| Best Graphic Novels I've Read Since October 2008 |
For full reviews, click on titles:
Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli is
a brilliant, touching and sincere story of love, delusion, and recovery. It is as
richly cast in supporting characters as it is with its original and yet
familiar leads of Asterios, scholar/philosopher/aesthete, his wife Hana who is his opposite and soul mate, and his friend Ursula Major, goddess/twin/opposing force. Mazzucchelli's illustrations are mesmerizing in their variety and skill, and his dialogue is an engaging and vivid
exploration of the basic human struggle for self-definition and
self-realization against all the odds of life.
Cancer Vixen by Marisa Acocella Marchetto. This book provides a stunning example of the power of the Graphic Novel, conveying through vivid drawings, straightforward commentary, and genuine dialogue, the harsh experience of a very difficult situation -- and makes all readers participants in the story through the use of expressive faces speaking directly to us in frank and personal communication. Cancer Vixen exposes both the bland and the horrific aspects of cancer, using humor and bitter truth to illustrate Marchetto's experience. There are costs to her battle with cancer (babies in the universe of her future disappear, one by one) but there are also lessons gained -- and shared with us, her devoted confidants -- about love, friendship, maintaining perspective, and never, ever taking anything for granted.
Stitches by David Small. A memoir of childhood, this graphic novel is a chilling depiction of the wounds and scars, literal and figurative, that are imposed on the young by their parents. The drawings are varied in style but consistent in effect, and the effect is an incisive, baring, and nowhere-to-hide exposure of pain. Small had no relief from the onslaught of his mother's misery, his father's failure, and his grandmother's psychotic lunacy, no relief save the skills he had as an artist. There is a wonderfully compelling sketch of the young Small diving into a drawing pad, being taken down through the page and into a world of his own creation, a world safe for being his own, and for being unreachable by his family. That Small was able to overcome his childhood and become an amazing artist of warm, whimsical, and comforting picture books is amazing. Those books, including one of my all-time favorites, Imogene's Antler, along with Stitches, are proof that scars of pain, fear, and sorrow can be salved; offer hope against very tough odds; and most of all, are a testament to Small's resilience, determination, talent, and heart.
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang is a perfect book for teenagers and a good read for anybody. The illustrations in this graphic novel are sharp and evocative, and the three story lines intermix, coming together in the end as a parable of identity and self-definition. Alongside these questions of identity Yang presents other issues close to a teen's existence: falling in love, fitting in with the crowd, and sifting through all the advice offered by adults to figure out one's own way in life. A true pleasure to read, and a good book to share and discuss, especially with the teens in your life.
I also recommend the graphic biographies of Andrew Helfer, including Ronald Reagan and Malcom X.
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