TRoOB: The Sculptor
Sep. 14th, 2015 03:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jducoeur[There's a lot of good stuff coming out, so it's time to get back into the habit of The Review of Obscure Books.]
Downstairs in our basement, there is The Shelf.
The Shelf was kind of an accident. When I was moving in with Kate, I stumbled across some graphic novels that I had liked too much to put in boxes, so they'd been living on random bookcases at my old house. So I stuck them together down there. And as I come across more really great GNs in going through the Stuff, I've been putting them on The Shelf.
Gradually, it's becoming my distillation of the Creme de la Creme of comics history. I have -- no shit -- somewhere north of 300 linear feet of comic books; The Shelf is the 29 inches of the absolute best. It's still a work in progress, but already represents my very eclectic picks for the masterpieces. From V For Vendetta and Watchman to Girl Genius, from Moonshadow to The Singles Club to Hepcats to Murder Mysteries, it's gradually evolving into a pretty good education in the best comics ever.
As soon as I'm done writing this review, The Sculptor is going onto The Shelf.
The Sculptor is by Scott McCloud, best known for Understanding Comics, the best explanation ever written about comics as a medium. But those of us who've been around a while remember Zot!, the comic that made his name as one of the shining lights during the blossoming of what I think of as the modern age of comics. IMO, The Sculptor is his masterpiece.
What's it about? Our protagonist is David Smith, a down-on-his-luck sculptor who is wallowing in his sorrows one day when Death shows up and makes him an offer: he can have remarkable gifts, in exchange for which he will only live 200 days. A lot happens during those 200 days, but that's the heart of the story.
It's a bit hard to assign a simple genre to the story, but I'm inclined to call it Magical Realism: extraordinary things happen, but this is fundamentally a story about very real people and their very real problems. David falls in love, and finds all of his assumptions about everything from Art to Love to Time to Mortality (most especially) Purpose challenged. He grows up, all too slowly, gradually setting aside his simple inward focus.
This is a *big* book -- at 500 pages, one of the few "graphic novels" worthy of the name -- but it's a pretty fast read. McCloud shows all of his technique and understanding of the medium, both to tell story and set mood -- he is one of the few people who can make a blank white page starkly frightening -- and the student of the form will find a lot of lessons in here. But you don't need to worry about that: the story will carry you along.
Mind, this isn't a happy or simple story, and it doesn't have any easy uplifting moral. It is beautiful, engaging and often fun, but rather melancholy at its core, and a day after finishing it I'm still getting a catch in my throat from it. It is fundamentally about Mortality and Time, so apply your own trigger warnings as necessary.
Anyway: highest recommendation. Certainly the best comic of the year so far, and I'll be pleasantly surprised if anything surpasses it...
Downstairs in our basement, there is The Shelf.
The Shelf was kind of an accident. When I was moving in with Kate, I stumbled across some graphic novels that I had liked too much to put in boxes, so they'd been living on random bookcases at my old house. So I stuck them together down there. And as I come across more really great GNs in going through the Stuff, I've been putting them on The Shelf.
Gradually, it's becoming my distillation of the Creme de la Creme of comics history. I have -- no shit -- somewhere north of 300 linear feet of comic books; The Shelf is the 29 inches of the absolute best. It's still a work in progress, but already represents my very eclectic picks for the masterpieces. From V For Vendetta and Watchman to Girl Genius, from Moonshadow to The Singles Club to Hepcats to Murder Mysteries, it's gradually evolving into a pretty good education in the best comics ever.
As soon as I'm done writing this review, The Sculptor is going onto The Shelf.
The Sculptor is by Scott McCloud, best known for Understanding Comics, the best explanation ever written about comics as a medium. But those of us who've been around a while remember Zot!, the comic that made his name as one of the shining lights during the blossoming of what I think of as the modern age of comics. IMO, The Sculptor is his masterpiece.
What's it about? Our protagonist is David Smith, a down-on-his-luck sculptor who is wallowing in his sorrows one day when Death shows up and makes him an offer: he can have remarkable gifts, in exchange for which he will only live 200 days. A lot happens during those 200 days, but that's the heart of the story.
It's a bit hard to assign a simple genre to the story, but I'm inclined to call it Magical Realism: extraordinary things happen, but this is fundamentally a story about very real people and their very real problems. David falls in love, and finds all of his assumptions about everything from Art to Love to Time to Mortality (most especially) Purpose challenged. He grows up, all too slowly, gradually setting aside his simple inward focus.
This is a *big* book -- at 500 pages, one of the few "graphic novels" worthy of the name -- but it's a pretty fast read. McCloud shows all of his technique and understanding of the medium, both to tell story and set mood -- he is one of the few people who can make a blank white page starkly frightening -- and the student of the form will find a lot of lessons in here. But you don't need to worry about that: the story will carry you along.
Mind, this isn't a happy or simple story, and it doesn't have any easy uplifting moral. It is beautiful, engaging and often fun, but rather melancholy at its core, and a day after finishing it I'm still getting a catch in my throat from it. It is fundamentally about Mortality and Time, so apply your own trigger warnings as necessary.
Anyway: highest recommendation. Certainly the best comic of the year so far, and I'll be pleasantly surprised if anything surpasses it...
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Date: 2015-09-15 10:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-09-15 12:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-12 03:13 am (UTC)(More detail in a sub-thread of the above linked thread)
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Date: 2020-06-12 12:30 pm (UTC)Useful info -- thanks!