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Book/Manga Recs, 5/18/12
Friday, May 18th, 2012 12:44 pmIn Books:
The Other Family & The Best of Friends, by Joanna Trollope: Trollope continues to impress me with her skill at handling multiple characters and their points of view, as well as her nonjudgmental authorial tone (although some her characters happily judge away, for better or for worse.) These books are master classes in dialogue and quick, accessible description. I'm eager to read more of her work.
In Graphic Novels:
The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media, words by Brooke Gladstone and pictures by Josh Neufeld: Gladstone credits Scott McCloud's phenomenonal Understanding Comics as a source of inspiration, and it's an apt comparison. What McCloud sought to do for comics and graphic novels, Gladstone seeks to do for media and the way we've come to consume it, and she succeeds with flying colors. This is a thought-provoking, wise piece of work that challenges any reader to reconsider what is truthful in popular media, especially news coverage. In particular, her chapter on war coverage is revealing and equal parts depressing, historical, and inspiring: depressing for the simple truth that the media can easily create a conflict where there is none or shape the events of a conflict to fit any truth the public sees fit; historical in that she traces the history of war coverage journalism in the U.S. in an exhaustive but never dull fashion; and inspiring in that she challenges each reader to more closely examine what is she/he is seeing and NOT seeing. Gladstone is never overly preachy or self-righteous, and her self-deprecating humor is a nice touch at several especially poignant and difficult sections of text. I want to use this book in every class I teach from now on! Highly, highly recommended!
In Manga:
Uglies: Shay's Story, Words by Scott Westerfeld and Devin Grayson, pictures by Steven Cummings: This was rather disappointing, especially because while I was reading the original trilogy, I thought to myself, if there ever was a series begging to be made into a manga, it's this one!. The way that Westerfeld described the Pretties (augmented human characters) made me think of manga, with its unsettling ability to create characters who seem too doll-like, too perfect to be real. The Pretties in this manga don't look that much different from the regular, un-modified human characters, and they certainly don't appear to be so beautiful and perfect that Uglies instantly feel like obeying them. In fact, most of the so-called Uglies looked like already perfect manga characters: there were no real variations in body shape or skin tone other than freckles and high cheekbones that aren't really all that difficult for any competent illustrator to do. Even worse, the Specials didn't look all that scary--again, the idea I came away from the original books with was that these were people who'd been augmented to look more feral, more dangerous, that their beauty was poisonous. Instead, they just looked like big, buff guys in battle armor. Only Dr. Cable came close to looking the way I'd pictured her, but her appearance was too little, too late. It didn't help that the story in this installment is weak teenage romance and made Shay into a whiney, unsympathetic character. Personally, if someone was illustrating my work, I'd be telling a different story, one that was far more world-building-based and less on the soap opera side. This volume felt like a wasted opportunity.
A side note: I have just started Are You My Mother?, Alison Bechdel's latest work, and while it looks amazing, it is DENSE. I plan to read it carefully, and probably won't be able to post about it right away. Still, based on the first chapter alone, I can safely say this is a strong, honest piece of work.
The Other Family & The Best of Friends, by Joanna Trollope: Trollope continues to impress me with her skill at handling multiple characters and their points of view, as well as her nonjudgmental authorial tone (although some her characters happily judge away, for better or for worse.) These books are master classes in dialogue and quick, accessible description. I'm eager to read more of her work.
In Graphic Novels:
The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media, words by Brooke Gladstone and pictures by Josh Neufeld: Gladstone credits Scott McCloud's phenomenonal Understanding Comics as a source of inspiration, and it's an apt comparison. What McCloud sought to do for comics and graphic novels, Gladstone seeks to do for media and the way we've come to consume it, and she succeeds with flying colors. This is a thought-provoking, wise piece of work that challenges any reader to reconsider what is truthful in popular media, especially news coverage. In particular, her chapter on war coverage is revealing and equal parts depressing, historical, and inspiring: depressing for the simple truth that the media can easily create a conflict where there is none or shape the events of a conflict to fit any truth the public sees fit; historical in that she traces the history of war coverage journalism in the U.S. in an exhaustive but never dull fashion; and inspiring in that she challenges each reader to more closely examine what is she/he is seeing and NOT seeing. Gladstone is never overly preachy or self-righteous, and her self-deprecating humor is a nice touch at several especially poignant and difficult sections of text. I want to use this book in every class I teach from now on! Highly, highly recommended!
In Manga:
Uglies: Shay's Story, Words by Scott Westerfeld and Devin Grayson, pictures by Steven Cummings: This was rather disappointing, especially because while I was reading the original trilogy, I thought to myself, if there ever was a series begging to be made into a manga, it's this one!. The way that Westerfeld described the Pretties (augmented human characters) made me think of manga, with its unsettling ability to create characters who seem too doll-like, too perfect to be real. The Pretties in this manga don't look that much different from the regular, un-modified human characters, and they certainly don't appear to be so beautiful and perfect that Uglies instantly feel like obeying them. In fact, most of the so-called Uglies looked like already perfect manga characters: there were no real variations in body shape or skin tone other than freckles and high cheekbones that aren't really all that difficult for any competent illustrator to do. Even worse, the Specials didn't look all that scary--again, the idea I came away from the original books with was that these were people who'd been augmented to look more feral, more dangerous, that their beauty was poisonous. Instead, they just looked like big, buff guys in battle armor. Only Dr. Cable came close to looking the way I'd pictured her, but her appearance was too little, too late. It didn't help that the story in this installment is weak teenage romance and made Shay into a whiney, unsympathetic character. Personally, if someone was illustrating my work, I'd be telling a different story, one that was far more world-building-based and less on the soap opera side. This volume felt like a wasted opportunity.
A side note: I have just started Are You My Mother?, Alison Bechdel's latest work, and while it looks amazing, it is DENSE. I plan to read it carefully, and probably won't be able to post about it right away. Still, based on the first chapter alone, I can safely say this is a strong, honest piece of work.
