raphic novels and comic books.

This reviews page contains short reviews of two graphic novels I picked up at the library one day. I don't read comics or graphic novels at all regularly; in fact these are the first and only two I've read in at least a decade. For that reason I'm leaving them intact in this blog entry from April 12, 2004, rather than setting up two separate reviews pages for them, fluffing up the reviews for length, creating some sort of categorized rating scale for comics, etc. If, at some point, I begin reading comics and/or graphic novels with enough regularity to have an informed opinion on them, I will start reviewing them as I do books and movies. Until then, this is the only page in the comic books section, so you'll have to make due with words and no numbers in the reviews.

Though I don't read them, I would like to like comics, and their compiled big brothers, graphic novels. The problem with comics is that they seem like Anime. Sorta geeky, sorta underground, and while enticing, too time-consuming to "get into," due to how pricey they are for their limited duration and replayability. I love anime, in theory, but then I go to Fry's and there's a shelf 8 feet high and 40 long covered in Anime titles. Hundreds and hundreds of DVD boxes, all featuring interesting semi-translated names and colorful characters. It's too much. Which ones are any good? Which are derivative shit? Which ones have a good plot and good subtitles? Which have good artwork?

And then all of them have about 20 sequels, which makes me wonder if I should just start in anywhere and see if it grabs me, or start at the beginning. But since there are 20 DVDs in the series, what if I like #1 and want more? I can't afford to pay $400 for the whole series individually, or buy the box set for $150. Plus half the time there are several different versions of the same story, flashback series, alternate time lines, etc. And even if they're good, most of them are just collections of TV series so are PG-13 rated, and chopped into episodic 20 minute chunks, rather than being full length movies with much more narrative heft. And anyway, I make the time to watch about 2 movies a week. Where the hell am I going to find time for 4 hours of DVD Japanese cartoons a day? Do I want to spend every bit of my recreational time on one thing?

I often imagine that one day when I'm rich I'll just go in and buy literally one of each.  Like 200 DVDs, and then hope for the best. But I know I wouldn't since if they were $1 each now I still wouldn't buy them all. When would I have time to watch them all? How would I know which were worth watching and which sucked?  I know there has to be some pony there, but there's an awful lot of shit to shovel to find it, and with the Anime signal/noise ratio approaching 95/5, based on my past experience, it doesn't seem worth it. Especially with the prohibitive cost aspect of things.

Comic books are sort of like that.  There are a million titles, and they go on and on for decades, are released in relatively short monthly installments which cost a lot more than I'm willing to pay, and worse than Anime, they change over time as writers and artists come and go.  If I knew one or two that I really liked, I'd probably stick with them and anticipate new installments. But then I'd be trying to buy the whole back catalogue of 50 issues to catch up on all of the story lines, and I don't have the money or the time for that.

Also like Anime, while the colors are bright and shiny and the action is intense and stylish... most of it still sucks. And when I do sample some of it, I end up liking the idea far more than the actuality, and always wishing it were better, or that I knew of one that was the best. I treasure Ninja Scroll, and have seen it a at least dozen times, but is hope of finding something else that good worth wading through dozens of mediocre Anime DVDs? Not really. Especially not when I've asked very Anime-knowledgeable friends about it, tried their recommendations, and found them, at best, sporadically good.

So comics are like anime for me; I like the idea more than the actuality, and almost every time I try some out, I leave disappointed.

While at the library the other day I saw a graphic novel in the new books section and grabbed it, and while idly browsing I happened upon a Batman graphic novel, and grabbed it as well.  Both are excellent examples of what's wrong with the medium. Both have some cool stuff, but far too little of it, and both are way overpriced. I picked up Batman Dark Knight Dynasty

The cover listing for both is $24, but since the Batman one was published in 1997, that one gets a double ouch. I just don't get enough added value from the generally mediocre artwork in comics to justify paying 3-5x the price of a paperback for a 50 or 60 page story.

Not that comic artwork is bad; it's very good... at least when you consider that they're drawing 80 or 100 panels for every 30 page comic.  Top artists, guys who do book covers and such, spend days or weeks on a single image, making it just perfect. That's obviously impossible with a comic book that appeared more than once a year and cost less than $500 a copy, so you can't expect that quality of art. However, I find most of it busy and too full of black lines and slashes, and often confusing with fight scenes seeming frantic and jumbled. I'd almost prefer clear black and white art to full color art that tries to be great, but comes up way short and tries to make up the difference with stylish touches.

There is a different mind set to the comic book fan also. Different from what someone who is attuned to enjoy movies and novels, like I am. Comics are sort of a combination of the mediums, with images, but not that many and none of them moving or as clear or gorgeous as a motion picture, and a story out of words, but one that's far shorter and more simplistic than a good novel.

This sounds sort of like I'm saying a comic is like a bad movie crossed with a bad novel, and I'm not really saying that, but it's basically true. They aren't long enough (in a single issue, anyway) to tell much of a story or delve into much character detail 

As for the two titles I picked up?  Both pretty mediocre. Nothing that creative or well-written, no memorable artwork, and the stories were like shallow short stories of the fan boy type. And I got them both for free, from the library. I'd be really pissed if I'd paid the high cover price for either of them.

Batman Dark Knight Dynasty

My review from Amazon.com:

I am not a regular comic book reader, at least not since I was about 11, but I'm always curious about comics. So when I saw this one in the library I grabbed it, hoping it would be gothic, dark, cool, moody, and a good read. It's 1/3 gothic, but that's about it, and I was rather disappointed with it; even for free. The graphic novel features three different Batman-themed stories, set centuries apart, each one showing a member of the Wayne family battling an immortal enemy who stalks the family for centuries.

Leaving aside the question of how the family survives with this guy killing off the prodigal Dark Knight when he/she is still a young adult each generation, and the fact that the bad guy has no real reason to battle them at all, none of the stories are very good, and the artwork is consistently muddy and mediocre.

The first tale is set in the Middle Ages, with a Batman guy on a crusade. While carrying gold to pay a ransom for some other captured crusaders, he and his party go to sleep one night and when the batman guy wakes up later, there's a gigantic castle next to him, and everyone else in his party is dead. Why? Where? Nevermind. This one is basically a sub-par Conan adventure, minus the muscles and gore, where the sword-wielding hero battles demons and a dark wizard. Only the tacked on introduction and conclusion in later years, where the Batman character is facing a trial during the Templar purges, redeems this one at all.

The forgettable middle segment is laughably silly, with amazing escape after amazing escape, culminating in a battle in space and earth's orbit as Bruce Wayne tries to keep a meteroite from destroying the world.

The last segment, set in the far future, was by far the best, simply for the inventiveness of it. Gotham is divided into upper and lower, with upper in near orbit and lower a lawless slum nightmare. There's a wacky planet of the apes aspect to things with gorilla guards/servants, and Robin played by... a supersmart chip. That was by far the best thing in the entire book, and the only laugh, and the episode goes downhill from there, with Batgirl again battling the family's perpetual enemy and winning at last, sort of.

I'm afraid my synopses have made it sound a lot better than it was, since both my girlfriend and I skimmed the whole book in about 10 minutes and were left shrugging and disappointed. There's no artwork that stands out; it's all trying too hard to be stylized and cool, and none of the stories are intelligent or detailed enough to be memorable. I wish I hadn't spent the time to read this one for free, so I can't imagine anyone who isn't a really hardcore fan of Batman comics enjoying this. Much less after paying $14 for the privilege.

Basically there are 3 Batman stories collected in this graphic novel. In them, the "Dark Knight" is Batman, and it's sort of a family superhero, passed down over the generations, always battling (and being killed by) an immortal enemy. This graphic novel seems like a good idea, and starts off promisingly with an imprisoned Batman of the Middle Ages talking about a battle he survived with a demon while on a Crusade. But the story is just a pale Conan retread, minus the huge sword and blood, and it bored me.

The second is in the current era, and it was one silly thing after another, culminating in a space battle that claims Batman's life while his eternal, immortal enemy lives on.

The third is in the future in a Planet of the Apes-inspired Gotham, where gorillas are the guards and Robin is a chimp to the Batwoman star. And yes, the Robin chimp was by far the best single thing in the entire book, and the only funny part. They confront the immortal enemy again, trying to stop him from pulling a meteorite into the earth since there's some glowing thing in the meteorite that's given him his power and immortality. How did he get to it in the first place? What's the meteorite thing and how does it make him god like? How does he know he wants to get back to it?  All good questions that none of the stories ever answers.

The Sandman, Endless Nights

The second graphic novel is newer, and it's by semi-famous comic book guy/novelist, Neil Gaiman.  I've often heard that his Sandman series is brilliant, as good as comics get and maybe that's true, but it this book is an example of that... comics don't really get all that good. The Sandman, Endless Nights is the tale, and it's a collection of 7 stories, all drawn by different guys who are working with Neil's original stories. The problem is that none of the stories are very good, and none of the artists are better than okay.

Death and Venice is the first, and it's not bad, but the story is familiar and the art is pretty mediocre.  Hurried and very sparse in the palette, with whole islands made up of just 3 or 4 colors.  I.E. there are dark green trees, light green trees, beige sand/rocks, and brown fields.  Lazy. As for the story... eh.  Discount Clive Barker with some imagination.

Desire is the second story and it's the best, but it's drawn at poor man's Prince Valiant quality, which detracts from things. It also tries too hard to be sexual and clever, when it's too PG-13 to be either.

There's one other Twilight Zone-ish story that I liked, but the rest are all angsty and tortured goth teen style, with tons of weird imagery and collages of feathers and blood and other such NIN album liner type stuff that I skimmed right over. It might have thrilled me when I was 16 and pouty, but now it's just hard to read and pointless. YMMV.

Perhaps needless to say, both of these comics are getting mostly rave reviews from the readers on Amazon.com.  And maybe they're great for comics, but they're simply not good enough to be entertaining for non-comics fans like Malaya and myself. I wanted to like them both... they just weren't good enough.

Perhaps the moral to take for this is that fans of given genres will like mediocre product from their genres more than any general fan. I'll probably never do more than like a comic book, while fans love it, and while I have more like for Anime than comics, I'm far more selective and objective about them. For example: Record of Lodoss War. I bought the full DVD, and watched it once, and was bored through most of it. And it's so up my alley. Mythological, quest tale, variety of characters with interesting powers, posing and strutting bad guys, gargantuan dragons, etc. I love every element of it, but the actual series itself is just so mediocre.  And yet, it's got a 4.5/5 on Amazon, based on 120 reviews.

I've written about it before, and it's actually included in my reviews section, so check that out for more details. But basically everything in this series is a complete cliche from D&D and Dragon Lance Chronicles, the plot drags along, the main character hero boy is totally annoying, and it's painfully melodramatic. It's also drawn at about 2 FPS, so while a lot of the large images are very nice, you'll be staring at them for 5 or 10 seconds while the camera slowly pans along and the narrator yammers on and on with his car commercial quality dialogue.

Despite these setbacks, I still want to be a fan of Anime and comics and graphic novels (which are just a bunch of comics in a book; enough to actually read for more than 3 minutes at a time) and I'll probably keep trying until I find some I really like. Anyway, it's all blog material, as most everything in life has become.

April 23, 2004

Here are some excerpts from a long email I received yesterday from Lars. It's in regards to my comments/reviews of two graphic novels, back on April 12th. After detailing his adult-rediscovery of comics, kindled by a Batman/Punisher crossover he received for his birthday, Lars talks about the elements of comics, compared to other forms of media.

First of all, you have to like the artwork. Even if the plot is great, if the artwork bothers you, you are not going to enjoy the whole thing. Unfortunately, this is a very subjective thing. Most artists have their own style, and since pencils, inks and colours are in most cases done by three different artist, you have to like the whole experience.

In addition to that, in my opinion, comics work best when they are consumed on a regular basis. The most of them are not "standalone" pieces, but are parts of bigger concepts or themes. If you try a sandman graphic novel without knowing too much of the 75-part ongoing-series your are missing out a lot of cross-references or subtle hints (for which Neil Gaiman is known), which add to the overall enjoyment.

Furthermore, the content of comic books and graphic novels has to obey the defined framework. The most common form of a comic book is the monthly 23-page-magazine, so the stories told in there (or a chapter) have to unfold within exactly this number of pages. Since this regulates the story quite a lot, the writing is not appealing for everybody.

He also mentions Neil Gaiman, who I'd long heard was brilliant. I'd also heard that his Sandman comics were about the best there was, which was why I was disappointed when the new graphic novel by him, set in the Sandman universe, left me so flat. I discussed it back in that April 12th blog, so I'm not going to go into it again here. 

As for Neil Gaiman and the Sandman series - it is regarded as a master piece by most comic readers. The concept is very different from the standard superhero comic concept - it is a story about stories. In the ongoing series, Mr. Gaiman retold stories from historic episodes, from the Greek and Norse mythology and wove them all together with his own stories about the seven entities called "the endless". While not all of the individual books were great in my opinion, there are a few in the series that are outstanding on their own, while all of the other work great as a part of the whole 75-issue story arc.

If you would like to find out if you like Mr. Gaiman´s writing, I recommend reading one of his novels, maybe "American Gods" but especially "Neverwhere", which I liked a lot. His - in my opinion very elegant - style comes through in those books without the diversion of an artistic interpretation.

I keep seeing his novels, and they've gotten good reviews, but I've yet to check any out. I'll have to put them on my mental library list for future curiosity-satisfying.  As for the graphic novel I read, I didn't think much of it, in terms of story or art. And since most of the reader reviews are very positive, I wonder how much I'd like the comics. And how much I'd like any comics, since Gaiman's Sandman stuff is supposed to be about the best out there, and if this book is a fair representation of it, and I didn't like the book... the math doesn't look good.

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