Mann's Best Friend (Gluepott Books)

Creators: Scarlett and Sophie Rickard

The story of Terry Mann who has a good job which he is frustrated in having been passed over for promotion to management by his friend, former housemate and soon-to-be brother-in-law Vick. Two years out of a relationship he is still very much feeling sorry for himself, stuck in a downward spiral of self loathing which he takes out on the large dog he owns. The dog was bought for his former partner as he hoped would keep them together, but she left anyway a couple of weeks holding the baby (or puppy in this instance) which has since grown into a rather large dog. There appears to be no love lost between pet and owner.

The dog, Eric, will soon be instrumental in bringing Terry’s life to a point down which happiness lies after seeming to hit rock bottom. Eric and Mia, Vick’s sister whom he meets at a family gathering to celebrate the coming marriage of Terry’s sister and Vick. Terry is very much the black sheep of his family, held in low regard by his parents in comparison to his sister. Mia falls under the same role in her family, with the crucial difference that Mia is happy with herself and has a balanced outlook on life. Terry and Mia appear to hit it off but can there be true happiness ahead.

This is a wonderful read with art and text melding beautifully to communicate the story. Particularly impressive is the use of numerous silent panels wherein the art has to show the feelings of out protagonist via body language and facial expressions.

There is also a great contrast between Terry’s rather uptight, clinical and cold home, and Mia’s poorer but warmer, more casual and homely dwelling.

There is also a wonderful sense of place engendered by the art. It really shows the creators experiences growing up in North-West England rural towns. The comic is bookended by two images, shown from slightly different angles, of the town from the side of a hill. The one at the start is dark and overcast whilst at the end it is bright and sunny, reflecting the inner emotions of Terry.

A lovely book I will no doubt return to again and again.

Geis: A Matter of Life and Death (Nobrow) by Alexis Deacon

A ruler of a city dies and her last will and testament states that the next ruler should be chosen by a contest consisting of three tasks, between fifty different people.  However is soon emerges that this is no voluntary contest, and there are dire consequences for not completing the tasks.

This is very much an all ages book, and a fine start to a fantasy trilogy. Alexis Deacon was new to me and introduced by the comic shop Page 45 as their Comic Book of The Month  for July. The story is intriguing as the personalities of the protagonists are demonstrated through their reactions to what they learn about the contest, and the Geis of the title, and the art is both beautiful and appropriately strange, drawing you into the story and making you feel part of the world.

At times the art reminded me of the children's book Struwwelpeter, which I had as a child and which seemed a little strange and disturbing, a bit like the effect of Windsor McCay's work can have. 

A comic that can be read and enjoyed on different level by all the family is something to be treasured. I would urge everybody who loves fantasy to read this, especially those with children as it is a book to be shared.

Habibi (Pantheon Books)

A Page 45 Comic Book of the Month

Created by: Craig Thompson

Craig Thompson is primarily known as the creator of the critically acclaimed and popular graphic novel Blankets. He worked on Habibi from late 2004, and has put together a beautiful looking book, which is gorgeously packaged. To hold it in your hands is to understand the devotion and love that has gone into this. Clearly this book means something more to the author than just entertainment.

On reading the novel one is made aware of the number of themes flowing through it. Essentially the story concerns a young girl called Dodola, who is a slave who escapes at age 12, taking with her a little black skinned baby called Cham, who she renames Zam and who subsequently becomes the titular Habibi (beloved). For nine years they survive in the desert on a marooned boat, Dodola feeding them exchanging sex for food from caravans that travel nearby. After these nine years they are separated when Dodola is captured and sent to be a part of the Sultan's harem. The remainder of the book deals with the trials they undergo before they are eventually reunited.

On the surface this is a simple story of two people forced apart and tossed about by fate, who come through a number of trials to be together once again. It is an optimistic book, concluding with the idea that people can be treated extremely poorly by society and yet can still break the cycle and not perpetrate the same suffering on subsequent generations. However, the artist interweaves numerous themes within this, including religion (both Islam and Christianity) ownership, the environmental destruction of the planet and sex, which he manages to link together rather wonderfully. To write about all the different themes in this one entry would result in a piece of text too long for my tastes in a blog, so I'll take each in turn over time, beginning with sex.

Sex is unavoidable in Habibi. It is everywhere you look, on a huge number of pages. However the aim is not to titillate but to comment on the use of sex and sexuality within society; to show the problems that can be caused by not dealing with the subject in a sensible manner, devoid of hysteria and puritanism.

A key moment in the drama of the novel is the choice Zam makes to be castrated. Such an extreme and irreversible undertaking demands that we ask why he chose this? What prompted such an extreme undertaking?

The text shows Zam’s experience of sex up to that point as being:

• Innocently washing Dodola’s boobs at age 9 but Dodola getting a little uncomfortable with it.
• Staring in fascination at Dodola’s boobs at age 10 and Dodola being uncomfortable with it, demonstrating an emerging sexuality in Zam.
• Furtively staring at Dodola bathing when he was age 12 andboth being embarressed when Dodola catches him, as shown is the typical exchange that follows when she discovers him spying:

 Dodola: "How long have you been standing there?"

 Zam: "I… I just woke up"

This is the first time Zam lies about looking at Dodola’s nakedness, and so the first indication we have that Zam is starting to feel a shame associated with sex. Later whilst out looking for water, we see Zam imagining Dodola’s clothes slipping off her. Like a lot of adolescent boys he is thinking about sex a lot, and is facinated but clearly does not quite understand what he is feeling as this fantasy segues into Dodola becoming a vision of Eve.

After Eve leaves to go for food, Zam looks out of the window and gets an erection and looks troubled by this. Disobeying Dodola’s instructions, he leaves to follow her to the caravan where she has gone to get food, and witnesses her being forcefully taken by one of the merchants. He fantasizes about killing the merchant, but being so young is able to do nothing and so can only watch in horror.

This is his first experience of sex and it clearly traumatises him. We see him later painfully punching the erection he gets after thinking about Dodola’s naked body, then banging his head against the rock. We see him in the bath doing the same thing, and then waking from a nightmare where he is dressed as the merchant having sex with Dodola, so he sleeps on the floor and not in their bed:

“I’m too big to share a bed anymore.”

The innocence has gone, as it must for all, but Zam’s idea of sex is one of violence and he misinterprets his desire for Dodola as a desire to hurt her and is thus ashamed of himself, and filled with rage at the organ which seems to be responsible for such desires.

Sex throughout the book is depicted as either violent and/or an act of ownership and exploitation, as Dodola encapsulates when she says:

“I’d once used my body to my advantage, but even then it didn’t belong to me, posessed instead by the LUSTS of men."

It is not until the end of the book, when Zam and Dodola have sex together for the first time, albeit obviously non-penetrative, that we are witness to any sort of positive, loving, mutually pleasurable sexual activity.

What can we infer from this? Clearly we have an argument here against sex being used as exploitation or ownership, such as can be found in prostitution and pornography. However there are women who work within the sex industry who do not see themselves as being exploited (e.g. Dr Brooke Magnanti in her Belle-de-Jour blog, and Anna Arrowsmith who as Anna Span has directed some of the most popular porn films by and  aimed at women).

So is the argument for more positive information about sex to be made available to people as they mature into sexual beings? Neither Zam nor Dodola had any guidance as to how to react as first Dodola and then Zam matured into sexual people. Their only experiences where negative, and lead inevitably to tragedy, before their redemption at the end of the book. Should they have been educated in the changes happening within them as they went through puberty; should they have been taught that there was nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed of; should they have been taught to be open and had authority figure they could trust to ask qustions of; should the experiences they had or witnessed to do with sex have been positive ones of respect and mutual pleasure; would this have lead to a much more positive and better life for them? These are the questions raised by the book on this theme, and the conclusions you come to will depend on your existing prejudices.

Criminal: The Last of the Innocent (Marvel Icon)

Writer: Ed Brubaker

Artist: Sean Philips

Marvel Comics launched their Icon imprint back in 2004. The most famous and successful and famous Icon comic is probably Kick-Ass by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr., which just goes to show that the world loves to have its prejudices about comics being second-rate, immature entertainment for emotionally stunted boys (albeit boys in their thirties and forties) reinforced. However the most consistent in terms of release and quality is Criminal by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, which is now released in story arcs averaging around four issues before going on hiatus until the next arc is ready, and the two creators have released other projects.

Ed Brubaker had been around for some considerable time as an “alternative” comic creator. I first read him in Dark Horse Presents in the late nineties on a strip called The Fall, which failed to grip me but this was more to do with the fact that I didn't have all of the issues of DHP that contained the strip, and it wasn't until Gotham Central from DC Comics, a police procedural that just happened to be set in the Gotham City of Batman, that I really started to take notice. His run on Captain America for Marvel helped reinvigorate the title, but to my mind Criminal is where he really demonstrates his chops.

As a twenty-something in the early nineties I latched onto Sean Phillips art in the relaunch of the Judge Dredd Megazine in which was the John Smith and Sean Phillips strip, Devlin Waugh. At the time I felt that this art was like nothing else I'd seen in comics, and he certainly stood out as somebody who could clearly tell a story whilst at the same time providing some innovative visuals. On reading Criminal all these years later, it is clear that he is the perfect artist for the title. He and Brubaker seem to have developed a definite chemistry. This is very much a comic by two co-creators rather than one dominating the other.

I was a latecomer to Criminal. Page 45 (the comic shop in Nottingham) featured the collection of the first story arc, Coward, as their Comic Book of the Month, and I've not looked back since. 

The title itself consists of self contained story arcs set at different times in Central City. Each arc can be read on its own with no reference to any of the others and provides a complete and satisfying story. However for regular readers there is also the connections that can be made between the different characters. It is not unusual for the people we have met in a previous story to turn up in a minor role, or mentioned, or in the background of some other story. Sometimes we get to see these people later on from a different point of view, or we have seen them earlier and so the mere mention of them has a ring of frisson about it.

The latest story arc is set in 1982 and concerns a man called Riley Richards going back to his home town of Brookview for a few days to see his terminally ill father. Richards is far from innocent, having a fondness for strippers and gambling, and being in debt to Sebastian Hyde, the kingpin of organised crime in Central City. However his trip back to the small town of his childhood is also a trip back to innocence as he stays in his old bedroom that has not been changed since he left, and meets up with his old childhood sweetheart and his best friend. This glimpse of how simple life used to be gives Riley the wherewithal to get rid of his debt and to be with his childhood sweetheart. All he needs to do is murder his wife, who just happens to be from a wealthy family and whose father made him sign a pre-nuptial agreement. What follows is the very opposite of innocent as he murders his adulterous wife and frames her lover, who happens to be another childhood acquaintance. Oh and he kills his childhood best friend too.

As usual with this title, and noir in general, none of the characters are what you could term wholesome. The title would seem to refer to the one person totally untainted by anything, Riley's childhood girlfriend Lizzie Gordon. You find yourself pulling for Riley and wanting him to win through, but the sucker punch in him killing his best friend is quite a blow. It shows just how far gone Riley is, and brings to mind the quote from Macbeth after he has murdered his friend, the noble Banquo:

“...I am in blood

Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more,

Returning were as tedious as go o'er.”

• Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 4

Sean Phillips compliments the story perfectly, utilising the dark style consistent with the rest of the series, with a more innocent style reminiscent of Archie for the flashbacks to more innocent times. This is effective as used throughout, but the real payoff comes in the last panel, where we see Riley and Lizzie together, drawn in the innocent style, against a backdrop of a seedy city scene drawn in the more familiar dark, sinister style; an omen of the changes that are about to come crashing into the innocent Lizzie Gorden's life we wonder?

Criminal is a wonderful comic and this latest arc has been it's strongest yet. The plot may not have exactly been original, but it was executed with sufficient panache and style to feel fresh, and Sean Phillips excelled his usual high standards, pulling out all the stops to maximise the emotional resonance of the tale.