Book-It '10! Book #82
Enjoying a break to let my hand heal, I bring you this.
The Fifty Books Challenge, year two! This was a library request.
Title: Shutterbug Follies: A Graphic Novel by Jason Little
Details: Copyright 2002, Doubleday
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "Bee works as a photo-finishing technician in a one-hour lab in lower Manhattan. To amuse herself, she duplicates-- for her own collection-- any titillating photographs that happen to pass through her hands. When pictures of a naked corpse are left for processing, Bee's curiosity goes into high gear.
SHUTTERBUG FOLLIES is a cartoon thriller filled with page-turning suspense, diabolical deception, and hair-breadth escapes. Drawn with wit and imagination, it brings a classic genre totally up-to-date."
Why I Wanted to Read It: I've really been enjoying The AV Club's Comics Panel and I try to request stuff based on their recs. Unfortunately, I can't always get the title I want, but I can sometimes get other works by the same author. This was one such case and the book looked interesting.
How I Liked It: The book's art is attractive and engaging, a kind of cross between Venture Brothers and Kim Possible.
The story is as fast-paced as promised, but the story (and the premise) are at time almost jarringly incongruous. The plot is so much the stuff of young adult novels (Nancy Drew) that along with the style of art, you'd feel it'd do much better on that market. The "adult" aspects of the story (sex, hardcore nudity, swears, and violence, occasionally gruesome) seem tacked on. From the scuffles Bee encounters with the villains, they could've been bank robbers rather than fetish murderers.
There have been plenty of schlock "amateur sleuth" novels-- they're a sub-genre all their own. But combined with kid-friendly art in candy colors, the reader can't help but feel something is amiss.
The plot itself wraps up a little too neatly (in accordance with the genre), but it's nevertheless a page-turning book with beautiful art and well- placed paneling.
Notable: Mention has to be made of technology utilized throughout the novel that, at the time, was on the way out. A friend of the protagonist comes to her rescue with the help of a handy beeper and the very setting of the book, a one-hour photo center, had to be a dying art of sorts even in 2001 (although the book was published in 2002, the story repeatedly mentions that the year is 2001).
It's also worth mentioning a slightly creepy feeling of a Manhattan (albeit a Hollywood version of Manhattan) charging through to the conclusion of a year whose importance is etched irrevocably in tragic history. We are spared any lingering sky-scrapers, though.
The Fifty Books Challenge, year two! This was a library request.
Title: Shutterbug Follies: A Graphic Novel by Jason Little
Details: Copyright 2002, Doubleday
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "Bee works as a photo-finishing technician in a one-hour lab in lower Manhattan. To amuse herself, she duplicates-- for her own collection-- any titillating photographs that happen to pass through her hands. When pictures of a naked corpse are left for processing, Bee's curiosity goes into high gear.
SHUTTERBUG FOLLIES is a cartoon thriller filled with page-turning suspense, diabolical deception, and hair-breadth escapes. Drawn with wit and imagination, it brings a classic genre totally up-to-date."
Why I Wanted to Read It: I've really been enjoying The AV Club's Comics Panel and I try to request stuff based on their recs. Unfortunately, I can't always get the title I want, but I can sometimes get other works by the same author. This was one such case and the book looked interesting.
How I Liked It: The book's art is attractive and engaging, a kind of cross between Venture Brothers and Kim Possible.
The story is as fast-paced as promised, but the story (and the premise) are at time almost jarringly incongruous. The plot is so much the stuff of young adult novels (Nancy Drew) that along with the style of art, you'd feel it'd do much better on that market. The "adult" aspects of the story (sex, hardcore nudity, swears, and violence, occasionally gruesome) seem tacked on. From the scuffles Bee encounters with the villains, they could've been bank robbers rather than fetish murderers.
There have been plenty of schlock "amateur sleuth" novels-- they're a sub-genre all their own. But combined with kid-friendly art in candy colors, the reader can't help but feel something is amiss.
The plot itself wraps up a little too neatly (in accordance with the genre), but it's nevertheless a page-turning book with beautiful art and well- placed paneling.
Notable: Mention has to be made of technology utilized throughout the novel that, at the time, was on the way out. A friend of the protagonist comes to her rescue with the help of a handy beeper and the very setting of the book, a one-hour photo center, had to be a dying art of sorts even in 2001 (although the book was published in 2002, the story repeatedly mentions that the year is 2001).
It's also worth mentioning a slightly creepy feeling of a Manhattan (albeit a Hollywood version of Manhattan) charging through to the conclusion of a year whose importance is etched irrevocably in tragic history. We are spared any lingering sky-scrapers, though.