Oh, Susan reminded me...
I finished
Banewreaker
about a week ago. I also did not like it as much as the
Kushiel
books, but the repetitiveness I perceived either went away or stopped annoying me after about 150 pages.
I liked some of the characers, and I felt really drawn to Lilias. I can't wait to see how her story ends. Most of the characters seemed well developed to this point in the story, and I hope we learn more about other characters in the next installment.
I especially like the way Carey has balanced her characters and isn't judging them or their actions. I can believe the characters are thinking and acting for themselves and not purely at the whim of the author, if that makes any sense.
Thanks, David.
In recent years, he's done some of his best storytelling (I think) when he goes back and covers the childhood years of the Locas characters and does it in a sort of Peanuts/Dennis the Menace style.
From the interview: "Amazing art. And a lot of people didn't get where we were coming from when we'd say, 'Nobody draws like Hank Ketcham!' They say, 'That silly Dennis the Menace comic?' We'd go 'Yeah, but you're not looking at what's really beyond that. He was a master!'"
The downside with Gilbert's comics is that his cast is so huge that it's difficult to keep track of all of his characters. (An argument in favor of reading Palomar in one volume, I guess.)
My experience with his stories has been the collections, & 95% of the stories have been in Palomar. The only trouble I had keeping the characters straight was connecting them as kids - the way I first encountered them, maybe in "Sopa de Gran Pena"? - to the way they look as adults in most of the stories in "The Reticent Heart." There's a reason my email is uncle ike: my literary imagination was hugely shaped by Faulkner, so big casts of characters, twisted story lines, and recurring story arcs don't phase me at all. Again from the Jaime interview: "I can't work that far ahead in the future. My brother, Gilbert, can. He has stories going years down the road. I can't think that far. I think more in hundred-page increments instead of 700 pages."
Yeah. One of the best-drawn comics going right now is Rose Is Rose.
And I HATE the content. Or at least the part with angels.
I love the drawing in Strangers in Paradise. When I have more disposable income I'll be buying every issue.
And I HATE the content.
You and me both. And the Chronicle just dumped "Clear Blue Water", which had pretty bad art, but I was getting attached to the content. Sadly, they retained "Pearls Before Swine", which is badly drawn, stupid, and offensive altogether.
Sigh.
Huh. I like
Rose.
I even like the angel, though the kitten is best.
You and me both. And the Chronicle just dumped "Clear Blue Water", which had pretty bad art, but I was getting attached to the content. Sadly, they retained "Pearls Before Swine", which is badly drawn, stupid, and offensive altogether.
Gah. I hated them both quite a bit. Clear Blue Water had that very grating "twinkle in the eye" factor. Which is also present in Rose. (I'm not anti-sentiment by any means. Love in C&H and even like For Better or Worse a great deal.)
Why must they pick such ugly looking cartoons?
Clear Blue Water had that very grating "twinkle in the eye" factor.
What I liked was the tension and the political content, and the fact that the family was going through a rough time. And that she was biracial and he was hispanic and this was presented as no big deal, just another middle-class couple trying to get by. I liked that.
What I liked was the tension and the political content, and the fact that the family was going through a rough time. And that she was biracial and he was hispanic and this was presented as no big deal, just another middle-class couple trying to get by. I liked that.
But it was all over the freakin' place. First he's long haired liberal. That doesn't generate enough conflict. He gets a brain swap and now he's a gun toting conservative. It's all about family dynamics, and then it's got this influx of imaginary superheroes. Plus - not funny. Plus - ugly to look at. And the biracial/hispanic etc just looked like lefty-lib pandering to me. I think that's the only reason it ever got put into the paper.
