Madness or Mockery

1. I have, for reasons unknown, a vivid memory of a media sensation from way back in 1991.  About a book.  And, not a conventional book by a well-known author.  The book: Griffin & Sabine, by Nick Bantock.  What made this book unusual was that it is a Picture Book.  The story was of a correspondence between the two people in the title.  Most of the correspondence is postcards, but there are a few letters.  The gimmick:  The right hand page is the front of the postcard, and then you turn the page and the left hand side is the back of the postcard.  Get it?  Just like a postcard.  For the letters, the right hand side is the front of the envelope and then when you turn the page…try to contain your excitement here…there is an envelope—a real envelope, which you open and inside there is a letter.  As I said, I have vivid memories of the rapturous of joy with which this book was greeted  I remember seeing it in a bookstore, picking it up and realizing—wow!  There sure aren’t a lot of words for a book selling for $17.95.  Sure, lots of pictures, but we aren’t talking Raphael here.

I have vague memories of there being a sequel.  Very vague.  I haven’t thought about this book for probably two decades.

Then, there I was at the local library book sale, when what to my wondering eyes did appear?  A boxed set of the Griffin & Sabine trilogy.  Nostalgia City.  The books were in mint condition.  Insanely cheap price (I do love library book sales).  Done.

Unless you have a story similar to that above, you may safely skip this trilogy.  All gimmick.  Griffin is an artist in England.  Sabine is a woman on some non-existent island in the South Pacific.  Sabine can see what Griffin is painting while he is painting.  Griffin is amazed.  They try to meet and fail.  Many postcards and letters later, what was pretty obvious at the end of volume 1 is obvious.  I’d call this a spoiler, but you won’t ever bother to read this book (or more properly, trilogy) so nothing is being spoiled.  Griffin is insane.  Sabine is purely a creation of his mind.  He goes increasingly mad over the course of the books, and finally vanishes.  So, the books are, in the end, a portrait of madness.  I can’t think of any particular reason this portrait of madness rises to the level of being even remotely interesting.

When I was done, I googled the book.  Shock.  Much, and I mean much, to my surprise there are two other interpretations floating around the internet.  First, Sabine is real and this is a beautiful love story.  You gotta be kidding me.  Some people just can’t read.  Second, Sabine is a malicious demon who ends up possessing Griffin.  Oddly, this is more plausible than the books being a love story.  That being said, if that interpretation is correct, then these books are even less interesting than if it is merely a portrait of madness.  And, therein lies the real problem with Griffin & Sabine.  Who cares which is the right explanation?

2. But, there is another way to look at Griffin & Sabine.  It is a book with pictures and words.  It is, in other words, a comic book.  It doesn’t look like a comic book, and it sure isn’t treated like a comic book, but it really is a comic book.  And not a very good comic book.  However, if you were reading Griffin  Sabine in public and others saw you reading it, you could pass it off as literature and not be embarrassed at all.  But, if you were reading The Superior Foes of Spider-Man: Getting the Band Back Together in public and people saw you, what would they think?

And people would have it exactly wrong.  Griffin & Sabine is silly tripe.  The Superior Foes of Spider-Man is funny.  You’d probably have to be an aficionado of comic books to get the jokes, but trust me, this is easily one of the funniest comic books out there.  A set of two-bit minor villains team up; they think they can be great, but they are really obviously never going to amount to anything.  This is a comic book which gets that comic books are supposed to be fun.  It is like The Big Bang Theory—something that knows how to make fun of geeks because it is itself really geeky.

3. Self-awareness is a rare thing in the modern age.  Even rarer is the ability to laugh at oneself.  Why do people take themselves so seriously?  Given the choice between the self-mocking world of The Superior Foes of Spider-Man and the madness of Griffin and Sabine, why is the latter the one that gets the accolades?