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Kabuki (the comic book)
Mar. 20th, 2002 06:34 pmYou know what’s really annoying? An introduction to a comic book, written by a guy you’ve never heard of (so he apparently collaborated with Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas on various films, but I’d still never heard of him), praising what you’re about to read as a masterpiece, and its creator as a genius. Due to a perversion of my nature, I always plunge into a such a text with lowered expectations, especially when the foreword and/or afterword was written by a friend of the author’s - of course they think this book is the greatest! I was quite a bit more lenient toward "Sandman" for this sort of thing, because it lived up to the praise; "Kabuki" honestly didn’t.
My main problem with it, I think, is that while I really liked the graphic aspect of it, the drawings and the layouts, they didn’t mesh very well with the text. There are a few truly brilliant pages in which the visuals work beautifully on many different levels, but I often had the feeling that the book could have been much less wordy, the images capable of carrying so much on their own. The text, on the other hand, struck me as being heavy-handed and pretentious. If I want to be beaten over the head with symbolism, I’ll go read Romantic poetry.
Of course, my definition of pretentious, as anyone else’s, is completely subjective. I found "Bellwether" smart and amusing, while the rest of my sci-fi class found it arrogant. I thought the author was speaking to the readers as equals, but I was apparently in the minority; in "Sandman" and "His Dark Materials", the literary and historical references are winks to the reader. Reading "Kabuki" continuously produced annoyance, as in, "Ooh, the author knows all about Japanese culture, yay for him!". And I’m not being bitter, I did get most of the subtext, but I couldn’t help thinking that the author had loaded his story a bit too much. Though I wonder, would it have gone down better had he been Japanese?
Gripes about the style aside, the story was intriguing, though not enough to want to read in one sitting, or even finish at the first opportunity, though I did go back and finish it, which is always indication of at least high mediocrity. The time-frame was a little confusing; Kai was at least a teenager during WWII, and here he is running around in seemingly good health what must be about sixty years later, and I never managed to calculate how old Kabuki herself is. The story seems to be taking place in some sort of alternate near-future, and mention is made of "the late twentieth century", so I’m guessing this is supposed to be 2005, 2010, maybe? (If there was a specific year in the text, it didn’t stick.) A bit early to be speaking of the late twentieth century as a long-gone era, no? But they’ve started airing "That 80’s Show" on television, because we apparently need to be reminded of those forgotten times, so what do I know?
It was violent, it was bloody, it tackled many important themes, all with some pretty wicked graphic style. It did not, however, move me, and I doubt I would ever call it a classic, as the cover proclaims.
"Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, that he that has no stomach for this fight, let him depart! His passport shall be made, and crowns for convoy put into his purse. I would not die in that man’s company that fears his fellowship to die with us!"
Please forgive Harry, there, and forgive me for perhaps channeling some of his(!) words wrong. I couldn’t contain him, but I’ll offer my congratulations to anyone who can tell me where that speech is from. *I* know, but do you?
Lastly, and back on topic, was there no editor available to polish the afterword? More to the point, why the hell can’t people learn that there is a difference between "it’s" and "its"? I’ll go easy on this guy, because English is not his first language (though I’ll never forgive Terry Moore or anyone else involved in his publishing process for all the stupid homonym mistakes in "Strangers in Paradise"). Aside from that, the punctuation was off in more than one sentence, and a few quick corrections would have made the afterword much more enjoyable.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
My main problem with it, I think, is that while I really liked the graphic aspect of it, the drawings and the layouts, they didn’t mesh very well with the text. There are a few truly brilliant pages in which the visuals work beautifully on many different levels, but I often had the feeling that the book could have been much less wordy, the images capable of carrying so much on their own. The text, on the other hand, struck me as being heavy-handed and pretentious. If I want to be beaten over the head with symbolism, I’ll go read Romantic poetry.
Of course, my definition of pretentious, as anyone else’s, is completely subjective. I found "Bellwether" smart and amusing, while the rest of my sci-fi class found it arrogant. I thought the author was speaking to the readers as equals, but I was apparently in the minority; in "Sandman" and "His Dark Materials", the literary and historical references are winks to the reader. Reading "Kabuki" continuously produced annoyance, as in, "Ooh, the author knows all about Japanese culture, yay for him!". And I’m not being bitter, I did get most of the subtext, but I couldn’t help thinking that the author had loaded his story a bit too much. Though I wonder, would it have gone down better had he been Japanese?
Gripes about the style aside, the story was intriguing, though not enough to want to read in one sitting, or even finish at the first opportunity, though I did go back and finish it, which is always indication of at least high mediocrity. The time-frame was a little confusing; Kai was at least a teenager during WWII, and here he is running around in seemingly good health what must be about sixty years later, and I never managed to calculate how old Kabuki herself is. The story seems to be taking place in some sort of alternate near-future, and mention is made of "the late twentieth century", so I’m guessing this is supposed to be 2005, 2010, maybe? (If there was a specific year in the text, it didn’t stick.) A bit early to be speaking of the late twentieth century as a long-gone era, no? But they’ve started airing "That 80’s Show" on television, because we apparently need to be reminded of those forgotten times, so what do I know?
It was violent, it was bloody, it tackled many important themes, all with some pretty wicked graphic style. It did not, however, move me, and I doubt I would ever call it a classic, as the cover proclaims.
"Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, that he that has no stomach for this fight, let him depart! His passport shall be made, and crowns for convoy put into his purse. I would not die in that man’s company that fears his fellowship to die with us!"
Please forgive Harry, there, and forgive me for perhaps channeling some of his(!) words wrong. I couldn’t contain him, but I’ll offer my congratulations to anyone who can tell me where that speech is from. *I* know, but do you?
Lastly, and back on topic, was there no editor available to polish the afterword? More to the point, why the hell can’t people learn that there is a difference between "it’s" and "its"? I’ll go easy on this guy, because English is not his first language (though I’ll never forgive Terry Moore or anyone else involved in his publishing process for all the stupid homonym mistakes in "Strangers in Paradise"). Aside from that, the punctuation was off in more than one sentence, and a few quick corrections would have made the afterword much more enjoyable.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
