District 14, Season 1

Every once in a while, I come across a work of fiction that I can't help but gush about in a shamefully fan-boyish fashion, while at the same time I also can't help but feel a bit jealous of its creator(s), simply because its exactly the kind of work I wish I had come up with myself.
The french comic District 14 (or Cité 14 in original) written by Pierre Gabus, drawn by Romuald Reutimann and published in English by Humanoids, is exactly the kind of work I'm talking about.

Dear reader, welcome to District 14; a city-state populated not just by regular human beings, but also by anthropomorphic animals, aliens and even the occasional superhero. Our introduction to this bustling community comes through a newly arrived immigrant, an elephant, who has been forced to leave his homeland due to certain circumstances. Given the new name, Michael Elizondo (due to a linguistic misunderstanding), our pachyderm friend soon finds a job as an assistant and bodyguard to the investigative reporter, Hector  McKeagh. As the duo chases after the next big scoop, they soon find themselves caught up in a mystery, one which will net them a bunch of powerful and ruthless enemies.

Gabus and Reutimann have created a very detailed, living world, populated by a rich and varied cast of characters. Gabus' writing does an excellent job at making each character seem as if he or she has their own elaborate back-story waiting to be uncovered. The plot is also well-told and grows more intricate, with many twists and turns, as it evolves. As for Reutimann's art, I can't think of much to say about it (you may notice that I don't talk a lot about the artwork when I review comics for some reason; mostly because I prefer to let the panels I post speak for themselves), except that I found it very enjoyable to look at and that it fit the story perfectly.

I should point out that by the end of the first volume/season a lot of questions regarding the plot remain unanswered. Without spoiling to much, I can however say that we get to learn why Michael had to leave his homeland, his real name and why he needs to drink that disgusting tea he's always brewing. A lot of the other plot-points will hopefully be answered in season 2, which I'm looking forward to read.

In case it hadn't been clear by now, I absolutely loved District 14 and urge everyone with an interest in quality comics to give it a try.

Berlin: City of Stone and City of Smoke

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.

Villain Songs

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.

Merry Christmas

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas. Thanks for reading the blog and hopefully, I'll see you around.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Comics That Should Be Translated: Rebecca

Recently, I decided to re-read an old comic which had been gathering dust on my bookshelf ever since I last read it, many years ago. Upon reading it, I was struck almost from the page what a great read it was and so, I decided to make it the subject for the second post in my Comics That Should Be Translated series. The comic in question is Rebecca (but of course, you already knew that, having read the title of the post) by Anna Brandoli (art) and Renato Queirolo (script).

Rebecca takes place in Italy at the end of the 15th Century,  the story begins with the street-singer Mercutio fleeing through the snow, he's being pursued by two city-guards who took offence to one of his songs. Mercutio soon happens upon a cave, where he meets the comic's eponymous character; the gypsy-woman Rebecca. After she has helped Mercutio to get rid of the guards (I won't tell you how), Rebecca enlists the singer as her partner-in-crime (so to speak): She has found a hidden stash of weapons which she aims to sell in the city of Como. Once there, the duo soon finds themselves involved in a conspiracy cooked up by the local inquisitor to have a Jewish moneylender accused of witchcraft so that the church can confiscate his fortune.

One of Rebecca's chief strength is the very believable portrayal of Italy during the Renaissance.  Brandoli and Queirolo does not shy away from showing the injustices of the time, from the corruption to the religious oppression. The protagonists are hardly perfect, but they do come of as saints (or almost) when compared to the villains. Another thing the comic has going for it is it's cast of memorable characters. Aside from our two leads, Rebecca and Mercutio, this also includes (among others) the orally-gifted and intellectual miller Mennochio, who becomes one of the duo's allies as well as Filippo da Cesena; a leper who roams the countryside telling the tale of the crimes he committed when he was in the service of a generous but naive nobleman.

Incidentally, Filippo's story is perhaps my favorite segment of the comic. Covering only ten pages, it paints a fascinating portrait of a man who doesn't shrink from the blackest deeds in order to fulfill his thirst for wealth and power.

The comic is helped immensely by Anna Brandoli's artwork, which really sets the mood. Brandoli is another artist who has clearly mastered the use of black-and-white, much like her fellow countryman and colleague, the great Hugo Pratt.

There is a sequel to Rebecca called I Testamenti di Sant' Ambrogio (The Testament of St. Ambrogio), in color. I've read the first part of it in French and enjoyed it well-enough. However, the original Rebecca still stands out as one of the finest examples of its genre and a comic that definitely deserves to be translated.

Kill My Mother

I mentioned in my last post that during my trip to NY, I bought quite a lot of books. One of those books was Kill My Mother, a graphic-novel by renowned cartoonist Jules Feiffer.

I should perhaps start by saying that I'm only passingly familiar with Feiffer's work. I know who he is and I've seen a few of his drawings as well as his animated short-film Munro, about a four-year old who gets drafted into the US army, but that's as far as it goes. However, the cover of Kill My Mother, featuring a woman holding a smoking gun, as well as the enticing front-page blurb by Neil Gaiman, convinced me to shell out the bucks for it. Was it worth the prize? Short answer: Yes.

Kill My Mother is, according to Feiffer himself, a love-letter to the noir-films  and the classic adventure comic strips of yesteryear; those drawn by great artists like Milton Caniff or Will Eisner. The story begins in Bay City in the 1930's, it's here that we meet Elsie, the widow after a cop who was murdered during the Prohibition. Elsie now works as a secretary for her late husband's friend, Neil Hammond; a perpetually inebriated private-detective, in the hopes that the job will enable her to one day track down her husband's killers. We also meet Elsie's daughter, Annie, a rebellious teenager who harbors a schoolgirl-crush on Neil and resents her mother, believing that Elsie has effectively abandoned her. One day, a tall blonde by the name walks into Neil's office. She wants his help to find her old drama-teacher who has vanished without a trace. Neil suspects that there's something fishy going on, especially since the woman in the photo bears an uncanny resemblance to his client. Still, he needs the money, so he agrees to take the job.

I'll stop there, since I don't want to risk spoiling anything for those of haven't read Kill My Mother yet. Suffice to say that Feiffer tells a highly engaging story, one that takes many twists and turns and involves a large cast of characters. Speaking of which, the characters in this story are all memorable, whether it's the major characters like Annie and her boyfriend Artie or minor ones such as the communist liquor-store owner, I found them all to be interesting in their own ways.

On the artistic side, Feiffer draws in a sketchy style that may take some getting used to and may perhaps even put off some readers, which would be a great shame. Personally, I liked the artwork, it's very energetic with characters that sometime seem like they could leap out of the panels. In fact, this would make for an interesting animated movie.

All in all, Feiffer has certainly succeeded in creating a homage to the comics and movies of his youth. If you are a fan of the works of Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler (to mention a few names), I'd suggest giving Kill My Mother a go.

Viktor Takes Manhattan

I seldom write about my personal life on this blog, mostly because I rarely feel that my personal life is worth writing about. That said, I did recently get back from a one-week trip to New York (accompanied by my parents and my younger sister) and so, I thought I'd write a bit about my stay there.

The first night we spent on Long Island, at the home of my dad's cousin (who immigrated to the States at a young age) and his wife. Both of them were nice people and in the off-chance that they might read this, I'd like to take an opportunity to thank them for their hospitality. The next day, we took the train to Manhattan and the hotel we had booked. For the duration of our stay, we mostly did typical tourist-stuff: We went to museums (such as the Guggenheim), took the Staten Island Ferry and saw the Statue of Liberty (though we didn't go up in it, maybe next time), ate at some really good restaurants (including a Brazilian one, my first time eating Brazilian food) and so forth. Of course, I also made time to buy a few books, some of which I will no doubt review on the blog in the future.

All in all, I definitely enjoyed my trip to New York (well, the parts of it we visited, which was mostly Manhattan) and wouldn't mind going again some other time. That said, it's nice to be home and able to sleep in one's own bed.