Graphic Novels

By Martha Cornog & Steve Raiteri -- Library Journal, 11/15/2006

"To be, or not to be?"—a comic, that is. Whether Hamlet or Harlequin romances, literary adaptations pose unique challenges. In the original, words carry the tale, while in a comic, pictures shoulder most of it. Pictures under lengthy voice-overs amount to illustrations, not comics. Words and pictures must cooperate.

Literary adaptations date from 1922, but it is Classics Illustrated we remember, starting with The Three Musketeers in 1941. After 169 titles were issued, the line fell on uncertain times, but in 2003 Toronto's Jack Lake Productions revived Classics Illustrated Junior, whose two anthologies and some 30 comics center on fairy stories and folk tales. Eureka's attractive Graphic Classics line encompasses over a dozen collections from H.P. Lovecraft, Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe, and others. Each features multiple artists, a characteristic that lends vitality and variety. However, length constraints coupled with extensive voice-overs can compress the stories into something between comics and illustrated abridgments. A publisher with a wide line of longer adaptations is NBM (see The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde, LJ 11/1/04; Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, LJ 7/03; and several episodes of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, LJ 9/1/02). Puffin Graphics has committed to a modest line of "classics transformed," including Dracula, Treasure Island, Frankenstein, and a manga-style Macbeth set on a science fiction ringworld.

Meanwhile, noteworthy independent adaptations include a drop-dead gorgeous The Vampire Lestat by Faye Perozich and painted by Daerick Gross, Gareth Hinds's Beowulf, Will Eisner's Fagan the Jew (a new twist on Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist), and several Kafkas (e.g., Peter Kuper's The Metamorphosis and R. Crumb's Kafka with text by David Zane Mairowitz). New and forthcoming are more varied fare, such as Raymond Chandler's whodunit Playback (see review, p. 51), Laurell K. Hamilton's romance Gothic Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter (Dabel Brothers: Marvel), and Kinley MacGregor's Lords of Avalon series, which is being published simultaneously as novels and graphic novels (Dabel Brothers: Marvel). Harlequin continues with English versions of its manga-adapted romances (see review, p. 52). In the 1980s, the British Oval Project revisited Shakespeare; now the series is being reissued in the United States by Black Dog/Leventhal, including King Lear, Macbeth, and Othello. Manga-style encores for Hamlet and other Shakespeares are promised from Wiley and the UK's Metro Media.

But the challenge for literary comics isn't Hamlet's soliloquy—it's Molly Bloom's. From "The Dead" to Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake, James Joyce's oeuvre is wild, beautiful—and graphically untrodden. Picture it!—M.C.

This wonderful anime series written by Abe (creator of the excellent Serial Experiments Lain) concerns the Haibane, a race of angel-like people (though they cannot fly) who live alongside humans in a walled city and have no knowledge of the outside world. The story follows Rakka, a Haibane who emerges from a cocoon with no memory of her previous life. She makes friends with fellow Haibane in their dormitory and learns the rules, such as using only things that humans have discarded. This book is a "photo-novel," which takes as illustrations stills from the anime's first five episodes, with word balloons added for the text. These books are never as important for libraries as the original anime, but this could have been a nice souvenir of the show—except for the abridgement of the stories, numerous editing errors, and the often out-of-focus reproduction of the art. The four-DVD anime set from Geneon is highly recommended for viewers teen and up—but this book is not.—S.R.

"Actually, today started last week," begins shell-shocked "Twitch" Williams. Crime noir doesn't get much better than this, with deadly weirdness plus two gritty, good-guy gumshoes: rotund, belligerent Sam Burke and scrawny, wire-haired Twitch. A bizarre menace is slaughtering New York mobsters, leaving bioengineered body parts as a calling card. Other mobsters and would-be informers fall to faceless white-coat thugs who infect their prey with a two-minutes-to-death influenza. With most cops on the take from the enemy, it comes down to our duo, the FBI, and the seen-it-all woman coroner to cooperate against the mysterious threat. The art is stunning: a grim, greenish ballet of action and murder. This volume collects the Udaku story arc of Sam and Twitch and ends with an unrelated story; an extra shows the making of the comic. With occasionally sexual situations, minor nudity, and industrial-strength cursing, this is for adults and older teens.—M.C.

Betty is running from her vengeful father-in-law, who thinks she murdered his son. Then in a playback of her husband's death, a scorned suitor's body turns up on her hotel room patio and flushes her from cover. Millionaire playboy Clark offers a no-strings escape—or will another playback leave her dead this time around? Based on a late 1940s unproduced screenplay, this crime-noir drama, driven by characters' secrets, seems best suited not to cinema but to comics, which allows the reader to puzzle out clues more leisurely along with clearheaded Inspector Killaine. Memorable supporting characters include (dead) gigolo-suitor Larry, his aging girlfriend and moneybags Margo, and corrupt P.I. Goble. The tough, dry dialog suggests a hard-boiled equivalent to drawing room comedy ("All I want are too many cigarettes and too much coffee"), and the angular woodcut-style art delivers satisfyingly black and bleak menace. But Killaine, who speaks with wan romanticism, is unfortunately drawn as a stiff dandy, while ingénue Betty is not as pretty or as irresistible as she's made out to be. First published in France. For older teens up.—M.C.

In 1885, Merton and Annie Russell-Cotes of Bournemouth, England, toured Japan for seven weeks, acquiring many works of art and souvenirs. After they returned home, they displayed those items in a small museum that became known as the Japanese Drawing Room. In an innovative move, the mounters of a forthcoming exhibition of the collection have commissioned this cross-cultural manga, written in English and illustrated by a Japanese artist and based on the couple's memoirs of their Japanese trip (primarily Annie's book Westward from the Golden Gate). During their sojourn, the couple saw evidence of Japan's rapid modernization, but they explored beyond this and learned much about traditional Japanese culture. Featuring naturalistic artwork, the style is straightforward, hewing so closely to Annie's journal that it even reproduces her mistakes, which are corrected in an informative glossary. An introduction by Garner, a curator at the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, also provides helpful historical background. This will interest students of Japanese history; recommended for teens and adults.—S.R.

Eleven-year-old Saga, a pianist like her late mother, is a highly organized girl with a plan for every day—but then she helps a tiny fairy, and her life changes. Little Sugar is an irrepressible, childish, and sweet apprentice Snow Fairy who has come to Earth to practice her snow-making flute and look for the mysterious "Twinkle," without which she can't become a fully fledged Season Fairy. Most humans can't see Season Fairies, but somehow Saga can. Though Saga initially resents Sugar for disrupting her life, the two eventually become friends. This manga is based on the anime series, a supercute kid's show with a measure of silliness but also featuring superior production quality, good writing, and depth to interest older viewers. Those attributes are all present to a lesser extent in this abridged retelling of several of the show's early episodes, which includes a likable cast. Recommended for most collections; despite one shot of Sugar's tiny backside, for all ages.—S.R.

"No one is buying my comics," moans Ernest Hemingway to wife Hadley, and the next day he punches out a critic on the street. It's 1920s Paris, and Hemingway, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and James Joyce are—cartoonists? Drawn as goofy, anthropomorphic animals by Harvey awardee and Norwegian Jason, the penniless quartet hang out in their favorite watering holes while dissing tourists and other "cartoonists": Gertrude Stein ("unreadable"), Dostoyevsky ("all his characters look alike"), even Norwegian Nobel laureate Knut Hamsun ("you've got to leave some white space!"). Fitzgerald drinks too much and has Zelda trouble, but the drollery cranks up a more serious turn of events when Hemingway proposes to end their money troubles by staging a heist. Matters do not go as planned, and the plot unravels through repeat tellings from multiple perspectives, Rashomon-style. With flirtatious, conniving Zelda as éminence grise, double-cross becomes triple-cross, and nearly everybody winds up dead or still poor. It's a cartoonist's conceit to relate comic art to the Lost Generation literary lights of the past, and the results are both droll and sad. Nothing graphically offensive, but there are sexual issues. Especially suitable for academic libraries. For ages 16+.—M.C.

At age 17, Mark Grayson began developing the same powers as his superhero father, Omni-Man, so he took the name Invincible and started stopping bad guys himself. All was going well—until Mark's father revealed himself to be an advance scout from the planet Viltrum, here to analyze and weaken the Earth for eventual conquest. After an emotional confrontation with Mark, Omni-Man left Earth. In this second oversized hardcover collection (compiling Vols. 4 and 5 of the paperback edition), Mark reveals his secret identity to his girlfriend; his mom, terribly hurt by her husband's betrayal, turns to alcohol; and one-eyed Allen the Alien reports events on Earth to the Coalition of Planets, giving them hope in their struggle against the Viltrumites. This excellent series has the bright colors of classic superhero comics; the superteam dynamics and multiple overlapping subplots of the 1980s X-Men and New Teen Titans; and an overarching sense of humor and fun, enhanced by art that's cartoonier than what's found in the usual superhero book. The stories are leisurely paced, compelling, and inventive. With blood and gore in some fight scenes, this ongoing series is heartily recommended for superhero fans mid-teen and up.—S.R.

In Never Kiss a Stranger, Laura signs on as an assistant to a romance author for a trip to the French Rivera. Then a cat burglar misses his target but steals her heart instead. He's really a tycoon, hunting patent secrets stolen from him. Can he recapture the secrets and win Laura? Then in Jinxed, Kit is R&D director for a toy company, successful but klutzy, especially around her handsome boss. A spark ignites, but he doesn't like women to work—especially mothers. Can they negotiate it romantically and professionally? And in A Prince Needs a Princess, Jack runs a California construction company when unexpected family deaths leave him heir to the throne of a small European kingdom. Clarissa's been sent to fetch him, but he can't forget how the king disowned his father for emigrating and marrying an American showgirl. Can Clarissa help mend the past? These are among some 250 Japanese manga counterparts to Harlequin romance novels, now selected for publication in English. The result is American shojo light, yet the books resemble shojo only art-wise and would not appeal to traditional shojo fans. Viewed as just plain comics, all three titles feature characterizations and art that actually sell the story better. Brief with predictably happy endings, they would likely appeal to teens as gateways to longer and more complex novels. Buy several and see how they circulate. Rated age 12+.—M.C.

A league of extraordinary gentlewomen: Alice of Wonderland, Dorothy of Oz, and Wendy of Never-Neverland, now grown. In a "reality" behind the fantasies, the three meet by chance in 1914 in an Austrian border hotel and exchange sexual coming-of-age stories: Alice fondled by a family friend; Dorothy discovering masturbation in a traumatic windstorm and then seducing the farmhands; Wendy and brothers drawn into adolescent group activities with a charismatic gutter lad. Sharing stories and sexuality together (and with others at the hotel), they come to understand and coalesce with their lost childhood selves. At the triumphant yet sad ending, they are no longer "lost girls," for they have found themselves and each other—even as World War I brings the end of our collective cultural innocence. Isn't violence the true pornography? Moore's writing is clever, insightful, and layered with winning characterizations of aristocratic Alice, hoyden Dorothy, and repressed bourgeois Wendy. But his prose is matched by Gebbie's sumptuous art, with Matisse-like color and design that simultaneously suggest childhood and the fantasy elements of adult sexuality. This lavish confection is intellectually, aesthetically, and erotically intriguing, with no holds barred (including youth-adult sex and incest). For adult collections only.—M.C.

Shanower wrote his first Oz story at age 11 and became a cartoonist partly to create his own Oz books—and voilà: a fine anthology of stories originally published separately. "The Enchanted Apples of Oz" follows Dorothy and the Scarecrow as they stumble across a threat to the source of Oz's magic. In "The Secret Island of Oz," inventive magical places and creatures complicate Dorothy's quest for a special fish for the Emerald City pond. The chilly monarch of "The Ice King of Oz" yearns for the lovely warmth of Oz's heroines, which nearly leads to disaster. "The Forgotten Forest of Oz" tells of a wood nymph banished from Burzee, only to become Queen of the Trolls. All the stories work as standard Oz adventure plots and more deeply as emotional journeys of yearning, loss, and healing. Child readers will recall the neighbor kid who moved away, teens the unrequited crush, and adults the friendship breached by misunderstanding. The charming, colorful art gets even better as the stories progress. Highly recommended for ages 10+.—M.C.

Three companies (Gold Key, Marvel, and DC Comics) have previously published licensed comics based on the original 1960s Star Trek series, but here Tokyopop boldly goes where no manga publisher has gone before. This OEL manga (original English-language book in manga format) features five comics adventures of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and the crew of the Enterprise, each by a different creative team and featuring mangaesque artwork. The results are mixed but usually enjoyable. The Enterprise is drawn through a wormhole to a laboratory orbiting a black hole, discovers a colony of a spacefaring race thought extinct, and transports a peace offering with a deadly secret between two enemy planets. The most disappointing story, in which an ancient gender war spills onto the Enterprise, is ironically by the book's only Star Trek veteran, DC writer Mike W. Barr—but he's saddled with unappealing artwork. In the book's best mix of anime and Trek tropes, the Enterprise encounters a group of giant robot raiders piloted by teens, and Kirk espouses nonviolence. Though not outstanding, this deserves some audience beyond the no-doubt small group of fans who love Star Trek and manga both; recommended for most collections, for teens and adults.—S.R.

In a future DC universe, today's heroes have mostly left the stage, and a new generation of less principled "meta-humans" has taken its place and begun wreaking havoc across Earth. When some of these reckless "heroes" cause an immense disaster, Superman, urged on by Wonder Woman, emerges from seclusion, calls together a group of superpowered supporters, and pledges to restore peace, safety, and order. But the aging Batman refuses to join his old comrades, instead pursuing his own plans to ensure humanity's future, which involve an alliance with Lex Luthor's shadowy Human Liberation Front. This is a new, high-quality oversized hardcover edition of one of the finest and most celebrated superhero graphic novels, featuring over 100 pages of annotation, sketches, and background material not present in the original trade edition. The book is packed with references best appreciated by longtime DC fans, but its appeal is far broader. Waid's writing has depth, emotion, and power; Ross's extraordinary painted artwork is masterful, realistic, and beautiful; and the story has resonance both biblical and mythical. No library should be without some edition of this book. Highly recommended for any teen or adult who has ever enjoyed a superhero story.—S.R.

In some ways, this thick volume is quite a bargain—it reprints 28 complete mid-1970s comics, each featuring Spider-Man (occasionally the Human Torch) with a different costar, including Iron Man, the Thing, Daredevil, and others. The stories are average superhero fare from the period, enjoyable for fans but mostly far from outstanding, with the later stories written by Bill Mantlo better than the earlier ones by Wein and Conway. But while the stories were originally published in color, this book depicts them in black and white with line art only, like all books in Marvel's Essentials line; black areas are filled in, but without any gray shading or toning. This dampens the spirit of the originals and makes the stories even blander. The material in some Essentials volumes is also available in entries of Marvel's hardcover, full-color Masterworks line, and despite their higher price tag, the Masterworks are highly preferable. The stories here, though, are not available in book form elsewhere—so while this is hardly "essential," libraries with comprehensive superhero collections may wish to add it and other Essentials such as Marvel Two-in-One.—S.R.

With incredible pastry and handsome staff, the Antique Bakery seduces customers by the score, providing solace for both culinary and psycho cravings. Can it attract a certain criminal-at-large from owner Kei's past? Four young men run the eatery: rich boy Kei with his career-hopping history, pastry chef/gay boy "of demonic charm" Yusuke who draws men like flies, former boxer Eiji who loves sweets and studies French, and slow but dependable Chikage. A deeper story about the interrelationships of the four men, their gay and straight romances, and the mystery from Kei's childhood emerges behind slapstick staff shenanigans and touching vignettes about the customers. A metaphor: the palate-delighting pastry flavors come from innovative and complex blends of ingredients and so too in this part shojo, part yaoi, part murder-mystery manga. Warning: the amazing food descriptions will send you straight to the nearest patisserie. In Japan, the four-volume series won the Kodansha manga award for shojo and was adapted for TV. With discreetly drawn gay love and sex, rated for age 16+. Funny, moving, and highly recommended.—M.C.

Magazines the size of telephone books carry manga monthly or weekly to Japanese readers. American manga magazines have come and gone, but VIZ's latest pair have so far survived to showcase VIZ titles and serve out J-pop culture. Shojo Beat runs six series targeted to young women, with themes ranging from girls' sports to samurai history to drama/romance to magical boyfriends. Three series—Crimson Hero, Nana, and Absolute Boyfriend (see LJ 9/15/06)—have been nominated for YALSA's Great Graphic Novels for Teens. Short, added features cover fashion and accessories matched to character outfits, tips for reading and drawing manga, and tidbits about Japanese life and popular music. With some sexual themes, rated for older teens. Shonen Jump is an American version of one of the longest-running Japanese mangazines. Pitched to young males, all seven current series are action/adventure-oriented with ninjas, spirit-speaking shamans, alchemy-enhanced teen warriors, goofy pirates, Go-masters, and more. One Piece, the pirate series, is a YALSA nominee. Subthemes include friends and relationships, conflict between youthful energy and innovation versus older wisdoms, and attaining mastery through discipline. Most plots come enmeshed in complex historical and magical contexts, requiring considerable effort to follow. Brief side features slip in brain-benders, Japanese words, and background on the stories. Rated for teens. Both titles include fan art. With solid, appealing content for mangaphiles and a modest price, these two magazines should draw considerable interest in libraries. Note that many males read shojo stories and many females like shonen plots.—M.C.