Nameless -- Issue #01

This is a comic that I'm nervous to like right off the bat. The artwork, specifically the perspective in the illustrations are amazing, stuff like I've never seen before. Although it was a classic first issue, and you really have no clue how to describe what the story is actually about, the base idea seems really awesome. I read further online about what Grant Morrison's idea was with this, and I stumbled upon something that lead me to find out that this series is supposed to be a very dark, very gruesome thriller/horror story. Not that I got that intense of a vibe from the first issue, but Morrison made a warning about the first issue giving just a slight taste of the storyline and then its going to blast off and just continue to get more and more horrible as the story goes on.

I just .. don't want to have nightmares.

The Dying & The Dead -- Issue #01

In the first issue, even though its double the length of any regular single issue, still, classically don't really know what is going on yet. At the begging of the issue a man and woman are getting married but the day goes to hell when a massacre takes place at the wedding with a twist of who done it. As the reader, we are introduced to lots of secrets that had been kept from characters, coming to light. Additionally, a man is given the opportunity, at great cost to help save his dying wife from cancer. There is a 'death' type character who is relating to the man, seems to be thousands upon thousands of years old, but hasn't aged a day over 40.

The artwork is really beautiful. It's really hard to get into a story or not just from one issue. Especially these types of issues that are meant to be cryptic and suspenseful so that you as the reader is like WHAT JUST HAPPENED - sign me up.

Not yet feeling this way quite yet, but I will read more of this because I can see it could get good.

Jordan Wellington Lint -- Graphic Novel

MAN, CHRIS WARE. What-is-up.

Chris Ware has a way of making you feel a person's entire life with so few words. I felt this way with "Jimmy Corrigan the Smartest Kid on Earth", but that was a thick read, this one can't be more than 100 pages and yet I still feel emotionally exhausted from that. (In a wonderful way).

In this story, Jordan Wellington Lint follows one man's life from birth to death with all of its twists, turns and predictable melancholy along the way. Nothing crazy really happens, Jordan/Jason goes to college, is in a frat, graduates, gets married, has children, has an affair, leaves his family, starts a new family, goes to work, etc, etc. Pretty similar life to a large percentage of the population. Pretty boring. So why would I read a story about a privileged white male who is probably a huge dick. Because of Chris Ware's approach to illustration and the way he handles narration, or I guess, doesn't.

He's telling you a story, but instead of doing it with dialogue or chronological events, he uses the character's memories and emotions to portray feelings of certain things or feelings about certain things, and while many events aren't spelled out for you visually, you understand the characters mood and truth because you've gotten the story directly from them, not through a narrator. His approach is deeply exhausting, out of context and at times very unclear, but you feel a strong connection with these characters because you're in their head thinking with them.

Breaking down events to their very core, showing us their most simple form, Ware has a ware of speaking in a code of symbols but hitting the readers with some sort of unspeakable truth. It is really remarkable and GOSH DARN IT HE DOES IT SO WELL.

Sleepwalk and Other Stories -- Graphic Novel

Sleepwalk and Other Stories collects the first four issues of Adrian Tomine's comic series Optic Nerve with a total of 16 short stories.

I feel the same way about these as I did the other two collected stories I've read from him. Not much else to say.

Probably a word of warning is don't do what I'm doing and read everything of his all at once or you'll have too many feelings at the same time and then some of the feelings will go away and then you'll just be left feeling sad.

Summer Blonde -- Graphic Novel

Summer Blonde is consisted of 4 short stories written by Adrian Tomine for the Optic Nerve comics. While I still haven't read all of his work yet, I think these stories couldn't fit better together in a collection.

Hawaiian Getaway - A single mid twenties something Asian-American female gets fired from her job, loses her roommate and slowly starts to lose herself in this story. We see how she spends her days, avoiding her nagging mother's phone calls and how she attempts to make connections with others.

Alter Ego - A 26 year old straight-white-male writer starts becoming complacent with his life, his girlfriend and his career, and goes searching for the writer of a piece of fan mail he has received. He ends up meeting the fan's younger sister, a high school girl. The man starts to spend more and more time with this high school girl, creating an alternate life for himself with her. He ends up cheating on his girlfriend with her, she finds out and leaves him.

Summer Blonde - We meet a mid-twenties straight-white-single-male with a classic desk job and learn that he has been stalking a young blonde girl that works at a card shop downtown. We learn about the blonde girl's secret dual romance though the eyes of this main character and that he is creepy and blah blah blah.

Bomb Scare - This was the story that I thought was the most powerful. A young high school boy and his best friend are picked on at school because they are each other's only friend, everyone thinks they are gay. A popular girl at school becomes an outcast because of an experience at a drinking party. The two misfits become friends, la la la. 

None of these stories are exciting or dramatic, but captivating because they are all so believable. Each character is so relate-able, because they seem like real people, but because of that I don't find myself LIKING these characters, because Tomine makes them both charming and disgusting at the same time. You see reflections of yourself, or your ex or your neighbor or an uncomfortable stranger, and you know these people so well, that you can't possibly like them, but you also don't dislike them because you understand that they are flawed. It's wild how well this all happens in these short stories. I think another reason why they work so well is that there really isn't any development in the characters. It's as if we're just opening up a window and peeking in on them, starting right there and we learn about who they are from that small moment. He doesn't give us any more to go off than we would have if we really were eavesdropping in on their life. And sometimes the stories are over before we come to any sort of conclusion or balanced ending. Which is frustrating sometimes and disappointing, realistic and natural.