City of Stone and City of Smoke are the first two volumes in the Berlin trilogy, written and drawn by Jason Lutes. I borrowed the first volume at my local library recently and was so taken with it that I immediately ordered the second one.
It's 1928 and Germany is still recovering from its defeat in the Great War. Unemployment and poverty is sky-high and on the streets of Berlin, violent clashes between communists and national-socialists are a frequent occurrence. The days of the Weimar Republic are counted and the city, not to mention the rest of the nation, is about to change forever.
The two central characters of Berlin are Kurt Severing, a journalist with leftist leanings (though his political involvement is limited to writing articles) and Marthe Müller, a country-girl who has come to Berlin to study at the art-school. The majority of the action in the two volumes are seen through the eyes of these two, who meet when the story begins and will soon form a relationship. Lutes surrounds Kurt and Marthe with a huge cast of characters, including art-students, communists, entertainers and others and its a testament to Lutes' strength as a writer that each character in the comic comes across as a believable and recognizable human being.
On the art-side of things, Berlin is very good as well. Lutes does an excellent job at making the time-period comes to life and portrays both squalid poverty as well as the excesses of the nightclubs, with aplomb. He's also very good at facial expressions, to prove my point I present a scene from the second volume, in which a visiting African-American jazz band happens upon a poster meant to portray them. The look on their faces says more than a thousand words:
I strongly recommend Berlin to anyone who has either an interest in the time-period or just want to enjoy a truly great work of sequential art. My only real complaint (if it even counts as one) is that now I will have to wait for a long time until the final volume comes out. Still, as the saying goes; He who waits for something good can never wait too long.
It's been awhile since I wrote something about villains, so I figured that it would be fun to dedicate my first post of the year to that very subject. In any media featuring musical numbers, the ones sung by the villain tend to be the most memorable. Below are some of my favorite villain songs, in random order.
No post like this is complete without at least one song performed by a Disney-villain and this one is my personal favorite. Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, may have been a kiddyfied adaptation of Hugo's book, but it was still a pretty dark movie, as evidenced by the Hellfire sequence.In it, the hypocritical and corrupt Judge Claude Frollo, sings about his lust for Esmeralda and how, if he can't have her, he'll kill her (you know, for kids). Probably the darkest scene in a Disney-movie and definitely the best one in the entire movie. I miss you, Tony Jay.
For a show which frequently has its characters bursting into song, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic has been quite stingy with songs for its villains. Out of the major villains, the only one to get a her own song is Chrysalis, the Changeling-Queen (yes. I know that Discord got a song in season 4, but he wasn't really a villain in that episode, just a dick), This Day is divided into two parts, the first has Chrysalis - disguised as Princess Cadance - singing about her evil plans while Twilight Sparkle and the real Cadance rush to stop her. In the second part, Chrysalis, now in her true form, gloats over the invasion of Canterlot by her army. Taking both parts as a whole this is a great song, easily one of my favorites in the show. Plus, I find Chrysalis' evil laughter at the end to be absolutely adorable.
I'm not really familiar with Mefistofele, Arrigo Boito's Opera-adaption of the Faust legend, but this is a great song. It's pretty much the titular character singing about how he's going to destroy/corrupt God's creation and the joy he gets from doing that. It's pretty much the perfect song for the Devil (or one of the Devil's minions) to sing.
Like many children who grew up in the 90's, I was a huge fan of Pokemon, at least for awhile. However, I had no idea until recently that a Pokemon musical existed. Now, I haven't seen the musical (I think the entire thing is available on YouTube, for those who are interested), so I can't vouch for its quality. That said, It Will All be Mine is pretty awesome. The song has Giovanni singing about how he's going to take over the World and destroy all who oppose him. You know, typical villain-stuff. What I like the most about this song is how triumphant it sounds. Giovanni is so excited about this whole world-domination thing that it becomes infectious. One almost wants the guy to come out at the top in the end.
Unlike the other songs in this post, this one is not sung by a villain, but about him. The Rains of Castamere tells the story of how a young Tywin Lannister put down the Reyne-Tarbeck rebellion. Without mentioning his name, the song pretty much tells you a very important thing about Tywin; That he's a ruthless bastard whose wrath you'd best not incur. Of course, you already knew that, right?
To round out the list, here's another opera-villain; Namely, Claggart from Benjamin Britten's adaption of Herman Melville's novella, Billy Budd. Claggart's aria is one of those songs that opens itself up to different interpretations. Why does Claggart want to destroy Billy? Well, the most obvious answer is that its because he represents evil and Billy represents good. However, one can also view Claggart as a repressed/latent homosexual who can't deal with the fact that he's attracted to another guy. Regardless, this is a great, chilling song, possibly my favorite and the perfect song to end this list with.
