Reviews: comic-esque
Batman Unauthorized, ed. Dennis O’Neil: This is part of the Smart Pop series, but sadly I didn’t find it all that smart. It’s mostly standard “images of” analyses of various aspects of the Batman universe-the Joker, Arkham, ethnic villains, Robin, Martha and Thomas Wayne. What’s particularly striking about the collection as a whole is its blindness to feminism; women are adjuncts to and markers of progress on a man’s journey.
Two typical sentences: (1) “Ra’s (and by extension Talia) is the source of this trend [to make superhero crises domestic], as a villain … as a surrogate father … as a foil who has at least partly the same way he redefined Batman’s reality post-Tet in the comics and post-9/11 in Batman Begins.”Michael Marano, “Rā’s al Ghūl: Father Figure as Terrorist.” (The author had previously noted Talia’s refusal to go along with her father’s plans; I have omitted the author’s description of Identity Crisis, which would be enraging for the usual reasons.) (2) “The quickest shortcut to examining human psychology is to talk about romance, because it is the one issue that is touched by all others:find out what kind of girl a guy is attracted to, find out what kind of girl he attracts, and you find out all about him.” John C. Wright, “Heroes of Darkness of Light, Or, Why My Girl Goes for Batman over Superman.” (Despite the icky title-hey, Wright, how’s about letting her write the essay if this is her viewpoint-it’s not even a bad essay in its rehearsal of the basic appeals of Superman versus Batman. Unsurprisingly, though, Wright does not make good on the idea of discussing either the characteristics of the women to whom these heroes are attracted to or the characteristics of the women who are attracted to them. Because, of course, that’s not what he wants to talk about-he wants to talk about the interesting men at the center of these attractions.)
One might respond: Rivka, Batman is about Batman, so of course the women are going to be signposts in his journey. Sure, there are essays about the Joker, the mostly-boy Robins, Rā’s, the cost of being Batman, and other peripherals, so that response doesn’t hold up-where is my Catwoman essay? But even accepting the counterfactual that the proper study of Batkind is the Bat, the problem is that these essays don’t know that the role of women is a problem; they replicate rather than dissect or even note the issue. In conclusion: stick to LJ for meta unless you are a completist. Read Will Brooker’s Batman Unmasked for something better.
Joann Sfar, The Rabbi’s Cat (graphic novel): An Algerian rabbi’s cat eats the parrot and starts to talk, leading to theological hijinks (can a cat have a bar mitzvah?). I enjoyed the debates over the spiritual status of animals and the variant on the traditional trouncing-the-educated-man story; later parts of the story focus more on the professional and romantic affairs of the rabbi and his daughter, respectively, and they were poignant but less my thing. I suppose this is a graphic novel with magical realism; the talking cat doesn’t solve the rabbi’s problems, or those of his daughter - discrimination and affairs of the heart are not problems that can be solved even by the nicest of cats, which this cat isn’t.
Shawn Granger, Innocent, vol. 1: I got a review copy of this graphic novel through LibraryThing. Innocent is an avenging angel, aided by his sidekick David, who just likes to hurt things. He punishes various different baddies, from crooked cops to sacrificial cults to the scary neighbor next door. I didn’t really get it-the next-to-last episode, in which Innocent and David travel to France and confront a demon father, was the most engaging, but it was basically a bunch of unpleasant people getting unpleasant comeuppances. Also, I couldn’t tell any of the white cops apart, which made the corruption pretty hard to follow; and I’m not sure whether the last episode’s art was worse when I couldn’t tell the peasants (including the perfectly sphere-breasted ninja woman in their midst) were supposed to be Asian, or when I could.
You Higuri, Cantarella vol. 1: Cesare Borgia, promised to evil by his priest father, is kinda fighting his destiny, with the so-far unwitting aid of Chiaro, an assassin Cesare sees as an angel, and of his beloved-maybe too beloved-little sister Lucrezia. I see the over-the-top appeal; let’s just say the Cesare-Chiaro-Lucrezia triangle has three very strong sides, rather than the more traditional water molecule structure of most so-called triangles. I’m still not fundamentally a manga fan, but I would definitely continue reading this if only to see what baroque familial twist could develop next.
Two typical sentences: (1) “Ra’s (and by extension Talia) is the source of this trend [to make superhero crises domestic], as a villain … as a surrogate father … as a foil who has at least partly the same way he redefined Batman’s reality post-Tet in the comics and post-9/11 in Batman Begins.”Michael Marano, “Rā’s al Ghūl: Father Figure as Terrorist.” (The author had previously noted Talia’s refusal to go along with her father’s plans; I have omitted the author’s description of Identity Crisis, which would be enraging for the usual reasons.) (2) “The quickest shortcut to examining human psychology is to talk about romance, because it is the one issue that is touched by all others:find out what kind of girl a guy is attracted to, find out what kind of girl he attracts, and you find out all about him.” John C. Wright, “Heroes of Darkness of Light, Or, Why My Girl Goes for Batman over Superman.” (Despite the icky title-hey, Wright, how’s about letting her write the essay if this is her viewpoint-it’s not even a bad essay in its rehearsal of the basic appeals of Superman versus Batman. Unsurprisingly, though, Wright does not make good on the idea of discussing either the characteristics of the women to whom these heroes are attracted to or the characteristics of the women who are attracted to them. Because, of course, that’s not what he wants to talk about-he wants to talk about the interesting men at the center of these attractions.)
One might respond: Rivka, Batman is about Batman, so of course the women are going to be signposts in his journey. Sure, there are essays about the Joker, the mostly-boy Robins, Rā’s, the cost of being Batman, and other peripherals, so that response doesn’t hold up-where is my Catwoman essay? But even accepting the counterfactual that the proper study of Batkind is the Bat, the problem is that these essays don’t know that the role of women is a problem; they replicate rather than dissect or even note the issue. In conclusion: stick to LJ for meta unless you are a completist. Read Will Brooker’s Batman Unmasked for something better.
Joann Sfar, The Rabbi’s Cat (graphic novel): An Algerian rabbi’s cat eats the parrot and starts to talk, leading to theological hijinks (can a cat have a bar mitzvah?). I enjoyed the debates over the spiritual status of animals and the variant on the traditional trouncing-the-educated-man story; later parts of the story focus more on the professional and romantic affairs of the rabbi and his daughter, respectively, and they were poignant but less my thing. I suppose this is a graphic novel with magical realism; the talking cat doesn’t solve the rabbi’s problems, or those of his daughter - discrimination and affairs of the heart are not problems that can be solved even by the nicest of cats, which this cat isn’t.
Shawn Granger, Innocent, vol. 1: I got a review copy of this graphic novel through LibraryThing. Innocent is an avenging angel, aided by his sidekick David, who just likes to hurt things. He punishes various different baddies, from crooked cops to sacrificial cults to the scary neighbor next door. I didn’t really get it-the next-to-last episode, in which Innocent and David travel to France and confront a demon father, was the most engaging, but it was basically a bunch of unpleasant people getting unpleasant comeuppances. Also, I couldn’t tell any of the white cops apart, which made the corruption pretty hard to follow; and I’m not sure whether the last episode’s art was worse when I couldn’t tell the peasants (including the perfectly sphere-breasted ninja woman in their midst) were supposed to be Asian, or when I could.
You Higuri, Cantarella vol. 1: Cesare Borgia, promised to evil by his priest father, is kinda fighting his destiny, with the so-far unwitting aid of Chiaro, an assassin Cesare sees as an angel, and of his beloved-maybe too beloved-little sister Lucrezia. I see the over-the-top appeal; let’s just say the Cesare-Chiaro-Lucrezia triangle has three very strong sides, rather than the more traditional water molecule structure of most so-called triangles. I’m still not fundamentally a manga fan, but I would definitely continue reading this if only to see what baroque familial twist could develop next.