Tagged with graphic books

I believe I might be a bit of a prude. Gloeckner’s well-drawn graphic memoir of sexual abuse, drug abuse, and bad parenting is a little overly graphic for me, as is R. Crumb’s icky introduction. I’m sure it’s quite brilliant, but it’s not for me. It is pretty funny reading it on the subway, though, with all its nudity, especially when you board the train in a religious neighborhood.

Political progressive Sarah Glidden takes part in a Birthright Israel trip, riddled with doubt and concern, and after having researched Israel and Palestine extensively in the 40 days (heh) prior to her departure. Her graphic novel style memoir or the experience is nuanced, self-aware, self-critical, and brave. She arrives in Israel braced against being brainwashed and proving her Pakistani boyfriend’s father right that all American Jews eventually support Israel.

The graphic novel told story of a corporate thug turned hero of the working man after he gets fired from his job shilling feel good ultimatums is full of clever political puns and...cleverisms. Seriously, you'll marvel at the authors' wit on nearly every page. They provide data (in the form of clever satirical ads) to back up their anti-capitalist point-of-view. The art seems (to my ignorant text-biased self) to be right in tune with comic book superherolands. My chief complaint, if you can view it as one, is the denseness of the clever. I can see this working better as a daily comic strip where stopping to marvel at the wit doesn't pile up all at once to give you a repetitive smirk injury.

This is a graphic novel prequel to Briggs's Mercy Thompson series. Mercy is drawn with some powerful gams! It's helpful to get a visual on the other creatures in Mercy's universe, especially Stefan. His grungy/rock-y/punky style is described in Moon Called, but I didn't really buy it until I saw the drawing in the gallery at the end of Homecoming. I'm not sure I'm really down with Adam's and Bran's depictions, though. The story didn't grab me so much, but I'm already so sucked into the series that I couldn't resist reading it. It's pretty slim and goes down fast.