Graphic Novels Challenge

In the midst of reading as much as I could today, I also signed up for Laza's Graphic Novel Challenge. The challenge starts January 1st and ends December 31st. The challenge is really flexible with participants choosing their level of involvement:

Doctorate - read 24 books
Masters - read 18 books
Major - read 12 books
Minor - read 6 books

I'm going to participate on the Doctorate level. I already plan on reading as many graphic novels as I can next year, so I know this will be a great way to make more blogging friends. I probably won't make a list though I know at the very least the Fables series by Bill Willingham will be on my list.

The Art of Graphic Novels

Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (1993)

Scott McCloud

216 pages

5/5

I should have read this book before starting my new obsession with graphic novels. I've learned so much about comics and art reading including: that comics started thousands of years ago, the differences between Western comics and comics from Japan, closure, and the importance of color and line. Though only 216 pages, it took me three days to read because there is so much information packed on each page. Well-written, funny, and very interesting, I'm going to have to read this book over and over again to learn everything Scott is explaining.

Bone Vols. 1-9 by Jeff Smith (1990-2003)

Winner of the 2005 Eisner Award for Best Reprint

5/5 rating

I read every single issue of this series in the last week. Bone is funny, witty, and addictive. Bone is about the three Bone cousins and their adventures in The Valley. They meet Grandma Ben and her granddaughter Thorn, Ms. Opossums and her babies, Lucius and so many others. They also run into rat creatures and a friendly dragon. The series is for kids and adults.

Fables Vols. 1-6 by Bill Willingham (2002-present)

Winner of 12 Eisner awards

5/5 rating

Fables is about what happens after happily ever after: Snow White and Prince Charming divorce after she caught him cheating, Beauty and the Beast are still together, and the big bad wolf is now a man. When an enemy called the Adversary destroys and kills everything in his path, the fables of old leave for America. They incorporate a city called Fabletown in modern-day New York and try to live as normal people. This series is not for kids with sexual humor and a lot of violence. Volumes one through six include Briar Rose's murder, Bluebeard's lust for death, getting revenge on the Adversary, and Snow White's pregnancy.

Fun Home - Alison Bechdel (2007)

232 pages

4 out of 5 rating

I can't say enough about this book, so I won't say too much. Fun Home is one of the newest addictions to the genre graphic novel/memoirs. Bechdel writes of growing up with her married father who is gay. Bechdel shows the reader her relationship with him and also her gradual coming out as a lesbian. A great story that's told with humor, thoughtfulness, and also a tinge of sadness.

Fables: Legends in Exile

Fables: Legends in Exile (2002)
Bill Willingham
128 pages
Winner of the 2003 Eisner Award for Best New Series

I am becoming the newest biggest fan of graphic novels. This was a genre, that until recently, I didn't pay any attention to. I'm glad things have changed so much.

Fables: Legends in Exile is the first book in a series created by Bill Willingham. The characters from various fairy tales have been exiled from their homelands by an enemy called The Adversary and now have to live among humans in America. The characters that can pass for humans live in New York City while those that can't live upstate at a place called "The Farm." All the characters hope to one day defeat The Adversary and go back home.

Book 1 features Bigby Wolf a.k.a. The Big Bad Wolf trying to solve the murder of Rose Red. Also feature is Snow White, her ex-husband Prince Charming, Cinderella, Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk, The Frog Prince, Bluebeard, Beauty and her husband, the Beast and many more. The story is so funny and realistic. I started reading the novel and didn't put it down until I was finished. It deserves my 5 out of 5 rating.

With that said, I just realized this was my last book for the Once Upon a Time 2 Challenge. I have to thank Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings for hosting this great challenge. I had so much fun reading books I usually don't read. So it's official: I'm hooked on the strange and the unusual.

I read:

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 1 - Alan Moore

The Stolen Child - Keith Donahue

Fables

The Sandman Vol. 1 - Neil Gaiman

The Resurrectionist - Jack O'Connell

My favorite reads for this challenge: Fables and The Stolen Child.

My least favorite: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol 1. Maybe it's the feminist in me, but I couldn't understand why Mina Murray couldn't kick ass herself.

The Arrival

The Arrival by Shaun Tan (2007)

128 pages

Rating: 5 out of 5

I didn't know what to expect when I put this book on hold at my local library. I just heard that it was a pretty good book to read. What an understatement.

The Arrival is a wordless story about an migrant's journey from his country to the new world, leaving behind his wife and child. In the new world armed with just a handful of money and a suitcase, the man finds various jobs, a place to live, and also food to eat. You watch as he struggles to learn the language, the customs, and find his way around. Along the way our main character meets others who tell him their journeys to the new world. Soon he learns how to belong in this strange new world he now lives in and how to make it a home. Tan captures perfectly what a migrant probably goes through coming to a new country and trying to learn the customs. You see the main character learning to eat unfamiliar food, trying to tell time a new way, and even how to mail a letter.

The pages of this book are so stunning, so beautiful. I guarantee you haven't seen beauty like this before. Though it is a graphic novel, I think it's best appreciated by anyone nine and over. This is my first encounter with Shaun Tan and it won't be my last.

Persepolis: The story of a childhood

Persepolis: The story of a childhood - Marjane Satrapi

Published in 2000

pages 156

Rating: 5 out of 5

I read Persepolis: The story of a childhood for the Graphic Novel Challenge. Persepolis is Satrapi's memoir on growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. The book is engaging, entertaining, and funny. Satrapi teachs the reader the history of Iran while showing her childhood. You learn of Satrapi's childhood relationship with God, how the father of the Shah came onto the throne, her beloved uncle Anoosh, and the many Iranian causalities of the Islamic Revoltion.

Personally I know almost nothing about Iran. A couple of years ago I learned that Iran was more than fundamentalists and black veils. The 2003 Nobel Laureate was Shirin Ebadi, who was featured in O magazine and showed many Americans a face and a voice for Iranian women. After reading the article about Ebadi, I didn't really give Iran and its women another serious thought. But thanks to Satrapi's memoir, that has changed. I think this is a book that people should really read. I'm not someone who reads graphic novels, but this book is so much more than that. I think anyone will enjoy it.

Graphic Novel Challenge

I spent yesterday on the web, finding more reading challenges and I came across this one. Dewey is hosting the Graphic Novel Challenge. The challenge runs from January 2008 to December 2008. The rules are that you read 6 graphic novels. The books can overlap with your other challenges. My picks are:

1. Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi

2. The Contract with God - Will Eisner

3. Jimmy Corrigan, the smartest kid on earth - Chris Ware

4. Good-bye, Chunky Rice - Craig Thompson

5. Fun home: a family tragicomic - Alison Bechdel

6. ?