I love comics. I love movies. I love movies based on comics. Give me guys and gals in tights, with powers that defy scientific explanations, and I'm a happy camper. But I also couldn't wait to see Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. (It's wonderful!) Not that I don't love me some superheroes, but it's refreshing and gratifying to see a graphic novel of this kind making it to the big screen. And it got me thinking: If Persepolis can make it to filmdom, then why not…

1.) Jason Lutes' Berlin: City of Stones
This fantastic historical series is meant to cover the lives of Berliners from every strata of society, from 1928 (a .pdf download) to 1933. Lutes so far has only got us to 1929, the cusp of the rise of Nazi Germany. With clean, strong lines, Lutes draws characters who look like they just stopped moving for a second, and whose faces seem to have absorbed the decadence of Sally Bowles' Berlin. This educational and bracing work is must reading for anyone, anywhere, who thinks, "It can't happen here." I find myself revisiting Berlin: City of Stones more and more, the older I get, and impatiently waiting for Lutes to produce Berlin: City of Smoke.

2.) Alison Bechdel's Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
Like Persepolis, Fun Home is a biographical graphic novel, a portrait of a young woman figuring out herself and the world. In this case, self-knowledge is gained through a Charles Addams-esque scenario that includes a childhood home in a funeral parlor and the probable suicide of a closeted gay parent. Her panels are busy-busy with detail, like she remembered this as a movie playing in her mind, but without that storyboard feel. Bechdel's fame, such as it is, rests on the ground-breaking Dykes To Watch Out For, an ongoing series about characters who were rarely seen in comics back when she started (20+ years ago). What really sells Fun Home is Bechdel's dawning realization of things she noticed but couldn't attach significance to as a child, and her regret at the missed opportunity to share a facet of life that might have drawn her and her father closer together.

3.) Dead@17 by Josh Howard
Dead@17 is already the subject of a short film of reasonable quality. Mark Steensland has made a halfway decent fan film. I dunno what his day job is, but someone ought to give him a sack of money to make the feature length film. After all, if there was a sack of money for Margot At The Wedding, there's a sack of money for any damned thing. And any damned thing is exactly what Dead@17 ain't.

It's basically the battle between good and evil. The main warrior is Nara Kilday, a 17-year-old who is slain by a servant of evil in the first pages of the series then is resurrected as an ax-wielding teen avenger. It’s no accident that Nara often dresses like a Catholic schoolgirl. Fast-moving fiction, not overburdened with explanations. You will get the spirit!

Yes, I do love that sequential art. But you know what gets me down? No? Well, let's just say that I am not amused by the idea of the Peter Jackson/Steven Spielberg Tintin.

Recommend (0)

|  Comments (0)

|  Email

|  Share

Share  Facebook Digg del.icio.us