sure, but most romance heroines obsess on their dresses and rarely mention their footwear. In women's footwear it often seems like the least practical and most painful shoe is the most coveted. While I admire a perfectly painful high heel I don't wear them. I appreciate them as art alone.

Art & Sole is not devoted to wearable shoes. Weitzman has assembled a representative sample of the art commissioned for Stuart Weitzman window displays. It's lovely. This is a true art book, devoid of text. Each page is a carefully photographed art piece inspired by the concept of a shoe. From frosting to needle work to glass to gemstones, each piece inspires you to think what if? What if this were truly a shoe? Would I wear it? Who would I be with these on my feet? Who walks on a bed of diamonds? Why do I think she's the evil one in that tale?

Perhaps shoes appeal to so many because they offer the possibility of transformation. Walk a mile in the other man's shoes. Grab something sensible. Put on your dancing shoes. Become, for a moment, someone other than yourself. The flights of fancy in Art & Sole make it an interesting coffee table book. They offer studies in structural design as well as aesthetics. Some of the shoes appear wearable, despite their lack of function. All of them ask you to imagine the girl who wears them.

At the end Weitzman includes small bios with contact information for most of the 33 artists she features.  I was surprised to see baker Sylvia Weinstock among them. (I was even more surprised by which pieces were credited to her.) This would be a lovely present for a fashion student. I'm having a hard time keeping it intact. Linda Leviton's pages are begging to be removed for framing. Weitzman has pledged her royalties from Art & Sole to charity. October (of course) is for breast cancer research.