Guay, Rebecca: A Flight of Angels
A Flight of Angels (2011)
Written by: Various
Illustrated by: Rebecca Guay
Genre: Graphic Novel
Pages: 128 pages
Why I Read It: Weekends have become my time to catch up on comic book reading, and recently, I was wrapping up a pile of The Unwritten when I noticed an absolutely gorgeous preview for A Flight of Angels. I noted the ad itself boasted of several authors: Holly Black, Bill Willingham, Alisa Kwitney, Louise Hawes, and Todd Mitchell, but it was the art itself that kept drawing me to the book. I'm not really into angels as tropes, nor am I into fairies, and I just wasn't sure I wanted a collection of "shorts" that dealt with them. However, the art won me over, so I had my hubby order it from Amazon.
The premise: ganked from BN.com: The diverse mythology of angels is explored in this lushly painted graphic novel from high-profile fantasy authors including Holly Black (The Spiderwick Chronicles) and Bill Willingham (FABLES).
Deep in the woods outside of a magical kingdom, a strange group of faeries and forest creatures discover a nearly dead angel, bleeding and unconscious with a sword by his side. They call a tribunal to decide his fate, each telling stories that delve into different interpretations of these winged, celestial beings: tales of dangerous angels, all-powerful angels, guardian angels and death angels, that range from the mystical to the mysterious to the macabre.
Spoilers, yay or nay?: Nay, as there's nothing to spoil. Well, I could spoil the end, but I'm not going to. Read on without fear!
The Story: I really like how this graphic novel was structured. When I first read about it, I thought it was just going to be a collection of short comics about angels, all illustrated by the same person, and I wasn't really crazy about that. But as I kept considering the book, I noticed the stress on phrase "conceived and illustrated by," which indicated an overall arc. And now that I've read the book, it makes so much sense. Holly Black wrote the frame story, as well as one of the tribunal stories, and the other authors featured in the collection each took up a tribunal stories. All of those stories are those that they've heard about angels. Some of the stories are familiar, like the Garden of Eden and the Fall of Lucifer, while others, I think, are original takes on current angel mythology. I'm not an expert on angel mythology, so really, if they aren't original, my bad. I did like the origin (so to speak) story of the guardian angel, and that's not an original concept. But what works, story-wise, is often the tales have a twist to what I was expecting and what I knew. It's hard to pick a favorite, story-wise, as they all fit very, very well together. But the overall wrap-up to the frame story? Lovely and bittersweet. Kind of made me wish it didn't end, because there's one story I wish we'd gotten.
The Art: Absolutely, stunningly, gorgeous. What really impressed me was how Guay used a slightly different style for each piece. The frame story is in charcoal with no color. Then each story kind of gets its own style of art, which not only helped distinguish one story from the next, but also relayed mood and atmosphere for each piece. Art-wise, I think the frame story art was my favorite (which was what I'd seen originally, so no surprise there), with close seconds being the art in the first piece (the Eden one) and the final piece (the fall of Lucifer). But seriously, it's amazing.
My Rating: Good Read
I should note that art-wise, this book is a 10 out of 10. I'd basically bought this just for the art, and I can't say you'd be disappointed if you did the same. However, fans of fairies and fans of angels should see this graphic novel as an absolute MUST HAVE, because the art is so gorgeous. Whether or not there's really anything TOTALLY original in the stories is beyond me, but I did catch some nice twists to familiar myth, and that kept my interest perked for the entire piece. I'm beyond pleased with the purchase, and if you're a fan of any of the contributing authors, you should get your hands on this as well.
Cover Commentary: The art is pretty, but not enough to grab my eye (not like the inner charcoals did); however, the cover is wonderfully rendered, with the spot-varnishes. It's a very, very handsome cover, and the image is from the first tale, the re-telling of the Garden of Eden.
Next Up: Chill by Elizabeth Bear