Art. Culture. Music. Comics.
Today I received this –
– pretty prophetic, considering the Conflicts that arose and were finished today!
Do Diário de Notícias de hoje, uma citação do Provedor do Ouvinte: “Vivemos muito na sociedade do prazer, do passatempo. As pessoas consomem mais o fait-divers e o banal que as diverte”
Podia estar a falar da sociedade apresentada por Huxley no seu ADMIRÁVEL MUNDO NOVO, mas infelizmente, está a falar da nossa sociedade contemporânea. Huxley escreveu o avisoe em 1931, nós não lhe prestamos atenção…
From our local Newspaper, a quote that says “We live in a society of pleasure, of pastime. People consume the fait-divers and the banality that entertain them“
He could be talking about the society that Huxley presented in his BRAVE NEW WORLD, but unfortunately, he was talking about our contemporary society. Huxley wrote the warning in 1931, we didn’t pay attention…
I grew up in the tradition of nice Arthur Conan Doyle stories and the Sherlock Holmes mythos.
I had fun with Arsène Lupin and the Countess of Cagliostro and Raffles and Rocambole.
But, now that I think of it, I am not really a big fan of most of the crime comics I’ve read… until recently. The usual crime story opening, stuff like: “The night’s as hot as hell. It’s a lousy room in a lousy part of a lousy town – I’m staring at a goddess. She’s telling me she wants me. I’m not going to waste one more minute wondering how I’ve gotten this lucky” might bore me, unless the artwork is virtuoso enough. I enjoyed Frank Miller’s SIN CITY (one of the most widely known noir comcis), for example, but some of those speech balloons, being read aloud, just sound somewhat silly. The stories are entertaining, true, but we cannot find much depth there. Graphical virtuosity and entertainment, but not many content layers.
And probably that is one of the reasons why crime comics are considered “inferior” to crime prose novels.
However, there is one notable exception: KICKBACK, written and drawn by David Lloyd, creator of V for Vendetta!
The first words of that Graphic Novel are unlike the usual beginning of a crime comic. No lousy rooms, no lousy parts of a lousy town, just a talk about a dream, from an unseen narrator: “Okay. I will tell you about it. I’m in a dark warehouse… at least., that’s what it feels like… there’s ironwork — spears of metal — all around me… I’m on a catwalk that’s too narrow to turn around on, so I start to make my way along it in the direction I’m facing… ahead of me, it seems to grow narrower… I can’t see to the end of it… then, as I move along it, I see someone coming towards me… I try to make out who it is, but there’s a kind of mist…“. I thought it was a great way to begin a crime novel. With the description of a dream that is also an essential part of the story in many ways.
First, because this dream is like a metaphor of what the protagonist is going through. Joe Canelli feels he is going in one direction, but would that be the correct one? The pathway in his dream offers no other choices. After all, the protagonist of KICKBACK is a corrupt policeman – because everyone else in that town with a position of authority seems to be corrupt… but to say that KICKBACK is a story about a corrupt cop in a corrupt city would be an understatement, because the story is much more complex and interesting than that. This dream is just a small segment of one of the several layers of meaning and complexity that form the narrative of this very entertaning work.
In the beginning of this review, I said that I was not a big fan of crime comics, because many times, they feel hollow and clichéd (even when virtuously drawn) – but KICKBACK is different, it is not only a crime comic, it is a intrincate story, about guilt, about dreams, about progres
s, about corruption. And that is curious, because in a way, the content has some parallells with V FOR VENDETTA – mostly when we talk about corruption, even if we are talking about a different kind of corruption.
There is much more going on in KICKBACK and I do not want to talk too much about some of those layers, to avoid spoiling part of the relevant content of the book. However, it is a great story that offers us lots of food for thought: about listening to our conscience, about the value of old people’s wisdom, about the moral value of doing what everyone else does – and much more, all wrapped up in a nice mystery with lots of action drawn in the magnificently detailed and deep style David Lloyd had already shown us in previous works like V FOR VENDETTA, but with digital improvements this time. And they make quite a difference in the storytelling: from the rain to speed blurs, the nice classical touch of Lloyd’s artwork just blends naturally with some of the digital touches.
So, to conclude this small review, the world of KICKBACK feels like a believable place, where not everything (or everyone) is just black and white and each character feels like a real, complex person. This is not your usual crime comic. This is a crime comic that a thinking man will enjoy, as rich and deep and entertaining and complex as any prose novel. I’ve always been a fan of David Lloyd, and this work, drawn and written by him is a worthy addition to the collection of anyone – comic collector, demanding reader or crime novels aficionado. An Unmissable Book, without a doubt!
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I recommend…
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Neil Postman said “we live in a peek-a-boo world, where now this event, now that, pops into view for a moment, then vanishes again. It is a world without much coherence or sense; a world that does not ask us, indeed, does not permit us to do anything; a world that is, like the child’s game of peek-a-boo, entirely self-contained. But like peek-a-boo, it is also endlessly entertaining.” (Amusing Ourselves to Death, 1985)
It almost looks like he was talking about Twitter, back in 1985!!!
(image source: ProBlogger’s excellent article about growing your Twitter presence)
Comprehensive visual biography of Andy Warhol, one of art’s greatest personalities.
Madelyne Pryor was one of my favourite X-Men supporting characters.
Now she is back (yet again!)
My fanboy heart rejoices!
The Serpent is Here! YAY!
Still waiting for the scanner. And apparently it will take a couple of weeks to arrive, but that’s a story for another day.
Mas porque as sardinhas fizeram que eu me lembrasse de um manual de medicina? Porque o referido livro tinha uma estranha referência a este peixe. Ou melhor, à cabeça do peixe. Assim, enquanto o Convento de Mafra estava a ser construído, e o Rei D. João V sofria de prisão de ventre (aparentemente) – este ilustre médico escrevia no seu manual de medicina informações relevantes sobre a importância, vantagens e desvantagens das sardinhas. Logo depois de falar da parte nutritiva do peixinho, ele diz que a cabeça da sardinha, usada como suppositorius (supositório) era muito eficiente para ajudar o processo de defecação em casos de prisão de ventre.
Eu não quero nem pensar como é que o Fonseca Henriques testou este tratamento. Ou com quanta frequência o Rei D. João sofreu de prisão de ventre.
Prefiro pensar nos 1700s como uma época de perucas empoadas e música barroca. Claro que depois, nos 1800s vieram as sanguessugas e o mercúrio como tratamentos médicos.
Realmente, não me estranha que Herbert George Wells tivesse dito que:
“O mundo está a atravessar mudanças imensas. Nunca antes as condições de vida mudaram tão rapidamente como mudaram para a humanidade nos últimos cinquenta anos. Nós fomos carregados – sem forma de medir a rapidez da sucesão de eventos. Só agora começamos a tomar consciência da força da tempestade de mudança que se abateu sobre nós.“
E agora que olhamos para trás, ele estava ABSOLUTAMENTE certo.
Today I am feeling too tired to blog about anything… so, I am going to quote.
And the quote comes from the foreword of Neil Postman‘s book “Amusing Ourselves to Death“:
Quoted from the Perichoresis Blog
And now I wonder if we are not just getting dangerously close to Huxley’s fears… Or maybe I am just feeling pessimistic today.
Herbert George Wells said that “The old-world teachers and schools have to be reformed or replaced“.
I was not sure the man was being an extremist when he wrote that. Until now.
But today, I had this strange experience with an old-world (young) teacher, that showed me that Wells, in 1935 was right. And Wells in 2008 is still right.
Today I was talking to a small group of young people about “Os Maias“. This can be considered by many as one of the crowning achievements of Portuguese Literature.
This book is just too fascinating to just describe it in a few words. It would be like saying that “The Godfather” is a movie about the mafia. Under the soap-opera-like plot, we have a criticism on the Portuguese Identity, a precise analysis about what was wrong with the country 100 years ago (when the book was written) – and the tragic realization that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Anyway, I was explaining to young people how fascinating this book was, how the brilliant Eça de Queirós (the author of the book) makes us think critically about ourselves as Portuguese, and how sometimes he just manipulates the reader. I am still talking about that when the young teacher responsible for the group says “I hated that book when I had to read it in school“.
I was like “I would have been less offended if you just farted noisily right now, lady”.
And then I thought about the Herbert George Wells words I talked in the beginning of this post, about how the world needs to get rid of the old-world teachers.
I am not criticizing ALL teachers. I know many great, inspired, BRILLIANT teachers. Those who can shape and improve young minds and change them forever – for the best.
But for one of those brilliant inspiring teachers, there is probably a dozen like this “I-hated-Os-Maias” lady.
We don’t need a revolution in education (ok, maybe we need that) – we need much more than that.
How can we complain about the “new generation” with some poor teachers like like this “I-hated-Os-Maias” lady?
That’s enough for today. Good night.
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