Analog Impressions

I’m currently in the process of re-reading many of the graphic novels that I bought in the 90s and have been on my shelves since then. Right now, I’m in the middle of Paul Chadwick’s Concrete and wanted to share with you how wonderful this series was.

I don’t think there’s any other book amongst my graphic collection that is more humanistic than this one. If you’ve never heard of Concrete (fairly likely), then here is the pitch: a young man, promising senatorial speechwriter is abducted by aliens while on a camping trip. His brain is transplanted into a rocky, super powerful body. He manages to escape and, with the help of his former boss, gets enrolled in a scientific program by the US government to examine this first ever example of alien technology. He gets bored at the confinement though, tries to escape but fails. The government realises they can’t hold him in forever, and he strikes a deal: he is presented to the public as the sole surviving cyborg of a failed experimental program. A marketing campaign is thrown to promote him as a benign buffoon, in the hope that he will soon be forgotten by conspiracy theorists. 

With a typical super-hero like premisce, Concrete is in fast the anti-thesis of a superhero story, the story of a man whose new body opens a world of possibilities, and makes him… much less than a man. Concrete wants to use his powerhouse body to “make a difference” (cross the Atlantic swimming, save a family of farmers from bankruptcy, build a footbridge in Nepal for an isolated village…) but doesn’t really know what making a difference means. He lives with his assistant Larry and the government biologist Maureen (who he’s madly in love with.)

It’s moving, funny, powerful and most of all (as I said above) humanistic. Concrete is a wonderful observation of our quirky society by an outsider who used to be an insider.

I’ve fallen in love with this series again. And I heartily recommend it. 

Elephantmen Volume 1: Wounded Animals by Richard Starkings
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ve been hovering around Elephantmen for a while. It was recommended to me by a clerk in a comic bookstore in Boston two years ago, but the first TPB wasn’t available and, to be honest, the premise seemed a little too much on the silly side.

I stumbled upon it again in Dublin a couple of weeks back and decided to give it a shot anyway. I’m glad I did.

Elephantmen is set in a cyberpunk-ish universe in which a mad genius bio-engineered human-animal hydrids and trained them as war machines. Those that survived were finally captured by the UN and taken into custody. They enjoyed a limited freedom within the constraints of human society. Most of them are a little more than mental wrecks, although in this first TPB there’s a hint of future conflict between them, maybe even factions.

The most obvious quality of Elephantmen is the quite stunning artwork, but as far as I’m concerned, artwork is never enough. What shines through in this first TPB even though the plot, if there is one, isn’t really apparent is great character design and a broad worldview that puts the plight of the Elephantmen (who are not all Elephant hybrids) in perspective.

I will definitely be picking up the rest at the first opportunity.

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Craig Thompson is probably most famous for his wonderful Blankets and so when I found out he’d released another behemoth of a graphic novel I promptly purchased it. I love Thompson’s fluid drawing lines, and was already very pleased with that in Blankets, but this is a whole new level of graphic inventiveness, framing and drawing. The book is simply stunning beautifully, and it amazes me that a book so beautiful and so big could be so affordable.

The story of Habibi in a nutshell is the story of two enslaved kids (a fair-skinned and beautiful girl and a black-skinned boy) who escape and live their formative years together until life tears them apart brutally. The story begins in what feels like a medieval arabian nights context with a few oddly modern bits thrown into the mix, but as the story progresses that feeling of timelessness slowly fades until you realise things are not quite as you originally imagined.

I don’t want to spoil any of the story for potential readers, but I will say this: it’s deep and intricate, told in a non-linear fashion with lots of flashbacks and interspersed with references to (relevant) muslim mysticism as expressed in the stories of the female character.

The book is enthralling although the sheer magnitude of it makes it impossible (or at least made it impossible for me) to read in one sitting. There are moments where the mysticism lost me, but I sense that everything is interconnected and probably will pick a lot more of the construction in a second reading.

In summary, Habibi is a very ambitious book, both in terms of the narrative itself and in its construction and religious references. It’s not an easy read, but the story is strong enough to keep you going despite the complex structure and the intricate graphical constructions (which are sparsely and effectively used, but do make the reading a little tougher).

I thoroughly recommend it to those who enjoy intricate and exotic stories and have some prior experience with independant graphic novels. One thing I should mention is that a significant portion of the book occurs in a harem, so if you are easily offended by nudity, this is not for you.