The Watchmen

Wicked Awesome, teens, adult, deep thoughts, great story line, everything but not an easy reader, take some time and give it its due, read the images.

On another note, it continues to perplex and confound me how little seems to be known in literary circles about comics. As Harvey Pekar stated: "comics are words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures" Pekar is well known in the genre of being the writer of American Splendor, though he is not an artist.

One of the side bar links took me to an article in the NY Times in which G.G. Gustines reviews A.D.: After the Deluge, by Josh Neufeld, a graphic novel about Hurricane Katrina and in New Orleans. It is written from the author's personnal experience. Gustines seems to think that this is a new type of writing for the genre of comics, which is an uninformed view, especially considering that he is a professional book reviewer. He states that After the Deluge is: " the latest example of the expansion of the graphic format to include non-fiction and reportage as well as superheroes and fantasy."

This negates any book told in the sequential art form that does not fit his 4 categories. Pitiful writing Mr. Gustines. He has obviously no idea of the scope and breadth of the genre, nor its history. I think Alison Bechdel wrote Fun Home as an autobiography; I think faithful followers of the BBB know that Nakazawa's work is reportage and autobiographical, as is Joe Sacco's; I think David B. is world famous because of his excellent work about his life and his epileptic brother (Epileptic, Pantheon); I am very sure that Larry Gonick did several very famous books in comic form about world history, making the subject fun and accessible; Has he not heard of Art Spiegelman for goodness sakes? I think he won a Pullizter Prize for Maus. His latest work is In the Shadow of No Towers. I wonder if George Gene Gustines can figure out what that's about. Chester Brown's Louis Riel?

Of course there are lots more but my ranting drains me, oh well, thanks for tuning in.

Checkout The Watchmen, its fiction, its great.

CMB