YALSA top ten GNs 2013: The Silence of Our Friends

The Silence of Our Friends
Written by Mark Long and Jim Demonakos. Illustrated by Nate Powell.
Published by First Second (2012)

I actually kind of hate comics like this. Not because they're bad, but just because they remind me of how horrible people are. And yeah, sure, sometimes it's good to be reminded, but I guess I already think people are horrible so much of the time.

The Silence of Our Friends is set in 1960s Texas which, if you were unaware, is super racist. The story focuses on two families: one white and one black and...I don't know if it's even worth explaining. People are racist, the white family tries to become friends with the black family, people are racist, there's a civil rights protest where the police shoot at people a bunch, people are racist, there's a trial where black people are accused of shooting at the cops, people are racist, etc. People were horrible, though not everyone was horrible. Also, people were horrible in different ways. Maybe some hope. The end.

I dunno. Nate Powell's art was pretty nice I guess, but while I can appreciate his art and understand that other people really like it, I've never found it that appealing. I understand why this is on an American list for best graphic novels for teens, because it is important that people (especially young people) learn about what happened in the past (or they are doomed to repeat it, etc.), but I guess I'd rather just read comics about giant robots beating each other up. I guess that is the way in which I am horrible.

Olympia Timberland Library

I recently went to Olympia for the Olympia Zine Fest, and the Olympia Zine Librarians (un)conference. Both were fun events!

A talk about zines and the (un)conference were both held in the Olympia branch of the Timberland Regional Library. The library wasn't that big, but it did have a pretty impressive (and much loved) zine collection. Awesome : )

YALSA top ten GNs 2013: A Flight of Angels

A Flight of Angels
Conceived and illustrated by Rebecca Guay. Written by Holly Black, Bill Willingham, Alisa Kwitney, Louise Hawes, and Todd Mitchell.
Published by Vertigo (2011)

Rebecca Guay is an artist who I mostly know from her Magic: The Gathering cards. Her cards have a pretty specific style, and it's one that I enjoy.

Despite this, I don't think I've ever read any of her comic work. In fact, I had no idea she even had comic work until just now when I looked it up. And while seeing that she drew the Black Orchid Vertigo series doesn't really surprise me, it did seem a bit strange that she drew a Green Lantern comic (though that specific Green Lantern comic seems like it might fit her style fairly well).

While it seems obvious now, I had not expected A Flight of Angels to feel like a throwback to the earlyish days of Vertigo.  For a long time Vertigo (the imprint that published this comic) was best known for Sandman and Sandman like things (e.g. fantasy stuff about stories). This was no doubt helped by the fact that Sandman was their biggest seller, Neil Gaiman has a huge following, and that after Sandman ended there were a plethora of spinoff series such as The Dreaming, Lucifer, and so forth. But at the time Vertigo also put out a lot of (at least vaguely) similar titles, to various degrees of success. Eventually Vertigo shed this perception, and now they're known for...uhm, I dunno. Publishing lots of different stuff that doesn't sell that well?

A Flight of Angels is a series of short stories about angels in various settings, with a framing sequence set in some vague fantasy world. There are angels in the garden of Eden, angels in modern day cities, angels in a fairytale version of olden days Russia, angels in Victorian England, and angels in Heaven. For the most part I didn't care. The stories range from "that was pretty okay" to "I forgot that was even in this book".

However, I suppose the stories aren't really the main selling point here, that would be the Guay's art. It is not my favourite comic book art ever, but at the same time I can see it being the favourite of someone else. All of the art in this volume is painted by Guay, and she changes styles between the various stories. Each style manages to effectively capture the feel of the story it's illustrating. Some of the individual panels are also really nice, but for whatever reason they didn't really stick in my memory.

One final complaint: the lettering in the story set in Russia features Cyrllic characters used instead of English language ones. I find this annoying (mostly because I actually know the Cyrllic alphabet). This story also used other...questionable fonts, which surprised me considering the book was lettered by Todd Klein, but I guess everyone has off days.

If you like the sort of Vertigo fantasy stuff I mentioned earlier, you would probably enjoy this book. I didn't. That's not to say I don't enjoy Vertigo fantasy stuff. I loved Sandman, and it's one of the reasons I still read and love comics. But I could never get into most of the spinoffs and related titles, and A Flight of Angels seems as though it could easily be one of the ones I didn't enjoy.

YALSA top ten GNs 2015: 47 Ronin

47 Ronin
Written by Mike Richardson. Illustrated by Stan Sakai.

Published by Dark Horse (2014).

Hey! Now I've read all of the 2015 top ten GNs! Of course I've only reviewed half of them, but that's because I'd read the other five before the YALSA list was announced.

I started this project (long ago) because I was looking at a list of YALSA top ten graphic novels (for 2013 I think) and realized I hadn't read any of them. As someone who reads a lot of comics, and who intends to work in libraries, that kind of bothered me. Shouldn't I have read these? Or at least know what the are?

So my initial goal was just to read all of the YALSA top ten graphic novels (or at least all of the ones I could find), and I read a bunch! But then I realized it might be a better project if I also reviewed them. That would help me figure out what made a good graphic novel for these lists (and for library collections).

Of course, it really shouldn't have taken this long (I think I've average 1.5 reviews a month since I started), but I guess I'm a huge slacker. Still, it's nice to have something to force me to write stuff other than Two Fisted Librarians.

The story of the forty-seven ronin is one that is well known in Japan. It's based on a real event that happened in the 18th century (here's the Wikipedia page) that has been adapted into various media multiple times, and shows the complete and utter insanity and stupidity of codes of honour.

Lord Asano is summoned to the shogun's court in the capital. He journeys there, but before he can begin his duties he has to learn proper court etiquette. He's taught by Kira, a court official, who while a good teacher, is also pretty corrupt. He demands a bribe from Asano, but Asano refuses to pay. Kira then begins to act in ways so as to lead to Asano appearing foolish in front of others. He doesn't tell him that meeting places have been changed, he claims to have given different instructions than he actually gave, and he finally just insults him in front of other people. Asano manages to keep his cool for a while, but eventually  is driven too far and freaks out, attacking Kira with his sword.

Now, the attacking might have been justified, but apparently drawing your sword in the shogun's palace for any reason is punishable by death. There is a overly quick investigation into the incident, Asano commits ritual suicide, and his holdings are seized by the government. The samurai who worked for Asano want revenge, but are convinced by Oshi (who had been Asano's right-hand man) to wait until the right moment to strike.

[Spoilers follow.]

After a couple of years they accomplish their goal after some misdirection (pretending to be drunken idiots, etc.) and kill Kira. Then all 47 of them surrender, and they are given the option to die an honorable death and commit ritual suicide. As interesting a historical story this may be, it really just indicates to me how completely and utterly insane Japanese culture was (and is?).

The idea that because of committing a "shameful" act you should kill yourself is stupid. But I can't say "these characters act like idiots so this is a bad book" because these are events that actually happened. The story is well told, and all of the relevant details appear to be included (though I'm not sure how much people with absolutely no knowledge of 18th century Japanese culture would have trouble understanding).

The real important part of this comic is the artwork, by Stan Sakai. Sakai is best known for his creation Usagi Yojimbo, a samurai rabbit character that he's been creating adventures for since 1984(!). He's written and drawn more than 200 issues of Usagi Yojimbo, but 47 Ronin is (by far) the longest project he's ever drawn that he didn't also write. If you're familiar with Usagi Yojimbo you'll know that Sakai is really good at drawing cartoon animals having samurai adventures. In fact, it's kind of weird seeing him drawn humans in this story, but it doesn't take away from the quality of the artwork.

Sakai's art is never going to be mistaken for being incredibly realistic, but even with the lack of detail (people generally just have dots for eyes) what is there is capable of showing a lot of range. The facial expressions and body language in his characters is capable of conveying a lot of information, and their actions seem natural and not posed. Sakai has also clearly done a lot of research into the buildings, clothing, and events from this time period, and while I can't say it's all accurate, it definitely at least feels accurate to me.

The historical event this comic is based on is incredibly stupid, but this version of the story was clearly created with a lot of care, craftsmanship, and attention to detail. If you want to read a samurai comic that's not excessively bloody, this one is worth reading. Though really, I think I'd rather just read more Usagi Yojimbo.

YALSA top ten GNs 2013: Stargazing Dog

Stargazing Dog 
Written and illustrated by Takashi Murakami.

Published by NBM (2011).

Have you heard of Into the Wild? It's about a true story about a guy who wandered off into the Alaskan wilderness and died of starvation. Some people probably think it's romantic. Stargazing Dog is a somewhat similar story, except told from the point of view of a dog.

To put all of my biases up front, I don't really like dogs, and this comic kind of provides examples of why. Specifically, their personalities and apparently unending loyalty are not things I view as positives (though I am aware that many other people do). So a comic told from the point of view of a dog (and not an incredibly intelligent one) that seems to in part about how great that loyalty is has an uphill battle with me.

A girl finds a puppy, and convinces her parents to adopt it. Like most children, she soon pays little attention to the animal and her parents end up taking care of it. The human father, referred to as "Daddy" by the dog, seems to spend more time hanging out with, and talking to, the dog than he does to his wife and child. Eventually, he loses his job, loses his family, and goes off on a doomed road trip where more bad things happen to him and he dies (not really a spoiler, since it's revealed on the first page).

What really pissed me off was the afterward, where Murakami stated that his reason for creating this comic was because:

"In the past, he ["Daddy"] would have been an ordinary, good father.
However, in today's environment, it's adept or die. And that's not right. I really feel fed up with this hideous situation."

And really? Fuck that. He may have been an "ordinary" father, but in no way was he a good one. He paid no attention to his wife or child in any way, and was so uninterested in their lives and feelings, that he is shocked when his wife wants a divorce. That's hardly a "good" father in my eyes (though maybe it says something about Japanese society and familial expectations).

The back cover says that this is an "inspiring" story, but I'm not sure how I'm supposed to be inspired. A guy doesn't get his own way, so starves to death in the middle of nowhere while condemning an animal to the same fate? The message seems to be that if things aren't going your way you should leave everything behind, never ask anyone for help, and die because you're incredibly stubborn. This is even pointed out in a later part of the story where a character says "If he had gone to see you for some advice, Mr. Okutsu. He wouldn't have been dead now." 

Kind of weirdly, this manga was actually flipped so that it reads left-to-right like western books. You can definitely notice it as there are some signs in the pages where signs are backwards (and so are all of the Japanese sound effects), and there are references to right and left that don't always match up with the art. It's kind of strange to see a book published in this format so recently, as it seems the vast majority of manga is now published in right-to-left format. One of the complaints of flipping manga is that it brings out flaws in the artwork, and the awkwardness of some of the panels here seems to indicate some truth to that. Apart from that the artwork is well done. The dogs are drawn well, and the rest of the story telling is pretty clear (though there are some problems with scale).

But really, if you want to read a comic about a homeless person in Japan, read Disappearance Diary by Hideo Azuma. It's way more interesting, in part because it's an autobiography. Reading that review kind of reveals a lot more about the societal pressures that exist in Japan than this comic does. But because Stargazing Dog was created for a Japanese audience, all of that knowledge can just be assumed by the author as already known, and none of it has to be said on the page. If this comic actually explained some of the pressures of Japanese life it might have made "Daddy" a more sympathetic character. 

YALSA top ten GNs 2015: Bad Machinery vol. 3: The Case of the Simple Soul

Bad Machinery Vol. 3: The Case of the Simple Soul
Written and illustrated by John Allison.
Published by Oni Press (2014)

Bad Machinery is, as the subtitle may hint at, a sort of mystery comic featuring children in the fictional English town of Tackleford. The kids who primarily feature are two groups of three: one made up of girls, and one made up of boys. They're all around 11 or 12 (I think) so there's a fair amount of fighting/arguing/will you be my boy/girlfriending going on as well as whatever's going on in the background (which, in this case, is a series of fires and a weird troll thing that lives under a bridge).

And that "weird troll thing" is the kind of thing that makes Allison's comics great (though not in this particular instance*). This is not your average small English town. There is a robot who goes to the school, there are magic spells and curses at the soccer/football pitch, weird goblin creatures in the woods, a time hole in a school cupboard, and lots more weird and wonderful stuff happening in Tackleford all the time (kind of as though it were a nicer version of Sunnydale).

The human characters themselves are more normal, but that doesn't mean they act (or, as this review mentions, speak) naturally. But that's generally part of the charm. Another large part of the appeal for me is Allison's art, which I really love. Characters have distinctive styles and fashions (with individual items of clothing changing), his expressions and body language are great, the story flows (which is impressive considering this was original published one page a day), and the flat colouring works remarkably well with the cartoonish art style.

Allison has been making webcomics since the late 1990s (e.g. forever in internet terms), and while he's had several titles, they're all interconnected and characters from one may show up in another. I started reading his stuff in the early 2000s when he was working on his second title, Scary-Go-Round. I liked it enough to read all of the archives and buy several books from him.

However, at some point after Bad Machinery started I apparently stopped reading. This seems kind of strange, as I'm still excited by him as a creator. I've read all three volumes of the Bad Machinery collected editions (admittedly mostly from the library), and I was buying his print Scary Go Round spin-off series Giant Days until it got extended to 12 issues and I couldn't find issue 4 (I still intend to get the collections), but I stopped reading his free comic on the internet.

So what turned me off a comic by a creator I still at least think I like? Well, part of it is possibly the format of the collection. Its size (more than 30 cm/12 inches wide) shows off the artwork in a lovely fashion, but is kind of too big to fit on my shelf and is even somewhat unwieldy to read. But that doesn't say why I stopped reading the webcomic, and I think the reason behind that is that I found the children that this story focused on considerably less interesting than the adults in the other comics. If the recent Giant Days series had been about these (children) characters I probably wouldn't have been interested, but since it was about the characters in university I was. I would say that I'm not that interested in stories about children, but while that may be true in a broad sense I'm still happy to read certain ones I consider good (Yotsuba&!). I guess I'm just not that interested in reading stories about these children. Though looking through the artwork in this volume again, I'm kind of tempted to catchup on the webcomic, so maybe that will change.

Since this was a webcomic you can read it all online for free. Here's where The Case of the Simple Soul begins.

* Allison frequently includes completely fictional creatures (such as Desmond Fishman) in his comics. However the "troll" in this one kind of bothered me. His appearance seems far too much like a human, and combined with the way he speaks and acts I think it could be taken as making fun of people with developmental disabilities. I don't think this was Allison's intention, and I hope I'm the only person that even considered this, but the problem could have been avoided by making the troll red or something.

YALSA top ten GNs 2015: Wolf Children: Ame & Yuki

Wolf Children: Ame & Yuki

Original Story by Mamoru Hosoda. Art by Yu.

Published by Yen Press (2014)

Hana is a college student who falls in love with a mysterious guy in one of her classes. Turns out he's a werewolf. So she has werewolf babies with him, then he dies, so she moves to the middle of nowhere to raise her werewolf kids. Boring stuff happens, I don't care.

(Perhaps the most interesting thing about this comic being on the list is that its an adaptation of an anime. How many adaptations usually make it onto "best of" lists? I don't think there have been any on the YALSA GN lists before, though I could be wrong.)

I'm not a romance fan, I'm not a fan of rural stories, and I'm not a fan of of stories about children, so this book already had multiple strikes against it. Now, that's not to say that I can't read and enjoy stories that fulfill those criteria. Scott Pilgrim is a romance. Yotsuba&! is about children. Both of those are incredibly great! (I'm sure there's some rural thing I enjoy, but I can't think of it right now.)

There was a grand total of one scene in this comic that I enjoyed. It featured a bunch of girls talking about flowers and other things they found, then the werewolf girl is like "look what I found!" and brandishes a snake. Pretty funny. The same joke is repeated, to diminishing returns, on the next page, except she has a box full of animal skeletons. Great! Except the reaction from the other kids is enough to make the werewolf girl decide to change who she is, and become considerably more introverted. Later she's harassed and physically assaulted by a boy, she hurts him while trying to get away, and blames herself forever, and later there is elementary school romance between them. Dude really just needed to learn to leave people alone who say "leave me alone".

So, what does this story teach you? Don't tell anyone about your past, lie to everyone in your family, lie to everyone outside of your family, don't go to school, change who you are to please other people, no means yes, be a total dick to your mom who loves and cares about you.

Was there anything about this that I enjoyed? Well, it was a quick read, so didn't take that long, and I borrowed it from the library, so I didn't spend any money on it. Oh, and the way sound effects were dealt with was good: the Japanese sound effect was left unedited, and in a small font size it was transliterated into the Roman alphabet and translated into English. Everything else I hated, and if it hadn't been a library book I probably would have thrown it across the room. However, I am clearly in the minority, as the vast number of reviews online seem to have loved it. I honestly can't really understand that, but I guess I'm just clearly not the target audience for this book.