Comic Book Roundup

With the impending End of Summer, it seems Like A Time Most Appropriate to provide Summary Statement about a few of the Comic Books I read this Summer.  In No Particular Order:

1. Herge, Tintin in Tibet, Flight 714 to Sydney, The Calculus Affair
After seeing how much Clara liked reading Bone, I figured it would be fun to revisit Tintin after many a year, and read along with Clara.  Only half that proposition worked.  I enjoyed the Tintin books; Clara, alas, did not.  Clara's principle objection was to the Art; she was not enamored with the appearance of the assorted characters--Tintin and his spiked tuft of hair annoyed her in particular.  The characters were, in Clara's perpetual word, "Weird."  I, on the other hand, found much to enjoy in the exploits of Tintin and his Companions.  Nice little stories, well told.  They tend to be Children's literature, but of the sort that adults can enjoy without feeling their brain cells die as they turn each page.  The plots, dressed up a bit, would serve as genre fiction--not high literature, but also not a bad way to spend a bit of time.  Having enjoyed these sufficiently well, I'll undoubtedly be reading more Tintin in the months or years to come.  Rumor has it, by the way, that Spielberg has a Tintin series of movies in the works.  So, if you like to be ahead of cultural trends, you should read some Tintin now, so that when the movies come out, you can feel hip.

2. Thompson, Blankets
This is a comic book for adults; a slow-moving, coming-of-age story.  There is much in it that is good, but on the whole, I thought it was just decent.  The storyline isn't terribly exciting--it is "autobiographical"--largely the tale of a guy who hits his teenage years and a) falls in love with a girl and b) falls out of love with his church.  Some of the art was very well done--in particular, Thompson does quite a bit with panels containing no dialogue.  But, all that being said, I wasn't too enamored with the book.

3. Moore, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 1 and Volume 2.
I just reread these after reading Wells' Moon story.  The scientist in Wells book and his invention allowing for lunar travel, are an important part of the plot in the first book.  These comics are a sort of trivial pursuit story.  They have nonstop references to just about everything from the literature of the early 20th century.  The hook is that all the fantastical stories written then are true.  And so, the main characters, the secondary characters, the plots, the details, and even the pictures in the background are all out of some story or other.  So, reading the books is largely a matter of constantly thinking either, "I get it--I know where he is from" or "I wonder what obscure book that character is in."  Having read Wells' book for example, I smiled when the scientist guy showed up, and there is a plot development late in the story which makes way more sense now than it did when I first read the story.  (Wells' books are omnipresent throughout--War of the Worlds is the basis for the second story; The Invisible Man is part of the League; Dr. Moreau and his creatures play a big role in the second story.)  So, are these good?  I don't know--they are gimmick books--I suppose if you know enough of the original stories, they are amusing, but I am not sure they hold up well on their own terms.

4. Morse, Magic Pickle
The story of a Superpowered Pickle and his battles against the Evil Vegetables. Yes, it is as idiotic as it sounds.  And now, you are wondering why I read it.  Thereby hangs a tale.  Not a good tale, mind, but a tale nonetheless.  I was at the library with Clara wandering around the kid's section while she was looking for books.  I saw this sitting on a shelf and figured it would be funny to see if I could convince her to read it--it looked, shall we say, somewhat less than high literature.  She, not surprisingly, just winced and said the book looked, you guessed it, "Weird."  So, I told her it looked really funny and she should read it.  She gave me a look of visible scorn  So, I said that if she wasn't going to read it, then I was going to check it out and read it.  So, I did. Clara was mortified.  When we got the checkout counter, Clara made a big point of saying so that the librarian could hear her, "Dad, I can't believe you are going to read that book!" I replied, "It's OK, Clara.  There is nothing wrong with you wanting to read it.  You don't need to be embarrassed."  The librarian then told Clara that indeed  lots of kids have been reading about the Magic Pickle.  So, when we got home, I read it--it was, truth be told, rather lame.  But, don't tell Clara I said that--I told her is was hysterically funny.  She still didn't read it.  I think she didn't believe me.