Saturday 25 March 2006

THE RISE OF THE GRAPHIC NOVEL...

Saturday 25 March 2006
For many people, comic-book fans are seen as the oaf from The Simpsons. These days, it's okay to be fans of sci-fi and fantasy series on TV - particularly now Doctor Who dominates the ratings on the Beeb on Saturday nights, Battlestar Galactica astounds with its gritty style, and Lost continues its phenomenal run.

Don't get me wrong, walking around the supermarket in a Tom Baker scarf or an original series Cylon outfit is still frowned upon (and rightly so, imo) but it's still a fact that the general public are more willing to give sci-if/fantasy series a try.


Life On Mars is another good example - although the "time-travel" aspect wasn't utilised to its full potential, but it shows that UK viewers are increasingly bored by the constant diet of doctor/cop/lawyer shows on terrestrial TV. ITV may have failed with The Eleventh Hour, but here's hoping Russell T Davies' Torchwood isn't the cynical Who cash-in it seems to be this summer...

Anyway, getting back on track. Comic-books. Or, the graphic novel. Personally, I'm not a big comic-book fan, exactly. I have never visited a comic-book shop, and my knowledge of the writers and artists involved stretches to Stan Lee and Bob Kane.

But I think it's a medium that is extremely interesting right now. It's no longer just the domain of supeheroes in tights. There are plenty of titles that I'm finding far more exciting than the traditional novel right now. Here are a few you should check out:

Y: The Last Man: a brilliant comic serial by Brian K Vaughn about a smart-ass escapologist called Yorick Brown, the only male survivor of a mysterious plague that kills every male on the planet. A fascinating post-apocalyptic adventure that will undoubtedly be adapted for the screen very soon, if executives have any sense. Gripping, tense, involving, packed with interesting characters and amazing scenarios the simple premise throws up...

Watchmen: Perhaps the greatest graphic novel ever written. Alan Moore's masterpiece. A story so dense and deftly plotted that it has become seemingly impossible to translate into a 2-hour movie. Watchmen is set in a parallel universe where superheroes genuinely exist, yet were outlawed by the government. Most of the heroes have sunk back into society as social misfits, but when one of their own is murdered, a "whodunnit?" mystery with serious repercussions for mankind begins...

Maus: A visionary comic memoir about living in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust, but where all the nations are represented as animals.


The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Another Alan Moore property cruelly treated at the movies. It became a lazy movie full of confusing action and lame plotting. But, the original material is pulp adventure at its finest. A Victorian-era crime-fighting team of 19th-Century literary characters (Captain Nemo, Alan Quatermain, Mina Harker, The Invisible Man, Dr Jekyll, etc) who battle nefarious villains such as Fu Manchu and even the Martian invaders of H.G Wells' War Of The Worlds. Extraordinary entertainment.

From Hell: Alan Moore's seminal Jack The Ripper story, mistreated again at the cinema in the Johnny Depp vehicle. Reading Moore's book is to dive into a murky Victorian world and be presented with an astounding recreation of the events that unfolded in 1888, but with Moore's own theory on exactly who Jack was. The scratchy ink drawings can be difficult to follow at times, but the sheer storytelling prowess is genius.

Sin City: Robert Rodriguez's movie did justice to the Frank Miller comics, but that doesn't mean there's no point reading Miller's work. Of course, fans of the movie may want to check out Miller's opus anyway, as Sin City 2 will be translating other stories from Basin City in the near-future...


V For Vendetta: For once, a decent movie adaptation of Alan Moore, but the original comic is still light years ahead. Even if you've seen the movie, reading the comic should be an eye-opening experience and interesting to see what the filmmaker's chose to abandon and twist into new shapes...

There are other excellent works out there, too numerous to mention. Fans of Batman Begins will probably like to check out Batman: Year One, The Dark Knight Returns and The Long Halloween, and realize just how much Christopher Nolan's movie owes to the comic-book universe. Also, 300 is a blood-thirsty historical epic coming from Zack Snyder (Dawn Of The Dead remake) in the near-future, based on Frank Miller's original tome.

All of the above are great read - as is anything by Alan Moore, remember...

So there you have it. Comic books! The next frontier for the mainstream to accept -- so get reading!