Pointing out that the comic is no longer just for kids seems to be a bit redundant. Most people, after all, know that these days comics often examine serious social themes in a way that is far more powerful than many other “sophisticated” art forms. They do so through their accessibility, in that an illustrated character is more likely to acquire your sympathies than say, certain actors, as well as the fact that you can suspend your disbelief more effectively when you’re reading a cartoon.
Of course, like the dog that will forever chase its own tail, many people refuse to accept the genre of what I proudly call illustrated literature. They refuse to acknowledge what fans of this form of expression have known all along: the same things that interest your average kid will interest your average adult. That’s why we grown-ups addict ourselves to computer games as much as any child, and that’s why an article reviewing graphic novels can show up proudly in a literary supplement.
The graphic novel, popularized by Frank Miller’s revolutionary and oh-so-adult look at the Batman, The Dark Knight Returns, takes many shapes these days. Ahead, we have Miller’s latest work as well as two books provided us from The Beguiling, one of the hippest comic stores in Toronto, which is currently located on Harbord and will soon be moving to 601 Markham Street.
One of the most interesting forms the graphic novel has acquired can be seen in a work put out by Fatagraphic Books entitled Love That Bunch by Aline Kominsky Crumb. While this title might suggest some sort of Brady Bunch in cartoon form, in reality “Bunch” is the main character in this novel.
The character Bunch is directly based on the author and illustrator’s life, and its realism and willingness to deal openly with various social ills are what make it most fascinating. The work spans the various stages of Bunch’s life as a girl growing up in the affluent Jewish community on Long Island, exploring her entrance into the hippy world, the sexual world, her marriage to Robert Crumb — himself a king of the comic world — and finally her attempts to come to terms with her roles as a semi-housewife and mother.
While the illustrations certainly aren’t pretty, they seem to be congruous with the way the author portrays herself in the novel: as a woman who is constantly vacillating between announcements of her incredible ugliness and obesity and her unwillingness to subject herself to any standards other than her own.
In Love That Bunch readers get a fascinating illustrated gaze at one woman’s life and her attempts to make room in her mind for both the obnoxious materialism of her Long Island community in the forties and fifties as well as the beauty of that culture. This work asks as many questions as it resolves, but it does so in a way that is as thought-provoking, entertaining and often humorous as some of the best literary works.
The next think I look at, once again from Fantagraphics Books, was a neatly titled collection entitled The Adventures Of Junior and Tragic Tales About Other Losers by Peter Bagge. Certainly the characters and the book have a similar trait—they are all failures. While the opening section dealing with Junior, a man so frightened and dogged by life that he preaches the doctrine of never leaving home, is amusing if not hilarious, the rest tries to deal with social trends and the trials of middle-age in ways that neither amuse nor impress.
The artwork in the novel is competent, but other than Junior, one gets the feeling that the characters could look like anyone or anything and not change the meaning of the book. Half as witty as it pretends to be, this work, unlike Bunch, ends up making social revelations as obvious as reasons not to drink and drive; not that they shouldn’t be said, but nobody should have to pay eighteen dollars to hear them.
On a different side of the spectrum is the more mainstream work by Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons. This is a series of four books, with the third being the most recent, and all of them called Give Me Liberty and published by Dark Horse Comics.
Good old Frank Miller isn’t quite ready to change themes. While the characters are new, the premise isn’t. Give Me Liberty is set in an America riddled with corruption and hatred. It looks at how Miller envisions the future of that fine country. The comic books all star one Martha Washington, a black youth trapped in the prison-like ghettoes that plague urban America.
Anyway, the novel traces her escape, her subsequent allegiance to PAX — the new American army — and the various attempts by the corrupt government to eradicate her. Certainly there are some cunning touches in this work and it is well conceived and enjoyable. Once one gets past the fact that nothing new is going to happen in these works, one can settle down and appreciate the combination of blood, guts, and gore that is Miller’s breadwinner.
While Give me Liberty has nothing as interesting as, say, The Joker gassing David Letterman and the entire studio audience to its death, it does have similar ironic circumstances. I love the old “on the verge of the apocalypse look what’s going to happen if we keep on fucking up so much” book and so, while the art is typical comic-book, as are the heroes and the basic premise, I still had fund reading Give Me Liberty.
All these books deal with serious issues; none of them are for kiddies and at least two of them have nudity if not actual (burn ’em for it) depictions of sexual intercourse. While the cops should probably kick in my door for suggesting you read them, I will point out that some of the greatest literature of all time has started off being censored, banned and condemned.
