Kärkevää ja suorasanaista tykitystä, jonka huumori upposi aika hyvin allekirjoittaneeseen. Pidin erityisesti parisuhteisiin liittyvien asioiden esiin ottamisesta, ja piirrostyylikin oli alkuhämmennyksen jälkeen melkoisen hulvatonta. Ei todellakaan minkäänlaista mielistelyä tai hyssyttelyä.

I was wandering in the library today, looking for something to relax with before going to class, and I was drawn to the comic book shelf, since there was a lot of interesting stuff that was possible to finish in two hours. I didn't read the blurb of The Wolf Man, so I thought this would be about the psychological condition where a person believes himself to be a werewolf. Turns out the story was far less interesting than that.

As the most prominent patient of Sigmund Freud, Sergei Pankejeff was used (anonymously) to prove the validity of psychoanalysis, so obviously psychology needs to be an interest at some level at least before attempting to read this, because beyond that the story has very little to offer. There are diversions to historical events and Pankejeff's family, but it didn't help that I don't hold Freud's theories in very high regard. Not only he decided that there should be a predetermined limited time period for Pankejeff's treatment, but he also made absolutely outrageously far-fetched conclusions based on dreams and childhood events (some of them, surprise surprise, supposedly never happened), and wrote that Pankejeff's illness was a fixation (seems to imply that his psychological problems were just a matter of the will).

Pankejeff himself admitted later that he doesn't believe to have been cured, and resented being the poster boy for psychoanalysis. The final frames of the comic represent that: it seems there has never been relief, and the darkness has remained in one form or another. In a way the ending is impressive in its understatedness, but everything before that is just psychology jargon with very little substantial content. The artwork, however, is strangely appealing. It consists mostly of simple sketches, but it's at its best when it has been broken into shadows, symbols, and vague forms. Even the broken mind can be beautiful.

"Rage is a child's form of seduction, provoking punishment to satisfy a sexual desire". Ugh.

In The Tenant, there's a scene where the protagonist finds a tooth hidden inside his apartment's wall. It left me strangely uneasy, because I wanted to know what that's about, but it's never explained as I recall it. There's loads of other stuff happening that is just plain weird, but that's the most memorable random thing in it (the film is great as well!).

The Ticking is kind of the same variety, but the whole comic is this surreal world of weirdness. I feel like there's something more behind the seemingly simple story of a father trying to fit his son into a certain kind of mold, even though he's not "normal" either, because they're both steelheads. The cursive writing of their little unique universe contrasts with the uppercase letters of other people.

If I tried to analyze this somehow, I probably wouldn't give this any justice, so maybe I just have to let the story remain as a puzzle. The final scene and the monkey sister especially left me confused, but mostly pleasantly so.

I'm not familiar with Lovecraft that much (I've only read one novel of his), so I was a bit worried at first that I wouldn't get all the references. In the end that didn't matter, I just enjoyed the story. The style was ok. Backgrounds were beautifully drawn, but the people looked occasionally a bit too juvenile for my taste (the boy was wonderfully drawn, though). Overall I'm not sure what I think about the whole concept yet, but maybe I'm able to make my mind when I get my hands on the second installment.

A son, who works as a cartoonist. A father, who has experienced the battlefront, being a prisoner of war, and the hell that is Auschwitz. A father, who shares his experiences even though he thinks no one will care. A son, who based on this account draws a comic called Maus, where the Nazis are cats and the Jews are mice. Predators and vermin.

Maus is stylistically a very understated comic, where simple illustrations do a favour for the story, which doesn't need any colourful embellishments but emerges behind the subtle lines.

Equally a memoir and a comic, there are shades of grey throughout, not just visually. Father Vladek's failing health, his arguments with the new wife, and acting out make the relationship between father and son difficult, but Art still wants to understand his father and how the war affected him. Vladek is not glorified excessively, but he's portrayed realistically as a bit of a wearisome person, who occasionally behaves a little erratically, but to whom the war and the deaths of his first son and first wife have clearly had an influence on. Nobody's perfect, not even those who have been on concentration camps. The experiences are never forgotten, and you may deal with people a little differently than before, but surviving the camp doesn't automatically make anyone a thoroughly good and balanced person.

The anthropomorphism of animals divides opinions, but in this case I thought it was successful and it had a point (unlike in Blacksad, for example). The different "sides" were easily recognisable, whereas in some comics I've read the characters' features are sometimes muddled and therefore difficult to differentiate. With the animal characters Maus also succeeds in narrating an allegorical story of what it means to be a human, and how people sometimes behave like animals (not just the Nazis, but also the desperate prisoners in the concentration camps and ordinary civilians).

Personal experiences push the war under your skin, and you can try to understand the events a little bit better when the oppressed have faces and a unique story to tell. Large numbers are cold and difficult to perceive, but Maus's original approach tells the story of both a survivor and the relationship between a son and a father. Survival is possible, but forgetting is harder.

Maus gets the honour of being the first comic, which I would like to buy and read over and over again. Strongly recommended for also those who avoid comics. Actually, I wish everyone read this. There's lots of material of concentration camps, but the haunting Maus is something else.

Oy. I really hope this is not the direction the series is going for. It's becoming painfully obvious the creator is a man (random moments of pregnancy hormones and a lesbian kiss, not to mention annoyingly vapid females), and the characters were basically just thinking about their genitals all day instead of the swarm of dead people. Michonne is more interesting in the show, here she's just weird and bland. Rick's words at the end were great, though, and I'd also give kudos for showing all the practical stuff with food and such that they have to deal with. Still, too much material for eye rolling.

A comic book about a little jay, who lives in a big house with his sick mother. Outside evil jays are lurking. Minimum dialogue, because so much is told through pictures. Oppressive and claustrophobic, and lots of layers and room for interpretation.

I don't care about insects. I don't care about spaceships. I certainly don't care about them together. Even Spike didn't save this one, even though he was his usual charming self, both in art and dialogue. I gather this was probably meant to be a distraction of sorts for Spike to forget everything he went through, but I just didn't like the story, or the way that a lot happened but still nothing happened.

Here's another who first stumbled upon the AMC show, fell in love and then realised it's based on this series. So, basically there are issues with both, a little different but easier to pass with the TV show than with this one, hence my rating. The pace in here is much better, leaving no dull moments and taking very different solutions in terms of the plot. Didn't like how quickly the issue of Shane was put forward, but I'll live. The character of Daryl in the show is also quite awesome, so I missed him a bit.

What bothered me the most was the dialogue. I don't know if it's because I'm not a comic or graphic novel enthusiast, but it was pretty clumsy and lacking the difference of speech between different characters. When the text is sparse, I expect it to be fully incorporated into the story. What comes to the art, it's really great. In black and white the grim atmosphere is truly conveyed to the reader, and even the zombie attacks manage to be gruesome.

Oh, and Lori... She is repulsively annoying in the TV show. A bit so in here as well, but I can deal with her more easily when I don't have to see her staring with those vacant eyes with a stupid look on her face.

Had no problem with the writing, Spike and Dru sounded pretty much liked them, but they looked nothing like themselves. The artwork was just disappointing overall, and the stories weren't that exciting either. Apparently Marsters himself was disappointed in the result, and felt cheated by the crew because they didn't interpret his story very well. Understandable.