Other People by Joff Winterhart

Published by Simon & Schuster/Gallery 13 on September 4, 2018

Other People is a graphic novel that Joff Winterhart wrote as two separate but related stories. The stories take place in England. The first chronicles a summer in the life of a middle-aged woman named Sue and her teenage son Daniel, whose father has gone to live in America. Sue and Daniel argue quite a bit, to the family dog’s dismay. Daniel spends his time listening to heavy metal. Sue spends her time crying.

The first story is told from a third person perspective in snippets, a few panels per page encapsulating a slice of a day. The second story is told from Daniel’s perspective. The format is similar, although the story is longer and the panels that relate each snippet generally cover two pages.

The second story follows the first by about ten years. Daniel has cut his hair, moved back home, and dedicated himself to the uncertain task of finding something to do at which he will not fail. Apart from spending sleepless nights plagued by dread and regret, he gets a job with Keith Nutt. He hopes to use the job to find himself, maybe to spark a career, but his primary duties consist of listening to Keith’s stories and walking Keith’s dog. Even at those duties, Daniel does not excel, at least in Keith's view.

The illustrations are simple drawings (black ink in the first story, blue and brown in the second). The drawings capture the essence of the characters, portraying none of them in a flattering light. The simplicity of the art enhances the honesty of the story. There are no frills here, no illusions. What you see is all there is.

Other People is a close, nuanced look at ordinary people living drab lives. Daniel at least knows his life is empty. Keith and most of the other characters cover their hollowness with a façade of meaning that Daniel comes to appreciate. Daniel even finds himself appreciating Keith as he realizes that their fundamental similarities outweigh their vast differences. His job gives him little to do, but it opens his eyes to a world full of other people, all the people he never noticed before. At the same time, nearly everyone he encounters knows that Daniel can make more of his life than he will ever manage with Keith.

The stories immerse the reader in Daniel’s ennui and anxiety. They are, at times, a painful reading experience, particularly when Daniel’s relationship with his mother (in the first story) and with Keith (in the second) is at its worst. At the same time, the poignant stories encourage the reader to root not just for the primary characters but for all individuals who are searching for a way to give their lives purpose.

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James Bond Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, Van Jensen, and Denis Calero

Published by Dynamite Entertainment on April 24, 2018

Casino Royale is my favorite of the Ian Fleming Bond novels. It is, at least, the one that stands out in my memory, primarily for the scenes of Bond first losing and then winning at baccarat. It’s also my favorite Daniel Craig Bond movie, in part because it bears some resemblance to the novel, particularly when Bond’s delicate parts are being pummeled in the torture scene.

Casino Royale is notable as the first of Fleming’s Bond novels. It also features the first appearance of M, of Felix Leiter, and of SMERSH. As Fleming fans know, the movie Bond and the Fleming Bond are quite different. The movie Bond generally appreciates Bond girls (and in recent movies, generally accepts them as equals); Fleming’s Bond finds seduction and disentanglement (the before and after of sex) unacceptably boring. The movie Bond is portrayed as sophisticated; the Fleming Bond is more of a tough guy who happens to be a good card player. The movie Bond is sassy when Le Chiffre whacks him in the balls; Fleming’s Bond more realistically passes out.

The Fleming Bond is also philosophical in sort of a fatalistic way. Queen and country is all well and good, and it’s nice to have the respect and admiration that comes with being a double-0, but getting your manhood beaten is enough to make anyone rethink the spy game. Playing a hero and killing villains doesn’t have the same appeal when the tables are turned. And perhaps it’s wrong to kill villains, because they provide a contrast that enables the virtuous to feel, well, virtuous.

Both Bonds are cold in a masculine way, but Fleming’s Bond is acutely aware of his harsh qualities and is disturbed when they are endangered by warmth. In Casino Royale, at least, the idea of caring about a woman is positively disturbing — almost as disturbing as the fear that he won’t be able to have sex with one after the beating he endured. He wants to use Vesper to test the functionality of his equipment after being tortured, but is unsettled when he realizes that she has crept under his skin. Of course, trust does not come easily to Bond, and in Bond’s world women can never really be trusted. Or perhaps Bond cannot trust himself to judge them properly.

This graphic adaptation is faithful to Fleming’s novel. It keeps the best stuff and doesn’t sacrifice intellect for action. It would be a good introduction to the book for people who don’t want to take the time to read it. While the adaptation preserves some of Fleming’s best prose, much of the text is replaced by art, which is exactly what should happen in a graphic novel. Although the graphic novel is a condensation, all the critical scenes are present, and the most important scenes (the developing tension in the casino as Bond faces off against Le Chiffre, the torture scene, Bond’s philosophical discourse, Bond’s interaction with Vesper) are played out in enough panels to give them their full weight. Most of the art is straightforward, but some panels are enhanced by diagrams and sketches that provide insight into Bond’s thoughts. The art captures a reliable sense of the novel’s mood, accented by some surprising choices of coloring. I enjoyed revisiting Casino Royale in this graphic version of Fleming’s first and best Bond novel.

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Head Games by Craig McDonald and Kevin Singles

Published by First Second on October 24, 2017

This version of Head Games is a graphic adaptation of Craig McDonald’s debut novel. Published in 2007, Head Games was nominated for an Edgar as best first novel. McDonald has written nine more novels in the Hector Lassiter series in addition to a few other books.

Head Games is set in 1957. The premise is that Yale’s Skull & Bones, clubhouse to America’s elite, collects the skulls of famous persons. It wants to acquire Pancho Villa’s skull, which falls into the hands of Hector Lassiter and prompts a shootout with Mexican police.

Rumors link the skull to a map that leads to Villa’s hidden stash of gold. Lassiter is soon teamed with a young poet and a Mexican woman who apparently has a thing for older men. Young women who fall for an aging hard-boiled detective is part of the noir tradition, but McDonald twisted that tradition by making Lassiter a hard-boiled writer.

Lassiter and his entourage (plus Pancho’s skull) travel from Mexico to Hollywood, where Lassiter has a meeting with Orson Welles about a film script he’s writing. The trip also gives him a chance to cash in on the skull. Once there, Marlene Dietrich asks Lassiter to patch up his feud with Ernest Hemmingway. Yeah, there’s a lot of name dropping in this book, but the names belong to interesting people.

A bunch of people want to kill Lassiter, including (possibly) Pancho Villa’s buddy, who really shouldn’t still be alive, and maybe even Prescott Bush. Yes, that Bush. The CIA (always a friend of Skull & Bones) is interested in the skull, and the FBI is interested because J. Edgar Hoover has a bug up his bun about the CIA, which is spying on the FBI.

Despite all the people trying to kill Lassiter, it seems more probable that he’ll kill himself. Diabetes is messing up his vision and throwing off his aim. He’s getting old and often feels like he’s on the verge of having a stroke. And having sex with the beautiful young woman is likely to give him a heart attack. In short, Lassiter is a good noir character.

The name dropping is pretty outrageous but so is the plot. The story is different, more imaginative than most modern noir, and it even seems plausible. The main story is followed by two more, almost like dual epilogs, that carry the plot forward by a couple of decades. The story has a timely message about hubris and leadership, but message or not, the story entertains.

The art in this graphic adaptation is distinctive and consistent. Some of the story drawn in black and white (adding to the noir feel), but it is often supplemented with gold, which both suggests the gold that is central to the plot and adds sort of a sepia tone that is consistent with a story set in the past. More importantly, the art often carries the story. Too many graphic adaptations of novels try to cram too many words into each frame, but Head Games translates the words into drawings, and we all know how many words a picture is worth.

I haven’t read the original novel, but an author’s note at the end explains that this version expands the original, adding characters and events from other novels in the series. Whatever changes might have been made, the graphic novel tells a good story.

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New Super-Man: Made in China by Gene Luen Yang

Published by DC Comics on June 27, 2017

And now for something completely different ....

New Super-Man is a new title from DC Comics. Volume 1, "Made in China," collects the first five issues and recounts the origin of the Chinese version of Superman. I have been a Superman fan for more than half a century and I still follow the icon of truth, justice, and the American way. New Super-Man, however, is a new take on the character, one that blends Superman's classic virtues with a quiet commentary on the need for truth and justice in modern China.

Kong Kenan is bullying a fat kid when Shanghai supervillain Blue X shows up. Kong throws a soda can at him, an impulsive act that stems from Kong’s general lack of smarts. Thanks to a viral video, Kong is an instant celebrity. The Ministry of Self-Reliance, a shadow government group that conspiracy buffs love, wants to give Kong superpowers -- Superman’s powers, to be precise. But he’s still sort of a selfish brat, so it’s up to the Chinse Batman and the Chinese Wonder Woman to contain him. Yes, there’s a Justice League of China, although the Chinese Batman is a little chubby.

They eventually encounter the Freedom Fighters of China, with names like Human Firecracker and Sunbeam, who claim to be fighting for truth, justice, and democracy, three values that are scarce in China. Presumably the Freedom Fighters represent Chinese dissidents, but are they heroes or villains? And what about the original Chinese superheroes, the Great Ten? Good guys or bad guys? You need to read the story to find out.

Kenan has some family drama that turns into superhero/supervillain drama. The family angle evolves through the first four issues and takes center stage in issue 5. The plotting is surprisingly clever.

New Super-Man had me chuckling consistently. It’s a commentary on China and on America, but it’s true value lies in its ability to demonstrate that people all over the world are the same … boorish, vain, shallow, self-involved, but occasionally capable of rising above their faults and doing the right thing. It’s one of the better attempts at DC to do something different without departing from the strengths that made the company a success.

Viktor Bogdanovic's art is perfectly suited to the story, but it’s the sharp writing that earned my applause. I suspect that any Superman fan will be pleased with the new Chinese version.

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The Sound of the World by Heart by Giacomo Bevilacqua

Published by Lion Forge on May 23, 2017

The Sound of the World by Heart is sort of a tribute to New York City as seen through the lens of chaos theory. The story is about making connections, or choosing not to make connections and thus to avoid pain, in a city that is famous for people who bump elbows but never notice each other. There’s magic in the city, in its art, its library, its streets, its people … and some of that magic (or maybe it's just randomness) underlies the story that Giacomo Bevilacqua tells.

Sam is a photographer. He counts numbers in his head because he doesn’t want to think. He listens to the same song over and over. His memories are like digital pictures. Memories that don’t turn out well, he deletes.

Sam is on a New York adventure, living for two months without speaking to another human being. He plans to write a photo essay about his adventure and to publish it in the magazine he co-founded. The other co-founder helped Sam devise this challenge as a way to get over the pain of a loss.

Sam has taken 400 photos and somehow the same girl has ended up in dozens of them. Who is she? How did that happen? Part of Sam’s challenge is that his habit of deleting memories is coming back to haunt him. Of course, getting answers isn’t easy when you aren’t allowed to ask questions out loud.

Many of the scenes show the mystery woman and Sam in the same area, often oblivious to each other’s presence. One point of the story, I think, is its illustration of the notion that we need to open our eyes, to look outside of ourselves, if we don’t want to miss the things that might truly be important.

Bevilacqua writes in a minimalist, poetic style, letting the pictures tell most of the story, as good graphic novels should. I like the way the art tells one story while the text tells another, both working to make the story whole. The technique allows the reader to see relationships that would not be evident by reading the text or looking at the art alone.

Sam’s musings articulate an appealing, if unfinished, philosophy of life, parts of which might usefully blend into the reader’s own unfinished philosophy of life. Some of the story is about finding a preferred rhythm of life, and perhaps finding a place, or a person, whose rhythm matches your own.

The element of magic I mentioned might be real or it might be in Sam’s head. Is Sam entirely sane? Maybe not. Is anybody? But some connections have their own kind of magic — even when we don’t see the connections, don’t know they exist — and I think that’s the point the story is making. The story doesn’t try to be deeply philosophical, and maybe it stretches a bit to make its points, maybe it even borders on being overly sentimental, but the story is narrated in a voice that feels true, and I have to give it credit for being so well done.

I love the art, particularly the cityscapes. They’re almost impressionistic but they capture the reality of the city.

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