Review: Big in Japan

Posted on April 26, 2013 by Joe

This review was originally penned for the Forbidden Planet blog:

Big in Japan: an Illustrated Travel Diary

Moogs is a sculptor and jewellery maker, as well as a comics creator, working out of the well known Hope Street Studios in Glasgow. In fact it was her hand-made jewellery which caught my eye at the recent Dundee Comics Expo (I had to get a close up of the supercute Domo earrings she had made for one of my manga-mad colleagues). And while chatting away to Moogs at the Dundee show I noticed her Big in Japan comic, with a very colourful and rather joyful cover and an unusual small landscape format. I’m not a major Japanophile or manga reader, but this caught my eye and I had to give it a go. Besides I do have a bit of a weakness for travel lit, especially done in comics form.

(some of Moogs’ jewellery at the Dundee Comics Expo, pic from my Flickr)

This is essentially a diary of Moogs’ trip to Japan, drawn in a manga-influenced style, to attend the wedding of her friends Masami and Taka, and knowing her trip starts with a hideously early morning call for the shuttle down to London to catch her main flight she’s decided to go in style – no budget airline here, the real deal complete with nice service and cooked breakfast, and a delighted looking Moogs tucking into it with a “screw you, Easyjet” speech bubble. Anyone who normally has to take the budget flights and then gets a full service one will sympathise with that reaction.

There’s the very, very long flight halfway round the globe to Japan, complete with turbulence and the “is there a doctor on board” moment you hope only happens in movies, but it appears does sometimes happen in real life. Still, it’s not al bad as she’s prepared with a bag full of distractions and snacks, plus there’s around eleven hours of viewing to watch. And at last she’s there, Japan – jetlagged nad tired, but arrived at her destination. Which is more than can be said for her luggage…

But getting there is just the start and forget the annoying lost luggage thing, because there are her friends waiting for her, and the real reason for her trip, to see her chums and be a part of their wedding. Of course there will be a bit of proper sightseeing, holiday making and socialising going on around her while she’s there, as well as the wedding herself. There’s the great delights of the Ghibli Museum (wouldn’t we all love to go there?), some dining form called Okonomiyaki and, of course, there is dancing and karoake. And then there is the shopping – and some wonderfully peculiar oddities, such as a shop that sells a Marie Antoinette action figure, complete with removable head! Ah, Japan…

The sightseeing and trips are fun, both the landmark, historical site and the quirky themed varieties – cafes (a Moomin cafe in Japan? Fab), theme parks and other venues – and taking in more traditional Japanese pastimes, such as the hot springs. But the core of this wee book is the wedding and sharing time with good friends, friends she obviously doesn’t get to see too often given the vast geographical differences, and the book reflects the sheer pleasure and delight in being among your friends and celebrating an important moment with them. It doesn’t get maudlin or overly nostalgic, instead the comic is suffused with a simple feeling of fun and joy, which left me smiling. It’s a short, personal work, but quite charming, and although much of it is drawn in a manga-influenced style (except for more detailed depictions of some of the historical landmarks) it’s still very easy on the eyes even to someone like me who doesn’t read a lot of manga. A short and pleasurable delight.

Review: Porcelain

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Joe

This review was originally penned for the Forbidden Planet blog:

Porcelain: a Gothic Fairy Tale

Benjamin Read, Chris Wildgoose

Improper Books

I had my first glimpse of Porcelain towards the end of last year when Improper Books’ Matt Gibbs was kind enough to give us a sneak-peek ahead of the teaser pages they were taking to last November’s Thought Bubble. There are some works where I get an instant vibe – call it the bookseller’s tingle – that tells me even before I start that a book or comic is going to be good, and that instinct rarely misleads me. And after a good wait, when I finally got to read the entire book I was pleased to see that instinct was still sharp, because this is good work. Better than good work, it’s utterly beautiful, a delightful concoction that partakes of Victorian novels, elements of the industrial revolution’s real history, the fantastical fairy tale (and even elements of Bluebeard and perhaps Little Orphan Annie) and a very elegant form of Steampunk, all woven through a tale which is by turns mysterious, charming, touching and frightening.

We begin, as any good Victorian drama probably should, in the cold, snow-bound city with a group of ragamuffin street urchins. Overseen – and indeed brutally bullied by – Belle, they are braving the curfew in order to spy out opportunities for a little light larceny. The imposing gates and wall of a large estate promise a rich, tempting target within, but none of the children are willing to go in, because they believe an evil wizard lives inside the mansion. Eventually our young heroine is forced up and over the wall against her will – as it turns out, fortunately for her, since the small band she was with are brutally apprehended by the constabulary just moments later, and thieves, the constable delights in telling them, swing for their sins…

(pages here (c) Benjamin Read and Chris Wildgoose, published Improper Books, click for the larger versions)

Inside though there are still perils for our little heroine; as she descends a large, twisted tree, winter-bare, into the snowy garden beyond the walls there are eyes watching her, glowing, red eyes. Suddenly two gleaming white beasts emerge from the snowy darkness – but not flesh and blood beasts, no common guard dogs these. Instead they are gleaming white porcelain, some form of clever automata. But like a fleshly guard dog they are dangerous and set on protecting their master from intruders – luckily he spots the girl and halts them just in time. Understandably irked by this intrusion into his grounds this very large, bearded man demands an explanation. When she puts on an attempt at a posh accent and asks oh-so innocently, oh isn’t this where the ball is being held? I must be lost… At this point the man laughs and the ice is broken. In a more amicable manner he agrees to see her out, no harm done, but when the shabbily dressed child almost faints in the cold he realises she is tired and malnourished; picking her up in his huge arms he carries her inside for warmth and food.

And so the scene is set for a tale that mixes warm charm with hints of the dangerous and unspoken. The ‘wizard’ is in fact an engineer who creates the ‘porcelains’, which just like the ‘creamware’ of Josiah Wedgwood are all the rage. Except where Wedgwood perfected porcelain tableware to royal standards our rotund engineer crafts delicate porcelain mannequins which can think and move – his household has no other human being in it, just a staff of these delicately white, mostly silent automata. He alone can make them walk and act (and in a few cases talk), and he can scarcely keep up with the demand – which has made him very wealthy. And yet he sits alone in his vast mansion under the weight of a secret sadness, until the girl comes. Realising she has no real family to return to and only the cold street to live on, he asks her to stay. Both need to get used to being in a relationship – having a roof over her head and someone to care for her is new for our untrusting street child, while our wizard has to get used to caring for a child, which involves far more than simply clothing and feeding her. She slowly starts to trust and love, his clearly once generous heart is reminded that it too can love again, and it’s a very sweet sequence as two lost souls find reason for being by caring for each other.

“It has been winter within these walls forever it seems. You have brought summer back to my life and this is my thank you. Happy birthday, sweet child.”

Of course if all went on as sweetly as this we’d have a shorter and more sugary tale. But anyone who knows their fairy tales – or even their Dickens – will know that something is going to happen, that part of the girl’s past (she and the engineer are never specifically named, deliberately) will come back, and there is the question of why an eligible and kind-hearted, wealthy man is living alone with only his automata for company. We know he had a wife, but what happened? He shows her the whole mansion, gardens and even his workshop (where he begins at her insistence to train her in his delicate arts), but one locked chamber in his porcelain workshop is forever off-limits to her, and as with the tale of Bluebeard the reader wonders what is really in there and worries that curiosity may eventually drive our little heroine to look where she shouldn’t. And then there is the question of the porcelains themselves…

It is to the great credit of Benjamin and Chris that what may seem to be a nice fairytale, semi Steampunk take on the Little Orphan Annie meets Bluebeard tale, proves to be much more. While it certainly partakes of those other stories it crafts its own distinctive path and is its own beast, taking in some remarkable twists along the way, which I won’t spoil here. It’s an utterly beautiful piece of work, a charming yet sometimes disturbing and scary tale – and a fairy tale should be scary as well as magical, it’s part of their raison d’etre – which boasts some truly gorgeous comics artwork by Chris (some of the scenes demand you stop reading the tale for a moment and just drink in the art, the magical porcelain garden splash page is simply wonderful).

It can be enchanting and magical (a special birthday present crafted by the engineer is wondrous), it takes in elements of the fairy tale and Gothic and Victorian novel, mixes the uplifting with the disturbing, but really, at its core its about that aching, deep need to care for someone and to be cared for and the way that enriches our lives beyond all measure; it’s about a daughter who needs a father and a father who needs a child. This is one of those books you will keep coming back to, the sort you will find yourself recommending to others and picking out as a present to friends, and without a doubt one of the most beautiful graphic novels of the year.

Ding dong…

Posted on April 14, 2013 by Joe

… the witch is dead… Hey, right wingers hell-bent on canonising Thatcher as some modern political saint, protesters will stop buying Ding Dong the Witch is Dead to get it into the charts if you stop wasting millions of pounds of the tax-payer’s money on what is essentially a state funeral in all but name. Deal? No? Well if you can close down half of central London and waste millions on a politician who is still despised by half the population decades on then it is fine for people to protest in a witty and sarcastic manner by getting this song to the charts. In fact there is something delightfully, subversively British about the humour behind that, the sort of satire and humour which goes back to the days of Hogarth as a way for ordinary citizens to make their views on their ‘betters’ known and heard.

And on the related note of Hogarth, here’s a recent work from one of that esteemed artist and observer of society’s modern heirs, the excellent Martin Rowson on the whole nonsense surrounding Thatcher’s death (cartoon by and (c) Martin Rowson, published in the Guardian):

I’ve head the pleasure of hearing Martin speak twice now at the Edinburgh International Book Festival and he’s not only very knowledgeable about the history of editorial cartooning and illustration, he is passionate about using it to hold politicians and other public figures to account and letting them know we are watching the buggers, which is vital in any healthy democratic society.

(Martin Rowson at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2012, pic from my Flickr)

The Elaborate End of Robert Ebb

Posted on April 14, 2013 by Joe

A cracking find online – this short work by Clement Bolla, Fx Goby and Matthieu Landour pays great homage to those classic creature features so beloved of 1950s Sci-Fi, as a young man working night security in a film studio can’t resist trying on a monster costume to play a practical joke, which snowballs into a series of increasingly out of control situations. I really like the setting, which has a sort of 1950s/60s feel to it that could be Britain or America, it’s undefined and really suits the tale very well:

The elaborate end of Robert Ebb from Robert Ebb on Vimeo.

Spring skyline

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Joe

Walking home from work, for once the sun had come out, end of the day in very early spring, sun already low in the sky now dipping towards the western horizon, casting copper light and long shadows over Edinburgh’s spectacular skyline:

A zoom in on some details of the crowded roofs of the tall buildings of the Old Town, with the spire of the Tron Kirk visible on the Royal Mile, rising above them, the peak of Arthur’s Seat prominent in the background:

I thought this one worked as a sort of cross-section of the Old Town, showing off the old structures which descend the steep sides of the volcanic ridge which the Old Town lies on – it’s a city of many levels, Edinburgh, and that’s before you consider what’s below ground too…

The beautiful, almost wedding cake architecture of Ramsay Gardens, surely one of the most unique set of dwelling places in the British Isles, sat literally right by the esplanade of Edinburgh Castle at the top of the Old town’s volcanic ridge, commanding views out across the 18th century New Town towards the mighty Firth of Forth, seen here catching the last rays of a spring day sun…

Caldera

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Joe

I found this achingly beautiful pice of short, award-winning animation, Caldera, on Vimeo. A film from Evan Viera and friends, it is largely a homage to his father, who had to deal with images and delusions due to a mental disorder. It follows a young woman who experiences some quite remarkable visual worlds due to her own mental health issues, worlds that society decides she must control and curb with medication, bringing her back to the drab constrictions of what people rather foolishly call reality (as if they had any real idea what that actually was), but the realms in her imagination are too vibrant to be contained. The film reminds me very much of one of my favourite literary works of all time, Don Quixote, and how sometimes we are happier with our delusions; perhaps if more questioned the nature of imagination and reality and our individual natures rather than the bland demand for all to conform we’d have a happier society. There is some gloriously beautiful visual imagery in this animation, especially a scene where she leaps into a nocturnal, glowing sea, like falling into stars, or swimming with a great sea turtle. Beautiful work.

Caldera (2012) from Evan Viera on Vimeo.

The Quiet City

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Joe

Love this brief video by Andrew Julian, taking in my beloved Paris in the winter, before the tourist season starts to fill the streets increasingly. Like my own Edinburgh the tourists never really stop coming, but you can notice the difference as the seasons pass – early spring and the approach to Easter see the visitors increase rapidly here, and also in Paris. When I was last there it was very early March, so the visitors were at a much lower mass than later in the year, but certain spots like the Louvre or Eiffel Tower are eternal magnets to visitors even at that early time of year, but since we made a point of walking off the main tourist roads we often sat back and relaxed in very quiet bars (also much cheaper than those on the main drag!), or wandering through a street market. The video is rather lovely, very nice, sharp picture quality, and doesn’t hurt having Arvo Part’s music on it…

The Quiet City: Winter in Paris from Andrew Julian on Vimeo.

Can it really be five years since I last walked the streets of Paris? Strolled over the beautiful Pont Neuf, browsed for bande dessinee in the bookstores of the Latin Quarter or the boquinistes along the Seine? Lot of things have happened since I was last in the City of Light, and most of them not very nice, often think it isn’t just that I want to return to Paris, I want to return to that point before so much that was wrong and bad in my life happened.

(despite not having the tripod with me I managed to get some half decent night shots of Paris on my trip, this is one of my favourites – I loved walking Paris at night)

Since we’re on a Parisian theme, here’s a short video I shot with my old still camera, which had limited video but did the job (not HD back then, alas) – descending from the summit of the Eiffel Tower, I was near a small window in the lift and clicked the camera to video mode and let it run for the whole way down to the first floor:

Scott Monument, spring evening

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Joe

Walking home from work a few evenings ago, chilly and yet such gorgeous light quality – a pale blue dome of sky above and the stretched out, amber light of the sinking sun splashed over the city creating a soft glow on the old buildings of Edinburgh. I love the changing quality of light we experience in our northern kingdom, especially spring and autumn. As the warm light touches the ancient stone it produces a beautiful colour, and the low sun creates both light and long, contrasting shadows, which against the blue of the sky makes it irresistible to my camera…

I’ve taken many photos of the great Gothic rocket of the Scott Monument over the years, but walking past it on an evening like this I find myself compelled to pause and get the camera out again, shooting yet another version of it, but each time it is a little different, so I can’t resist…

One of the grotesques projecting from the first floor balcony of the two hundred feet of literary monument (and yes, it is a grotesque, not a gargoyle – it’s only technically a gargoyle if it also functions as a water spout)

And Sir Walter still looks upon the city, reclining in marble splendour between the massive stone ‘legs’ of his towering monument. I always think that the fact in a city full of remarkable buildings and monuments one of the largest (indeed the largest literary monument in the world) in the city is not to a king, queen, duke or conquering general of imperial grandeur, but to a writer, well, I think that’s very, very civilised.

Report: the free Dundee Comics Expo 2013

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Joe

This report was originally penned for the Forbidden Planet Blog:

Last Saturday the free Dundee Comic Expo, organised by Phil Vaughan and Chris Murray (well-kent faces on the Scottish comics scene), took place in Dundee University, helping to fill the springtime comics hole left by having no Hi-Ex this March, and I headed up from Edinburgh, crossing two of Scotland’s great rivers that help carve our coastline into its distinctive shape. As with the trip to Hi-Ex the actual travelling to the convention affords some beautiful views out the train window as the Scottish landscape slips by.

(above: shot from the train going over the Tay Bridge on a cold but bright spring day to Dundee; below: Phil Vaughan and Chris Murray, organisers of the event. I had to shoot in black and white as the camera’s colour sensor was overloaded by Chris’ shirt. All photos from my Flickr, click for the larger versions)

I arrived a little before the doors officially opened, which gave me some time to chat briefly to Phil and Chris (after paying our respects to PC Murdoch of course) as they were seeing to last moment arrangements, and to some of the comickers behind the tables in the Baxter Suite and the larger (and very airy due to lots of natural light) College Hall, where most of the small press folk and the dealers were finishing setting up. Right away as I entered College Hall I spotted Gary Erskine, having a quick natter with Monty Nero. These days wherever Gary goes at a comic con there is likely to be some representation from the Roller Derby crew nearby – the girls on skates have become a bit of a fixture at some of the Caledonian comics events these days, brightening things up, plus it’s good to know they are there to keep an eye on Gary.

(above: Gary Erskine chatting to Monty Nero; below: setting up before the doors officially opened to fans)

On spotting a table full of diverse works from one of our fine UK small press teams who have effectively grown into a publishing stable, Accent UK, I thought the chap behind the table might be Colin Mathieson, and so it was. As is the nature of my work I talk to a lot of folks on the comics and books scene but since we’re all in different parts of the country I don’t get to see them, and despite the fact I’ve swapped emails for years with Colin and his Accent compadre Dave West I’ve never actually met him so it was a pleasure to actually see him in the flesh and get a chance to talk to him for a while (readers in North America can see the Accent UK gang at the upcoming MOCCA gig in New York).

I’d remembered to bring my little leather journal which I’ve been using as a sketchbook and Colin, after telling me he was planning to return to more drawing and less concentration on just writing, was kind enough to do a great sketch for me in my wee book to add to the collection. I had a funny feeling looking at the array of their titles spread out on the table, it was like looking at a slice of Richard’s reviews on the blog as he has covered quite a few from Accent over the years. Since they were sitting there so temptingly in front of me I decided to buy a few while I was there.

Continuing round the hall I stopped to talk to writer Jim Alexander, who I hadn’t seen since Hi-Ex the previous March.

And since he was well placed with his table at a good corner of the hall I also nipped behind his table to take a shot of the event from the perspective of the writers and artists, so here’s the view of the Dundee Comic Expo via Jim-cam:

Being Dundee, home of the mighty DC Thomson, it’s will surprise no-one that there was a presence from some of their titles and characters, be it PC Murdoch from the long-running Oor Wullie strip greeting visitors outside the Baxter suite, numerous DCT pieces among the artwork displayed around the expo and naturally long-running titles like the Beano and Commando were available from the DCT tables.

And indeed if you arrive by rail there’s a collection of Dandy and Beano characters such as Dennis the Menace (with Gnasher, naturally), Desperate Dan and several of Leo Baxendale’s creations like Minnie the Minx and some of the Bash Street Kids (annoyingly I only saw it on the way home, when it was evening, so excuse the poor light quality – still a great sign to welcome visitors though!):

Moogs Kewell had her comic work – a neat wee landscape format travel work about Japan (which I had to buy for myself to read later) in a manga-influenced style, and some fabulous hand-made jewellery – I had to take a close up photo for one of my manga and anime-mad colleagues, who was especially delighted at Moogs’ supercute Domo earrings (I thought she would be) – you can check them out and order her geektastic jewellery for yourself over on her Etsy store.

After checking in with Pete and John from Glasgow’s Indy-friendly Plan B store who had a nice array of good titles to choose from I saw David Lloyd; I’ve swapped emails over the years with David, but never had the chance to meet him so it was a delight to meet in person the man who created the art for one of my favourite books of all time. David was sketching a certain Fawkesian-masked character for a fan and we had a short chat, then to my surprise I found an entire hour had gone past already and I had to scoot off to the lecture hall to listen to David giving his talk, which mostly concentrated on discussing Aces Weekly, the interesting new digital-only take on the traditional British anthology style weekly comic, which boasts a hugely impressive talent roster.

David discussed the digital model, how there was no up-front payment but everyone took equal shares from anything made (he himself put his own dosh into starting it up) and, as he said, there’s no middle man like a distributor to take a cut, so anything made goes to the people who actually made the strips. With a talent pool that is obviously busy with other professional engagements it isn’t the money that’s the draw though, it’s the huge amount of creative freedom they have. David seemed quite happy with Aces as it passes its second volume mark and plans to keep it going, but as with other digital-only comics he added that there’s always a need to drive for more subscribers (and if you are thinking that sounds interesting then check David’s guest Commentary on Aces we ran here a few months ago), so do have a look.

The vagaries of rumbling tummies and lunch meant I unfortunately missed a chunk of Laura Sneddon‘s talk on the hidden history of women in comics, but did manage to get to the second half and what I heard was interesting, some of it I had heard of before but a good bit that I hadn’t come across (always good to find out new things), and it reminded me of a similarly themed and equally fascinating talk I attended at Edinburgh’s Central Library from the Glasgow Women’s Group last year. Hannah Berry‘s talk followed and she was, as ever, delightfully animated and passionate about the medium. The only drawback for me was that in the relatively low light of the lecture hall it’s hard to get a decent picture without using the flash (which is a bit intrusive), and Hannah is so animated I had a virtual roll of picture of her obscured by the blur or rapidly gesticulating arms. I haven’t seen Hannah since she was at the Edinburgh Book Festival a few years ago so it was good to see her again and hear her talking about her latest work, the excellent and creepy Adamtine (you can read a guest Commentary by Hannah on that book here on the blog).

(above: Laura Sneddon’s talk on the hidden history of women; below Hannah Berry’s talk)

Bryan and Mary Talbot also gave a talk, still aglow with their win from the prestigious Costa book award (the first time a graphic novel has won that major UK literary gong, competing directly against the prose works, a great achievement for them and a nice acknowledgement of the medium and its potential). Bryan decided that Mary should do most of the talking. Most of the talk concentrated on their award-winning Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes (one of my own picks for Best of the Year), and it was, appropriately for a book which has so much autobiography in it, well illustrated not only with projections of finished and work-in-progress artwork from the book but with plenty of photographs, some general reference works for the art and design, but many from family photo albums used to help in creating the work. Mary and Bryan also talked a little more at the end about Mary’s next work, which she had mentioned last summer at their Edinburgh Book Festival appearance, which will use a fictional character to explore the era of the Suffragettes. And yes, we have another guest Commentary post to point you to if you missed it last year, where Mary and Bryan talked us through making Dotter (obviously we’ll hope to bring you more on the new work further down the line too).

Sadly I had to miss Nigel Dobbyn‘s talk so I could get a last turn around the two rooms where the creators and dealers had their tables, and managed to get brief chats with some more folks and see how it had gone for them – the general consensus was that it was a nice event, small but very accessible and nicely scaled for folk to chat to each other, and they seemed pleased with how they had done on the tables too. For my part I had a great time talking to folks (annoyingly I only found out later on Twitter I had missed a couple of folks I know online who were there and who didn’t know I was, c’est la vie), getting to meet others for the first time, picking up some small press comics for my collection, and the nature of the event lent it a very accessible and friendly, open feeling with readers, dealers and the writers and artists, both professional and self published, all mixing freely, a very nice vibe to the day.

A short conversation with a squirrel

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Joe

I was out in town to take a photo of the Easter mural at Saint John’s church on Princes Street last week (they often put up great art works commenting on current social, ethical and political events and concerns) and, having bagged my picture, I was about to head off to the Filmhouse. On a whim I decided not to go back out the gate and along the pavement and round the corner, instead opting to go down the stairs and cut through the church’s cemetery and past the fair trade shop and cafe that are underneath the church in the crypt area (the cafe has seats outside for the better weather, you can sit and have your coffee and cake but the Victorian tombs!). And I am glad I suddenly decided to cut through the kirkyard, because look at this splendid little fellow who I found poised by an old Celtic cross headstone as I walked through. I still had the camera around my neck and so very slowly picked it up so as not to frighten him off, and managed to get this shot:

To my surprise he didn’t dart off in that rapid way squirrels usually do, he stayed in his spot, little look around and then often looking right at me, as if we were having a quiet little chat, so I moved over a few feet (slowly again so as not to alarm him) and zoomed in for some more shots:

Even got him calmly looking right at me – how cute is he? And what a magnificent tail! I thought my Pandora puss had a big, bushy tail, but this is something else…

After a few moments he scarpered away over the wall and the tops of the gravestones, leapt onto a low branch and scuttled up into his tree, but before I left I noticed he had again paused and was looking right at me, so I took one last picture:

Although the kirkyard is sunken below the level of the nearby roads and streets and a nice quiet, peaceful spot, only twenty feet from where this happened are two very busy city centre bus stops and a main road, hundreds of people and vehicles passing by every few minutes in the middle of the day. No-one else came down the steps while I was there, all those people busily walking by up above on the street just feet away totally oblivious to the wonderful little scene I alone was witnessing. I love when little moments like this happen – especially when I can catch them on camera (another reason I keep my camera in my bag most of the time). With most others walking by unaware it feels like my city is giving me a little present, sharing a little moment of magic with me as a reward for being able to see such things. Little magical moments like this just make a day…

Cloudscape, skyscape, landscape: Scottish river, Scottish sky

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Joe

Crossing the Tay rail bridge at the weekend, a bright, sharp but chill Easter weekend. As the bridge curves across the mighty Firth of Tay towards Dundee the river was at low tide, still as a mirror and reflecting the cloudscape above beautifully. It was a glorious Scottish landscape to view from the train and I didn’t expect any shots taken through the window from a moving train to come out very well, but sometimes little experimental shots like that work and you get something beautiful like this:

Reviews: Medusa

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Joe

This review was originally penned for the Forbidden Planet blog:

Medusa
Chris Kent
Graphite Fiction

“I wondered, what if a modern day soldier saw a face so horrific, it could turn him to stone?” Chris Kent in his Director’s Commentary.

I’ve been anticipating reading Chris Kent’s fascinating-looking Medusa since it first was listed for pre-orders in Previews a few months ago, and his recent guest Director’s Commentary here on the blog increased my desire to read this unusual work, so I was delighted when Chris dropped by to say hi when he was in town and also drop off a copy of the book. Ostensibly it is the story of a British soldier, Corporal Elliot Ford, fighting in Iraq when he gets news from home that his daughter has gone missing, and he is sent home on compassionate grounds. But home and the battleground may be separate geographically, but such distancing between the two is not so simple in the scarred mind of the veteran soldier…

This is not just a tale of the mental wounds so many of our armed forces personnel carry home with them, important though that issue is (especially given a recent news report just the other week about how veterans are more likely to find themselves doing something violent because of their experiences and training, without meaning to, yet another festering wound for too many), as Chris takes elements of Elliot’s combat experiences and his family life back home, then mixes them with his deepest fears and mythology. Who is the young woman he saw in Iraq watching his squad just before an explosion? Was she a suicide bomber? An innocent bystander caught up in an eruption of violence in what had once been her own neighbourhood? Why does her face haunt him? Why does he keep thinking of her, seeing her face? And when he gets the news of his daughter’s disappearance back home why is it he feels some subconscious link between both women? Is there a link? How could there be?

Medusa is suffused with this dark, confused, tormented view of events and Chris wisely opts not to give the reader the ‘god’ position, where we can look upon the narrative and know more than the characters, instead we see this mixed up world through the filter of Elliot’s increasingly frantic, desperate attempts to make sense of things, struggling to comprehend what he is experiencing, to understand what is real and what must only – surely? – be in his mind, constantly driven to find his girl, to make sure she is safe.

There’s a real feel of drowning slowly in dark, cold waters here – Chris mixes his own art with an almost collage-like collection of images from newspapers, reworked to fit the tale; rather than the traditional sequence of panels and speech bubbles of most comics this is a series of overlapping images, some dark splashes through which figures or scenes can be barely glimpsed, others like snapshots from a soldier’s diary of life at the front, some flow, others suddenly break up violently into jagged, fractured scenes, emulating both the sudden eruption of adrenalin and violence and danger that comes with a routine patrol suddenly flaring into instant combat action and also the stressed and strained mind of the combat veteran, trying to keep it together for the sake of his unit and his mates relying on each other, then trying to keep it together because he has to be strong, he has to strive for his girl, while all around him he can feel the demons waiting to sink their teeth into him and drag him into dark chaos.

The art approach may put some off, but I found it highly appropriate to the story, a mix of the almost documentary then the broken, fractured scenes, the almost photographic collage collapsing into painted darkness; it gives a flavour of the anguished state of Elliot’s mind, not just his frantic search for his missing daughter (handled so well, anyone who’s had a family emergency will empathise with that lurching, dropping feeling, the panic, the attempt to try to make sense of it, to be ‘strong’ for others and deal with it while wanting to collapse within) but also how the constant strain of patrols and combat and seeing comrades injured or killed, civilians harmed, starts to break down the defences of the mind, causing emotional damage as surely as bullets and bombs do physical wounds. The swirling darkness and struggle to comprehend events that refuse to fall into a regular three-act chronological narrative (even his sense of time starts to break down – how long has he searched? A week, a month? Or has he only been home for a couple of days?), and Elliot’s perspective is ours, so we share that disorientation.

And the Medusa herself? Is that haunting image of the young woman really just a young woman or is she an aspect of an ancient myth, the achingly beautiful rendered monstrous? It’s hard to tell until very late on just how much is in Elliot’s deeply wounded mind and how much is real, and that is how it should be (and I won’t spoil it by going into more on that intriguing aspect of the tale). This is a journey through the Heart of Darkness, and like the voyage up-river to the lair of Colonel Kurtz there is that deepening fear in the soldier that the darkness is infecting him too, and through him perhaps his own flesh and blood, his family, that his actions will lead to karmic payback for what he has had to do, a spiritual, emotional stain that could go beyond his own self and actions to others he cares for.

Elements of Apocalypse Now are in there, also perhaps a nod to the fascinating Tim Robbins movie Jacob’s Ladder. But where this journey through darkness will take Elliot, that’s the real question? Is this a journey of a wounded soul to redemption or a spiral into chaotic despair? A highly unusual, deeply disturbing, dark tale, the mythological elements are timeless and echo the fact that for all the hi-tech equipment of the modern soldier, warfare itself is also, sadly, timeless, and equipment is but a tool, at the end of the day, regardless of century it is the humble squaddie who is at the heart of it, and what it does to the soldier.

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Reviews: Medusa