Comic Reviews: Hair Shirt & Black Paths

Hair Shirt

There is a saying that “no one gets out of life alive”.  I have long believed that there is a corollary to that saying and that would be “no one grows up without getting messed up.”   We all come out of our teenage years with emotional baggage that needs to be dealt with in our early twenties before we are ready to pass on to adult hood.  Hair Shirt is a new graphic novel by Eisner Award-winning artist Patrick McEown that follows the course of two young college students as they try to reconnect and rekindle a childhood romance.

John is a college art student coming to grips with a bad break up who is plagued by terrible dreams (mostly involving a dog with a human face) that are a manifestation of his long-ignored personal problems.  Naomi, on the other hand, at first seems to have shed the emotional baggage thrust on her by an abusive, alcoholic father and a brother who can only be described as sexually abusive but as the story progresses both we and her come realize that even though she has seemly pushed through her experiences the past will not let go of her that easily and are causing her to almost subconsciously sabotage relationships to protect her from further hurt.

Reading this book my mind kept thinking that if this were a movie instead of a graphic novel the only words to describe it would be “indy” and “bleak”.  There is no happiness in these characters’ lives, there is no joy, there is no light; there is only the business of living hopeless lives.  Despite the darkness, McEown gives us and the characters a faint, silvery ray of hope off in the distance in that both characters realize that they need to confront their past before they can move forward.

Can John and Naomi face their past and come back together, or at least move forward with their lives?  The book never says but I don’t think that is what McEown is striving for.  Life rarely has nice, neat, happy endings and like this book sometimes all we can do is recognize we need help and that can be victory enough for us for now.

Over a year ago our webmaster Adam’s love of indy comics inspired me to take my own journey on seldom-travelled roads and this book makes me glad I did.  Books like Hair Shirt are the reason I read comics now.

Black Paths

Time for a quick history lesson.  During WWI Italy signed the Treaty of London which promised to give them the Austrian Littoral (which now forms parts of Italy, Croatia, and Slovenia) but NOT the city of Fiume.  Italian writer Gabriele D’Annunzio marched into the city with 2600 Italian troops in late 1919 and in 1920 he declared the city of Fiume an independent state with himself as the dictator.  This independent state lasted for four very uncertain years until D’Annunzio was ousted from power and the city was annexed into Italy and it is during this period of history that writer/artist David B sets his latest work Black Paths.

The set up for the story is very simple: writer/soldier Lauriano and his band of soldiers are hanging out in ravaged port city of Fiume and one day he meets and falls in love with a beautiful singer named Mina.  Sensing that he has finally found what he is looking for in life he decides to “get the band back together” and stage an art heist that will set him up for the new life he hopes to have with her.  But how can he succeed when everywhere he turns there are people driven mad by war?  I can’t really say whether he succeeds or not without spoiling it for you but let’s just say that there are some books where the ride to the end is so good who cares what the ending is?

French small press artist David B has taken story elements from World War 2-set spy thrillers such as Casablanca, The Third Man, and mixed it with a kind of pulp-art/primitive wood carving style that gives the story a setting and sense of time all its own and the two mesh wonderfully.  The only problem I have with this book is I am going to now have the find the money to purchase the English translations of his other works.

Comic Review: Once Upon a Time Machine

I love a good anthology but the problem is publishers rarely do them these days.  The idea of bringing together a variety of writers and artists to contribute variations on a central theme guided by the singular vision of a central editor means that there will always be something for everyone and if you don’t like one story don’t worry; another story by a different writer/artist combination will be coming up shortly.  The newest 400+ page anthology by Dark Horse is that rare book where you won’t be skipping over certain stories as each one of the over 25 different tales is a wonderful little reading experience all on its own.  I firmly believe that this collection of stories will help to solidify Dark Horse Comic’s reputation as one of the most important producers of comics literature today.

The original intent of fairy tales was to impart values or lessons upon young children in a way that is entertaining for them by using characters the young listeners can relate to.  Why else are the main characters all so young in the stories?  What is the story of Pinocchio if not a way to remind young boys of the importance of being good wrapped in an entertaining package?  That version might have been fine 200 years ago but what child now has ever seen a wooden toy much less played with one?  What if, instead of a wooden boy, Pinocchio were a computer program learning how to interact with He wants to be a real little boy.humans and what would he need to learn to be a good son to his “father”?  Now THAT is a version of Pinocchio that children today can read and enjoy.  These are the types of questions editor Andrew Carl and producer Chris Stevens have charged this gathering of over 90+ writers and artists to answer.

 Some of these stories are just plain silly while others will leave you pondering what it means to be human.  Some will cause you to put down the book and think about how hard it can be to go forward another day for someone else despite your own pain or how your story might not be about you at all.  The majority of the stories are just too short and I wanted more, but that’s a good problem to have.  When you leave the reader wanting more that means you’ve done something right.

Unfortunately I do have two major problems with the book.  First off a lot of the entries are singleCome on, just TELL me you don’t want to know more about this story. page splashes that are incredibly cool but that’s all we get.  How can you tease me with something as awesome as a Humpty Dumpty pin up by Ryan Ottley and leave me hanging?  I can only hope that if there is a volume two these pin ups serve as a spring board for the next round of tales.  

My second problem with this collection is that there is no back story.  And by that I mean:  How were the writers and artists chosen?  How were the assignments handed out?  What was the genesis of the project?  If you do an anthology like this I think the back story, the in between, and the thoughts of the editors is every bit as vital as the stories themselves and without it this volume only feels mostly completed.

Should you buy this then?  Well it is $25.00 but for that price you get over 400 pages of story none of which wear out their welcome and in my opinion comics needs a break from the endless parade of meaningless mega crossovers that happen every other year and need to get back to doing what they can do better than any other medium: give adult and children both a wonderful reading experience.  And if the promotional video found here doesn’t make you want to read it nothing I say can change your mind